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27 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
28 -- $Id: INSTALL,v 1.118 2007/03/11 00:06:53 tom Exp $
29 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
30 How to install Ncurses/Terminfo on your system
31 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
33 ************************************************************
34 * READ ALL OF THIS FILE BEFORE YOU TRY TO INSTALL NCURSES. *
35 ************************************************************
37 You should be reading the file INSTALL in a directory called ncurses-d.d, where
38 d.d is the current version number. There should be several subdirectories,
39 including `c++', `form', `man', `menu', 'misc', `ncurses', `panel', `progs',
40 and `test'. See the README file for a roadmap to the package.
42 If you are a Linux or FreeBSD or NetBSD distribution integrator or packager,
43 please read and act on the section titled IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR
46 If you are converting from BSD curses and do not have root access, be sure
47 to read the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below.
49 If you are trying to build applications using gpm with ncurses,
50 read the USING NCURSES WITH GPM section below.
52 If you are running over the Andrew File System see the note below on
53 USING NCURSES WITH AFS.
55 If you are cross-compiling, see the note below on BUILDING NCURSES WITH A
58 If you want to build the Ada95 binding, go to the Ada95 directory and
59 follow the instructions there. The Ada95 binding is not covered below.
61 If you are using anything but (a) Linux, or (b) one of the 4.4BSD-based
62 i386 Unixes, go read the Portability section in the TO-DO file before you
69 You will need the following to build and install ncurses under UNIX:
71 * ANSI C compiler (gcc, for instance)
73 * awk (mawk or gawk will do)
75 * BSD or System V style install (a script is enclosed)
77 Ncurses has been also built in the OS/2 EMX environment.
80 INSTALLATION PROCEDURE:
81 ----------------------
83 1. First, decide whether you want ncurses to replace your existing library (in
84 which case you'll need super-user privileges) or be installed in parallel
87 The --prefix option to configure changes the root directory for installing
88 ncurses. The default is normally in subdirectories of /usr/local, except
89 for systems where ncurses is normally installed as a system library, e.g.,
90 Linux, the various BSD systems and Cygwin. Use --prefix=/usr to replace
91 your default curses distribution.
93 The package gets installed beneath the --prefix directory as follows:
95 In $(prefix)/bin: tic, infocmp, captoinfo, tset,
96 reset, clear, tput, toe
97 In $(prefix)/lib: libncurses*.* libcurses.a
98 In $(prefix)/share/terminfo: compiled terminal descriptions
99 In $(prefix)/include: C header files
100 Under $(prefix)/man: the manual pages
102 Note that the configure script attempts to locate previous installation of
103 ncurses, and will set the default prefix according to where it finds the
106 Do not use commands such as
108 make install prefix=XXX
110 to change the prefix after configuration, since the prefix value is used
111 for some absolute pathnames such as TERMINFO. Instead do this
113 make install DESTDIR=XXX
115 See also the discussion of --with-install-prefix.
117 2. Type `./configure' in the top-level directory of the distribution to
118 configure ncurses for your operating system and create the Makefiles.
119 Besides --prefix, various configuration options are available to customize
120 the installation; use `./configure --help' to list the available options.
122 If your operating system is not supported, read the PORTABILITY section in
123 the file ncurses/README for information on how to create a configuration
124 file for your system.
126 The `configure' script generates makefile rules for one or more object
127 models and their associated libraries:
129 libncurses.a (normal)
131 libcurses.a (normal, a link to libncurses.a)
132 This gets left out if you configure with --disable-overwrite.
134 libncurses.so (shared)
136 libncurses_g.a (debug)
138 libncurses_p.a (profile)
140 libncurses.la (libtool)
142 If you configure using the --enable-widec option, a "w" is appended to the
143 library names (e.g., libncursesw.a), and the resulting libraries support
144 wide-characters, e.g., via a UTF-8 locale. The corresponding header files
145 are compatible with the non-wide-character configuration; wide-character
146 features are provided by ifdef's in the header files. The wide-character
147 library interfaces are not binary-compatible with the non-wide-character
148 version. Building and running the wide-character code relies on a fairly
149 recent implementation of libiconv. We have built this configuration on
150 Linux using libiconv, sometimes requiring libutf8.
152 If you do not specify any models, the normal and debug libraries will be
153 configured. Typing `configure' with no arguments is equivalent to:
155 ./configure --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
159 ./configure --with-shared
161 makes the shared libraries the default, resulting in
163 ./configure --with-shared --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
165 If you want only shared libraries, type
167 ./configure --with-shared --without-normal --without-debug
169 Rules for generating shared libraries are highly dependent upon the choice
170 of host system and compiler. We've been testing shared libraries on Linux
171 and SunOS with gcc, but more work needs to be done to make shared libraries
172 work on other systems.
