insstr(3NCURSES)

💖 insstr — insert a string in a curses window 💖

okay bestie, buckle up, because we're talking about insstr and its whole little friend group, all from the 3NCURSES library calls chapter. yes, the manual is literally named insstr(3NCURSES). we're inserting strings into windows. it's giving text-editor main character energy. 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

insstr, winsstr, mvinsstr, mvinsnstr, insnstr, winsnstr, mvwinsstr, mvwinsnstr — insert a string in a curses window 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <curses.h>

int insstr(const char * str);
int winsstr(WINDOW * win, const char * str);
int mvinsstr(int y, int x, const char * str);
int mvwinsstr(WINDOW * win, int y, int x, const char * str);

int insnstr(const char * str, int n);
int winsnstr(WINDOW * win, const char * str, int n);
int mvinsnstr(int y, int x, const char * str, int n);
int mvwinsnstr(WINDOW * win, int y, int x, const char * str, int n);

eight functions. eight little icons. 👑

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so winsstr inserts a string str before the character sitting at the cursor in window win — and it does it as if it were calling winsch(3NCURSES) for each char in str. one char at a time, bestie. no cap.

🚨 No line wrapping is performed. literally none.

characters to the right of the cursor get shifted right, and the ones chilling at the right edge of the window may be lost. 😭 goodbye, we hardly knew ye.

winsstr stops inserting if it would have to wrap to the next line to write the next char in str. it's just not gonna do it. boundaries, babe. 🫶

the cursor position does not change (after moving to (y, x), if specified — because moving is a whole separate thing).

then insnstr does the exact same thing, but it inserts at most n characters, or as many as possible (up to the end of the line) if n is negative. yes, negative. we'll get to that, it's a whole saga. 🙈

and if you wanna know about the variants, ncurses(3NCURSES) describes them. ✨

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✨ RETURN VALUE ✨

these functions return OK on success and ERR on failure. simple. clean. slay.

in ncurses, they return ERR if:

• win is NULL, or
• str is NULL, or
• an internal winsch(3NCURSES) call returns ERR. 💀

functions prefixed with “mv” first perform cursor movement, and they fail if the position (y, x) is outside the window boundaries. stay in your lane, literally.

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✨ NOTES ✨

all of these functions except winsnstr may be implemented as macros. so if you're doing something cursed with function pointers, that's on you, babe. 🙈

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✨ EXTENSIONS ✨

insnstr, winsnstr, mvinsnstr, and mvwinsnstr's acceptance of negative n values is an ncurses extension. 🎀

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✨ PORTABILITY ✨

if your app is out here employing ncurses extensions, you should condition their use on the visibility of the NCURSES_VERSION preprocessor macro. iykyk. ✨

X/Open Curses Issue 4 describes these functions. it specifies no error conditions for them. okay bestie, sure. 🙃

SVr4 describes a successful return value only as “an integer value other than ERR”. that's it. that's the whole spec.

Issue 4 distinguished insnstr and winsnstr from the other functions documented above by stating they “do not perform wrapping”. this was probably an error, since it makes this group of functions inconsistent. no implementation of curses manifests this inconsistency, and Issue 7 removed the claim. so like... it was a typo era. 💀

Issue 4 states that the entire string is inserted if n is less than 1. this is probably an error, because it's inconsistent with other functions such as waddstr, and it differs from the SVr4 curses and Solaris xcurses implementations. nevertheless, Issue 7 retains the language. they really said "we stand by it." 😭

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✨ HISTORY ✨

SVr3.1 (1987) introduced winsstr and winsnstr and their variants. vintage. 👑

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• ins_wstr(3NCURSES) describes comparable functions of the ncurses library in its wide-character configuration (ncursesw).
• ncurses(3NCURSES)
• inch(3NCURSES)
• ins_wstr(3NCURSES)
• util(3NCURSES)

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okay and that's the whole page!! this was brought to you by ncurses 6.6, dated 2025-10-20, from the fine folks who maintain insstr(3NCURSES). go insert some strings, bestie, and remember: no wrapping, no cursor movement, no thoughts, just vibes. 💖✨🎀🦋🌸💅🫶👑🌈⭐🧚💜