menu_mark(3)

menu_mark3

Get and set the menu mark string

Usage

#include <menu.h>

int set_menu_mark(MENU *menu, const char *mark); const char *menu_mark(const MENU *menu);

Overview

In order to make menu selections visible on older terminals without highlighting or color capability, the menu library marks selected items in a menu with a prefix string.

The function set_menu_mark sets the mark string for the given menu. Calling set_menu_mark with a null menu item will abolish the mark string. Note that changing the length of the mark string for a menu while the menu is posted is likely to produce unhelpful behavior.

The default string is "-" (a dash). Calling set_menu_mark with a non-NULL menu argument will change this default.

The function menu_mark returns the menu's mark string (or NULL if there is none).

Return value

The function menu_mark returns a pointer (which may be NULL). It does not set errno.

The function set_menu_mark may return the following error codes:

E_OK

The routine succeeded.

E_BAD_ARGUMENT

Routine detected an incorrect or out-of-range argument.

E_SYSTEM_ERROR

System error occurred (see errno(3)).

Portability

These routines emulate the System V menu library. They were not supported on Version 7 or BSD versions.

Releases

66 releases since FreeBSD 4.3-RELEASE; the text changed 8 times.

  1. 4.3–6.2
  2. 6.3–10.4
  3. 11.0–12.4
  4. 13.0–13.5
  5. 14.0–14.1
  6. 14.2–14.4
  7. 14.5
  8. 15.0
  9. 15.1–16.0

Authors

Juergen Pfeifer. Manual pages and adaptation for new curses by Eric S. Raymond.

From base 16.0-CURRENT-20261027-61c70dc16a79 in FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (2026-10-27). Parsed by carta from the page's man source.