174 If you have libtool installed, you can type
176 ./configure --with-libtool
178 to generate the appropriate static and/or shared libraries for your
179 platform using libtool.
181 You can make curses and terminfo fall back to an existing file of termcap
182 definitions by configuring with --enable-termcap. If you do this, the
183 library will search /etc/termcap before the terminfo database, and will
184 also interpret the contents of the TERM environment variable. See the
185 section BSD CONVERSION NOTES below.
187 3. Type `make'. Ignore any warnings, no error messages should be produced.
188 This should compile the ncurses library, the terminfo compiler tic(1),
189 captoinfo(1), infocmp(1), toe(1), clear(1) tset(1), reset(1), and tput(1)
190 programs (see the manual pages for explanation of what they do), some test
191 programs, and the panels, menus, and forms libraries.
193 4. Run ncurses and several other test programs in the test directory to
194 verify that ncurses functions correctly before doing an install that
195 may overwrite system files. Read the file test/README for details on
198 NOTE: You must have installed the terminfo database, or set the
199 environment variable $TERMINFO to point to a SVr4-compatible terminfo
200 database before running the test programs. Not all vendors' terminfo
201 databases are SVr4-compatible, but most seem to be. Exceptions include
202 DEC's Digital Unix (formerly known as OSF/1).
204 If you run the test programs WITHOUT installing terminfo, ncurses may
205 read the termcap file and cache that in $HOME/.terminfo, which will
206 thereafter be used instead of the terminfo database. See the comments
207 on "--enable-getcap-cache", to see why this is a Bad Thing.
209 It is possible to configure ncurses to use other terminfo database formats.
210 A few are provided as examples in the include-directory (see --with-caps).
212 The ncurses program is designed specifically to test the ncurses library.
213 You can use it to verify that the screen highlights work correctly, that
214 cursor addressing and window scrolling works OK, etc.
216 5. Once you've tested, you can type `make install' to install libraries,
217 the programs, the terminfo database and the manual pages. Alternately, you
218 can type `make install' in each directory you want to install. In the
219 top-level directory, you can do a partial install using these commands:
221 'make install.progs' installs tic, infocmp, etc...
222 'make install.includes' installs the headers.
223 'make install.libs' installs the libraries (and the headers).
224 'make install.data' installs the terminfo data. (Note: `tic' must
225 be installed before the terminfo data can be
227 'make install.man' installs the manual pages.
229 ############################################################################
230 # CAVEAT EMPTOR: `install.data' run as root will NUKE any existing #
231 # terminfo database. If you have any custom or unusual entries SAVE them #
232 # before you install ncurses. I have a file called terminfo.custom for #
233 # this purpose. Don't forget to run tic on the file once you're done. #
234 ############################################################################
236 The terminfo(5) manual page must be preprocessed with tbl(1) before
237 being formatted by nroff(1). Modern man(1) implementations tend to do
238 this by default, but you may want to look at your version's manual page
239 to be sure. You may also install the manual pages after preprocessing
240 with tbl(1) by specifying the configure option --with-manpage-tbl.
242 If the system already has a curses library that you need to keep using
243 you'll need to distinguish between it and ncurses. See the discussion of
244 --disable-overwrite. If ncurses is installed outside the standard
245 directories (/usr/include and /usr/lib) then all your users will need to
246 use the -I option to compile programs and -L to link them.
248 If you have another curses installed in your system and you accidentally
249 compile using its curses.h you'll end up with a large number of
250 undefined symbols at link time.
252 IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ROOT: Change directory to the `progs' subdirectory
253 and run the `capconvert' script. This script will deduce various things
254 about your environment and use them to build you a private terminfo tree,
255 so you can use ncurses applications.
257 If more than one user at your site does this, the space for the duplicate
258 trees is wasted. Try to get your site administrators to install a system-
259 wide terminfo tree instead.
261 See the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below for a few more details.
263 6. The c++ directory has C++ classes that are built on top of ncurses and
264 panels. You must have c++ (and its libraries) installed before you can
265 compile and run the demo.
