XDrawString(3) XLIB FUNCTIONS XDrawString(3)

# [NAME](#NAME)

XDrawString, XDrawString16 - draw text characters

# [SYNTAX](#SYNTAX)

int XDrawString(Display \**display*, Drawable *d*, GC *gc*, int *x*, int *y*, \_Xconst char \**string*, int *length*);

int XDrawString16(Display \**display*, Drawable *d*, GC *gc*, int *x*, int *y*, \_Xconst XChar2b \**string*, int *length*);

# [ARGUMENTS](#ARGUMENTS)

[*d*](#d)

Specifies the drawable.

[*display*](#display)

Specifies the connection to the X server.

[*gc*](#gc)

Specifies the GC.

[*length*](#length)

Specifies the number of characters in the string argument.

[*string*](#string)

Specifies the character string.

[*x*](#x)

[*y*](#y)

Specify the x and y coordinates, which are relative to the origin of the specified drawable and define the origin of the first character.

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

Each character image, as defined by the font in the GC, is treated as an additional mask for a fill operation on the drawable. The drawable is modified only where the font character has a bit set to 1. For fonts defined with 2-byte matrix indexing and used with **XDrawString16**, each byte is used as a byte2 with a byte1 of zero.

Both functions use these GC components: function, plane-mask, fill-style, font, subwindow-mode, clip-x-origin, clip-y-origin, and clip-mask. They also use these GC mode-dependent components: foreground, background, tile, stipple, tile-stipple-x-origin, and tile-stipple-y-origin.

**XDrawString** and **XDrawString16** can generate **BadDrawable**, **BadGC**, and **BadMatch** errors.

# [DIAGNOSTICS](#DIAGNOSTICS)

[**BadDrawable**](#BadDrawable)

A value for a Drawable argument does not name a defined Window or Pixmap.

[**BadGC**](#BadGC)

A value for a GContext argument does not name a defined GContext.

[**BadMatch**](#BadMatch)

An **InputOnly** window is used as a Drawable.

[**BadMatch**](#BadMatch~2)

Some argument or pair of arguments has the correct type and range but fails to match in some other way required by the request.

# [SEE ALSO](#SEE_ALSO)

[**XDrawImageString**(3)](/man/os/libx11/XDrawImageString.3), [**XDrawText**(3)](/man/os/libx11/XDrawText.3), [**XLoadFont**(3)](/man/os/libx11/XLoadFont.3)  
*Xlib - C Language X Interface*

libX11 1.8.14 X Version 11

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Document: XDrawString16(3) from libx11 1.8.14-r0 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libx11.git