267 Use --without-cxx-binding to tell configure to not build the C++ bindings
270 If you do not have C++, you must use the --without-cxx option to tell
271 the configure script to not attempt to determine the type of 'bool'
272 which may be supported by C++. IF YOU USE THIS OPTION, BE ADVISED THAT
273 YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO COMPILE (OR RUN) NCURSES APPLICATIONS WITH C++.
276 SUMMARY OF CONFIGURE OPTIONS:
277 ----------------------------
279 The configure script provides a short list of its options when you type
283 The --help and several options are common to all configure scripts that are
284 generated with autoconf. Those are all listed before the line
286 --enable and --with options recognized:
288 The other options are specific to this package. We list them in alphabetic
291 --disable-assumed-color
292 With ncurses 5.1, we introduced a new function, assume_default_colors()
293 which allows applications to specify what the default foreground and
294 background color are assumed to be. Most color applications use
295 full-screen color; but a few do not color the background. While the
296 assumed values can be overridden by invoking assume_default_colors(),
297 you may find it useful to set the assumed values to the pre-5.1
298 convention, using this configure option.
301 Assume machine has little memory. The configure script attempts to
302 determine if your machine has enough memory (about 6Mb) to compile the
303 terminfo database without writing portions to disk. Some allocators
304 return deceptive results, so you may have to override the configure
305 script. Or you may be building tic for a smaller machine.
308 Use only built-in data. The ncurses libraries normally read terminfo
309 and termcap data from disk. You can configure ncurses to have a
310 built-in database, aka "fallback" entries. Embedded applications may
311 have no need for an external database. Some, but not all of the
312 programs are useful in this configuration, e.g., reset and tput versus
316 Disable function-extensions. Configure ncurses without the functions
317 that are not specified by XSI. See ncurses/modules for the exact
318 list of library modules that would be suppressed.
321 Compile without hashmap scrolling-optimization code. This algorithm is
324 --disable-home-terminfo
325 The $HOME/.terminfo directory is normally added to ncurses' search
326 list for reading/writing terminfo entries, since that directory is
327 more likely writable than the system terminfo database. Use this
328 option to disable the feature altogether.
331 Disable compiler flags needed to use large-file interfaces.
334 For testing, compile-in code that frees memory that normally would not
335 be freed, to simplify analysis of memory-leaks.
337 Any implementation of curses must not free the memory associated with
338 a screen, since (even after calling endwin()), it must be available
339 for use in the next call to refresh(). There are also chunks of
340 memory held for performance reasons. That makes it hard to analyze
341 curses applications for memory leaks. To work around this, build
342 a debugging version of the ncurses library which frees those chunks
343 which it can, and provides the _nc_free_and_exit() function to free
344 the remainder on exit. The ncurses utility and test programs use this
345 feature, e.g., via the ExitProgram() macro.
348 The header files will ignore use of the _LP64 symbol to make chtype
349 and mmask_t types 32 bits (they may be long on 64-bit hosts, for
350 compatibility with older releases).
352 NOTE: this is potentially an ABI change, depending on existing
353 packages. The default for this option is "disabled" for ncurses
354 ABI 5, and "enabled" for ABI 6.
357 For testing, use functions rather than macros. The program will run
358 more slowly, but it is simpler to debug. This defines NCURSES_NOMACROS
359 at build time. See also the --enable-expanded option.
362 If you are installing ncurses on a system which contains another
363 development version of curses, or which could be confused by the loader
364 for another version, we recommend that you leave out the link to
365 -lcurses. The ncurses library is always available as -lncurses.
366 Disabling overwrite also causes the ncurses header files to be
367 installed into a subdirectory, e.g., /usr/local/include/ncurses,
368 rather than the include directory. This makes it simpler to avoid
369 compile-time conflicts with other versions of curses.h
372 If --enable-rpath is given, the generated makefiles normally will
373 rebuild the libraries during install. Use this option to simply
374 copy whatever the linked produced.
376 This option is ignored if --enable-rpath is not given.
378 --disable-root-environ
379 Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment variables
380 are not available when running as root, or via a setuid/setgid
381 application. These are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow the
382 search path for the terminfo or termcap entry to be customized.
384 --disable-scroll-hints
385 Compile without scroll-hints code. This option is ignored when
386 hashmap scrolling is configured, which is the default.
388 --disable-tparm-varargs
389 Portable programs should call tparm() using the fixed-length parameter
390 list documented in X/Open. ncurses provides varargs support for this
391 function. Use --disable-tparm-varargs to disable this support.
394 For testing, compile-in assertion code. This is used only for a few
395 places where ncurses cannot easily recover by returning an error code.
397 --enable-broken_linker
398 A few platforms have what we consider a broken linker: it cannot link
399 objects from an archive solely by referring to data objects in those
400 files, but requires a function reference. This configure option
401 changes several data references to functions to work around this
404 NOTE: With ncurses 5.1, this may not be necessary, since we are
405 told that some linkers interpret uninitialized global data as a
406 different type of reference which behaves as described above. We have
407 explicitly initialized all of the global data to work around the
411 Recognize BSD-style prefix padding. Some ancient BSD programs (such as
412 nethack) call tputs("50") to implement delays.
415 Compile with experimental $COLORFGBG code. That environment variable
416 is set by some terminal emulators as a hint to applications, by
417 advertising the default foreground and background colors. During
418 initialization, ncurses sets color pair 0 to match this.
421 The curses interface as documented in XSI is rather old, in fact
422 including features that precede ANSI C. The prototypes generally do
423 not make effective use of "const". When using stricter compilers (or
424 gcc with appropriate warnings), you may see warnings about the mismatch
425 between const and non-const data. We provide a configure option which
426 changes the interfaces to use const - quieting these warnings and
427 reflecting the actual use of the parameters more closely. The ncurses
428 library uses the symbol NCURSES_CONST for these instances of const,
429 and if you have asked for compiler warnings, will add gcc's const-qual
430 warning. There will still be warnings due to subtle inconsistencies
431 in the interface, but at a lower level.
433 NOTE: configuring ncurses with this option may detract from the
434 portability of your applications by encouraging you to use const in
435 places where the XSI curses interface would not allow them. Similar
436 issues arise when porting to SVr4 curses, which uses const in even
440 Use the option --disable-echo to make the build-log less verbose by
441 suppressing the display of the compile and link commands. This makes
442 it easier to see the compiler warnings. (You can always use "make -n"
443 to see the options that are used).
446 For testing, generate functions for certain macros to make them visible
447 as such to the debugger. See also the --disable-macros option.
450 Extend the cchar_t structure to allow more than 16 colors to be
451 encoded. This applies only to the wide-character (--enable-widec)
454 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
455 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
456 applications which have an array of cchar_t's must be recompiled.
459 Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th mouse button.
460 That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel mouse with xterm or
461 similar X terminal emulators.
463 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
464 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
465 applications which have mouse mask mmask_t's must be recompiled.
468 Use the 4.4BSD getcap code if available, or a bundled version of it to
469 fetch termcap entries. Entries read in this way cannot use (make
470 cross-references to) the terminfo tree, but it is faster than reading
473 If configured for one of the *BSD systems, this automatically uses
474 the hashed database system produced using cap_mkdb or similar tools.
475 In that case, there is no advantage in using the --enable-getcap-cache
478 See also the --with-hashed-db option.
480 --enable-getcap-cache
481 Cache translated termcaps under the directory $HOME/.terminfo
483 NOTE: this sounds good - it makes ncurses run faster the second time.
484 But look where the data comes from - an /etc/termcap containing lots of
485 entries that are not up to date. If you configure with this option and
486 forget to install the terminfo database before running an ncurses
487 application, you will end up with a hidden terminfo database that
488 generally does not support color and will miss some function keys.
491 Compile-in cursor-optimization code that uses hard-tabs. We would make
492 this a standard feature except for the concern that the terminfo entry
493 may not be accurate, or that your stty settings have disabled the use
497 Compile-in support for the $NCURSES_NO_PADDING environment variable,
498 which allows you to suppress the effect of non-mandatory padding in
499 terminfo entries. This is the default, unless you have disabled the
503 Compile experimental configuration which improves reentrant use of the
504 library by reducing global and static variables.
507 Use rpath option when generating shared libraries, and (with some
508 restrictions) when linking the corresponding programs. This originally
509 (in 1997) applied mainly to systems using the GNU linker (read the
512 More recently it is useful for systems that require special treatment
513 shared libraries in "unusual" locations. The "system" libraries reside
514 in directories which are on the loader's default search-path. While
515 you may be able to use workarounds such as the $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
516 environment variable, they do not work with setuid applications since
517 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable would be unset in that situation.
519 This option does not apply to --with-libtool, since libtool makes
520 extra assumptions about rpath.
522 --enable-safe-sprintf
523 Compile with experimental safe-sprintf code. You may consider using
524 this if you are building ncurses for a system that has neither
525 vsnprintf() or vsprintf(). It is slow, however.
528 Compile support for ncurses' SIGWINCH handler. If your application has
529 its own SIGWINCH handler, ncurses will not use its own. The ncurses
530 handler causes wgetch() to return KEY_RESIZE when the screen-size
531 changes. This option is the default, unless you have disabled the
535 The term.h header declares a Booleans[] array typed "char". But it
536 stores signed values there and "char" is not necessarily signed.
537 Some packagers choose to alter the type of Booleans[] though this
538 is not strictly compatible. This option allows one to implement this
539 alteration without patching the source code.
542 If your system supports symbolic links, make tic use symbolic links
543 rather than hard links to save diskspace when writing aliases in the
547 Compile-in support for user-definable terminal capabilities. Use the
548 -x option of tic and infocmp to treat unrecognized terminal
549 capabilities as user-defined strings. This option is the default,
550 unless you have disabled the extended functions.
553 Compile in support for reading terminal descriptions from termcap if no
554 match is found in the terminfo database. See also the --enable-getcap
555 and --enable-getcap-cache options.
558 Turn on GCC compiler warnings. There should be only a few.
560 --enable-wgetch-events
561 Compile with experimental wgetch-events code. See ncurses/README.IZ
564 Compile with wide-character code. This makes a different version of
565 the libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so), which stores characters as
568 NOTE: applications compiled with this configuration are not compatible
569 with those built for 8-bit characters. You cannot simply make a
570 symbolic link to equate libncurses.so with libncursesw.so
572 NOTE: the Ada95 binding may be built against either version of the the
573 ncurses library, but you must decide which: the binding installs the
574 same set of files for either version. Currently (2002/6/22) it does
575 not use the extended features from the wide-character code, so it is
576 probably better to not install the binding for that configuration.
579 Compile-in support experimental xmc (magic cookie) code.
581 --with-abi-version=NUM
582 Override the ABI version, which is used in shared library filenames.
583 Normally this is the same as the release version; some ports have
584 special requirements for compatibility.
586 --with-ada-compiler=CMD
587 Specify the Ada95 compiler command (default "gnatmake")
589 --with-ada-include=DIR
590 Tell where to install the Ada includes (default:
591 PREFIX/lib/ada/adainclude)
593 --with-ada-objects=DIR
594 Tell where to install the Ada objects (default: PREFIX/lib/ada/adalib)
597 If --without-cxx is specified, override the type used for the "bool"
598 declared in curses.h (normally the type is automatically chosen to
599 correspond with that in <stdbool.h>, or defaults to platform-specific
603 If cross-compiling, specify a host C compiler, which is needed to
604 compile a few utilities which generate source modules for ncurses.
605 If you do not give this option, the configure script checks if the
606 $BUILD_CC variable is set, and otherwise defaults to gcc or cc.
608 --with-build-cflags=XXX
609 If cross-compiling, specify the host C compiler-flags. You might need
610 to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse the
613 --with-build-cppflags=XXX
614 If cross-compiling, specify the host C preprocessor-flags. You might
615 need to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse
618 --with-build-ldflags=XXX
619 If cross-compiling, specify the host linker-flags. You might need to
620 do this if the target linker has unusual flags which confuse the host
623 --with-build-libs=XXX
624 If cross-compiling, the host libraries. You might need to do this if
625 the target environment requires unusual libraries.
628 Specify an alternate terminfo capabilities file, which makes the
629 configure script look for "include/Caps.XXX". A few systems, e.g.,
630 AIX 4.x use the same overall file-format as ncurses for terminfo
631 data, but use different alignments within the tables to support
632 legacy applications. For those systems, you can configure ncurses
633 to use a terminfo database which is compatible with the native
637 Override type of chtype, which stores the video attributes and (if
638 --enable-widec is not given) a character. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this
639 was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it may be unsigned.
640 Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility with 64-bit
644 Specify the terminfo source file to install. Usually you will wish
645 to install ncurses' default (misc/terminfo.src). Certain systems
646 have special requirements, e.g, OS/2 EMX has a customized terminfo
650 For testing, compile and link with Conor Cahill's dbmalloc library.
651 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
654 Generate debug-libraries (default). These are named by adding "_g"
655 to the root, e.g., libncurses_g.a
657 --with-default-terminfo-dir=XXX
658 Specify the default terminfo database directory. This is normally
659 DATADIR/terminfo, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo.
662 For testing, compile and link with Gray Watson's dmalloc library.
663 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
666 Specify a list of fallback terminal descriptions which will be
667 compiled into the ncurses library. See CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES.
670 use Alessandro Rubini's GPM library to provide mouse support on the
671 Linux console. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this introduced a dependency on
674 Currently ncurses uses the dlsym() function to bind to the library at
675 runtime, so it is only necessary that the library be present when
676 ncurses is built, to obtain the filename (or soname) used in the
677 corresponding dlopen() call. If you give a value for this option,
680 --with-gpm=$HOME/tmp/test-gpm.so
682 that overrides the configure check for the soname.
684 See also --without-dlsym
687 Use a hashed database for storing terminfo data rather than storing
688 each compiled entry in a separate binary file within a directory
691 If you use this option for configuring ncurses, tic will only be able
692 to write entries in the hashed database. infocmp can still read
693 entries from a directory tree as well as reading entries from the
694 hashed database. To do this, infocmp determines whether the $TERMINFO
695 variable points to a directory or a file, and reads the directory-tree
696 or hashed database respectively.
698 You cannot have a directory containing both hashed-database and
699 filesystem-based terminfo entries.
701 See also the --enable-getcap option.
703 --with-install-prefix=XXX
704 Allows you to specify an alternate location for installing ncurses
705 after building it. The value you specify is prepended to the "real"
706 install location. This simplifies making binary packages. The
707 makefile variable DESTDIR is set by this option. It is also possible
709 make install DESTDIR=XXX
710 since the makefiles pass that variable to subordinate makes.
712 NOTE: a few systems build shared libraries with fixed pathnames; this
713 option probably will not work for those configurations.
716 Generate libraries with libtool. If this option is selected, then it
717 overrides all other library model specifications. Note that libtool
718 must already be installed, uses makefile rules dependent on GNU make,
719 and does not promise to follow the version numbering convention of
720 other shared libraries on your system. However, if the --with-shared
721 option does not succeed, you may get better results with this option.
723 If a parameter value is given, it must be the full pathname of the
724 particular version of libtool, e.g.,
725 /usr/bin/libtool-1.2.3
727 It is possible to rebuild the configure script to use the automake
728 macros for libtool, e.g., AC_PROG_LIBTOOL. See the comments in
729 aclocal.m4 for CF_PROG_LIBTOOL, and ensure that you build configure
730 using the appropriate patch for autoconf from
731 http://invisible-island.net/autoconf/
733 --with-manpage-aliases
734 Tell the configure script you wish to create entries in the
735 man-directory for aliases to manpages which list them, e.g., the
736 functions in the panel manpage. This is the default. You can disable
737 it if your man program does this. You can also disable
738 --with-manpage-symlinks to install files containing a ".so" command
739 rather than symbolic links.
741 --with-manpage-format=XXX
742 Tell the configure script how you would like to install man-pages. The
743 option value must be one of these: gzip, compress, BSDI, normal,
744 formatted. If you do not give this option, the configure script
745 attempts to determine which is the case.
747 --with-manpage-renames=XXX
748 Tell the configure script that you wish to rename the manpages while
749 installing. Currently the only distribution which does this is
750 the Linux Debian. The option value specifies the name of a file
751 that lists the renamed files, e.g., $srcdir/man/man_db.renames
753 --with-manpage-symlinks
754 Tell the configure script that you wish to make symbolic links in the
755 man-directory for aliases to the man-pages. This is the default, but
756 can be disabled for systems that provide this automatically. Doing
757 this on systems that do not support symbolic links will result in
758 copying the man-page for each alias.
761 Tell the configure script that you with to preprocess the manpages
762 by running them through tbl to generate tables understandable by
766 Override type of mmask_t, which stores the mouse mask. Prior to
767 ncurses 5.5, this was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it
768 may be unsigned. Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility
769 with 64-bit executables.
772 Override type of ospeed variable, which is part of the termcap
773 compatibility interface. In termcap, this is a 'short', which works
774 for a wide range of baudrates because ospeed is not the actual speed
775 but the encoded value, e.g., B9600 would be a small number such as 13.
776 However the encoding scheme originally allowed for values "only" up to
777 38400bd. A newer set of definitions past 38400bd is not encoded as
778 compactly, and is not guaranteed to fit into a short (see the function
779 cfgetospeed(), which returns a speed_t for this reason). In practice,
780 applications that required knowledge of the ospeed variable, i.e.,
781 those using termcap, do not use the higher speeds. Your application
782 (or system, in general) may or may not.
785 Generate normal (i.e., static) libraries (default).
787 Note: on Linux, the configure script will attempt to use the GPM
788 library via the dlsym() function call. Use --without-dlsym to disable
789 this feature, or --without-gpm, depending on whether you wish to use
793 Generate profile-libraries These are named by adding "_p" to the root,
797 Compile-in RCS identifiers. Most of the C files have an identifier.
799 --with-rel-version=NUM
800 Override the release version, which may be used in shared library
801 filenames. This consists of a major and minor version number separated
802 by ".". Normally the major version number is the same as the ABI
803 version; some ports have special requirements for compatibility.
806 Generate shared-libraries. The names given depend on the system for
807 which you are building, typically using a ".so" suffix, along with
808 symbolic links that refer to the release version.
810 NOTE: Unless you override the configure script by setting the $CFLAGS
811 environment variable, these will not be built with the -g debugging
814 NOTE: For some configurations, e.g., installing a new version of
815 ncurses shared libraries on a machine which already has ncurses
816 shared libraries, you may encounter problems with the linker.
817 For example, it may prevent you from running the build tree's
818 copy of tic (for installing the terminfo database) because it
819 loads the system's copy of the ncurses shared libraries. In that
820 case, using the misc/shlib script may be helpful, since it sets
821 $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the build tree, e.g.,
822 ./misc/shlib make install
824 --with-shlib-version=XXX
825 Specify whether to use the release or ABI version for shared libraries.
826 This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of system
827 which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure script.
830 use FreeBSD sysmouse interface provide mouse support on the console.
832 --with-system-type=XXX
833 For testing, override the derived host system-type which is used to
834 decide things such as the linker commands used to build shared
835 libraries. This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of
836 system which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure
839 --with-terminfo-dirs=XXX
840 Specify a search-list of terminfo directories which will be compiled
841 into the ncurses library (default: DATADIR/terminfo)
844 When building the ncurses library, organize this as two parts: the
845 curses library (libncurses) and the low-level terminfo library
846 (libtinfo). This is done to accommodate applications that use only
847 the latter. The terminfo library is about half the size of the total.
849 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the terminfo
850 library. For instance, if the wide-character version is built, the
851 terminfo library would be named libtinfow. But the libtinfow interface
852 is upward compatible from libtinfo, so it would be possible to overlay
853 libtinfo.so with a "wide" version of libtinfow.so by renaming it with
857 Specify a search-list of termcap files which will be compiled into the
858 ncurses library (default: /etc/termcap:/usr/share/misc/termcap)
861 When building the ncurses library, build a separate library for
862 the modules that are used only by the utility programs. Normally
863 those would be bundled with the termlib or ncurses libraries.
865 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the tic
866 library. As in termlib, there is no ABI difference between the
867 "wide" libticw.so and libtic.so
870 Configure the trace() function as part of the all models of the ncurses
871 library. Normally it is part of the debug (libncurses_g) library only.
874 For testing, compile with debug option.
875 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
878 Suppress the configure script's check for Ada95, do not build the
879 Ada95 binding and related demo.
882 Don't install the ncurses header with the name "curses.h". Rather,
883 install as "ncurses.h" and modify the installed headers and manpages
887 XSI curses declares "bool" as part of the interface. C++ also declares
888 "bool". Neither specifies the size and type of booleans, but both
889 insist on the same name. We chose to accommodate this by making the
890 configure script check for the size and type (e.g., unsigned or signed)
891 that your C++ compiler uses for booleans. If you do not wish to use
892 ncurses with C++, use this option to tell the configure script to not
893 adjust ncurses bool to match C++.
895 --without-cxx-binding
896 Suppress the configure script's check for C++, do not build the
897 C++ binding and related demo.
900 Disable development options. This does not include those that change
901 the interface, such as --enable-widec.
904 Do not use dlsym() to load GPM dynamically.
907 Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' application
908 programs (e.g., tic). The test applications will still be built if you
909 type "make", though not if you simply do "make install".
912 Tell the configure script to use "xterm-old" for the entry used in
913 the terminfo database. This will work with variations such as
914 X11R5 and X11R6 xterm.
917 COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER VERSIONS OF NCURSES:
918 --------------------------------------------
920 Because ncurses implements the X/Open Curses Specification, its interface
921 is fairly stable. That does not mean the interface does not change.
922 Changes are made to the documented interfaces when we find differences
923 between ncurses and X/Open or implementations which they certify (such as
924 Solaris). We add extensions to those interfaces to solve problems not
925 addressed by the original curses design, but those must not conflict with
926 the X/Open documentation.
928 Here are some of the major interface changes, and related problems which
929 you may encounter when building a system with different versions of
932 5.6 (December 17, 2006)
935 + generate linkable stubs for some macros:
937 getbegx, getbegy, getcurx, getcury, getmaxx, getmaxy, getparx,
940 and (for libncursesw)
948 Added internal functions:
962 Also (if using the hashed database configuration):
977 Removed internal functions:
980 Modified internal functions:
987 5.5 (October 10, 2005)
990 + terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
991 "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
993 + terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
994 still use ncurses 4.2).
996 + modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing
997 initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are
998 still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old
1001 + form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data.
1002 Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the
1003 FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw, since
1004 that no longer points to an array of char. The set_field_buffer()
1005 and field_buffer() functions translate to/from the actual field
1008 + change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure that
1009 libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason for this
1010 is that the corresponding data which belongs to the upper-level
1011 ncurses library has a different size in each model.
1013 + winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
1014 wide-character configuration.
1016 + assume_default_colors() no longer requires that use_default_colors()
1019 + data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
1021 + slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
1022 multicolumn characters.
1024 + start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started.
1025 start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
1027 + pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if it
1028 corresponds to the default-color.
1030 + unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond
1031 to an unsigned char.
1034 Experimental mouse version 2 supports wheel mice with buttons
1035 4 and 5. This requires ABI 6 because it modifies the encoding
1038 Experimental extended colors allows encoding of 256 foreground
1039 and background colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
1040 xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6 because
1041 it changes the size of cchar_t.
1043 Added internal functions:
1047 _nc_retrace_cvoid_ptr
1048 _nc_retrace_void_ptr
1051 Removed internal functions:
1054 Modified internal functions:
1059 5.4 (February 8, 2004)
1062 + add the remaining functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1063 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1064 --enable-widec option.
1068 + write getyx() and related 2-return macros in terms of getcury(),
1071 + simplify ifdef for bool declaration in curses.h
1073 + modify ifdef's in curses.h that disabled use of __attribute__() for
1074 g++, since recent versions implement the cases which ncurses uses.
1076 + change some interfaces to use const:
1088 Added internal functions:
1091 _nc_is_charable() wide
1092 _nc_locale_breaks_acs()
1095 _nc_to_widechar() wide
1097 _nc_trace_bufcat() debug
1098 _nc_unicode_locale()
1100 Removed internal functions:
1104 Modified internal functions:
1106 _nc_retrace_chtype()
1108 5.3 (October 12, 2002)
1111 + change type for bool used in headers to NCURSES_BOOL, which usually
1112 is the same as the compiler's definition for 'bool'.
1114 + add all but two functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1115 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1116 --enable-widec option. Missing functions are
1120 + add environment variable $NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS to modify the
1121 assume_default_colors() extension.
1127 Added internal functions:
1128 _nc_altcharset_name() debug
1130 _nc_retrace_bool() debug
1131 _nc_retrace_unsigned() debug
1133 _nc_trace_ttymode() debug
1138 Removed internal functions:
1141 Modified internal functions:
1144 5.2 (October 21, 2000)
1147 + revert termcap ospeed variable to 'short' (see discussion of the
1148 --with-ospeed configure option).
1153 + made the extended terminal capabilities
1154 (configure --enable-tcap-names) a standard feature. This should
1155 be transparent to applications that do not require it.
1157 + removed the trace() function and related trace support from the
1160 + modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict
1163 Added extensions: assume_default_colors().
1165 5.0 (October 23, 1999)
1168 + implemented the wcolor_set() and slk_color() functions.
1170 + move macro winch to a function, to hide details of struct ldat
1172 + corrected prototypes for slk_* functions, using chtype rather than
1175 + the slk_attr_{set,off,on} functions need an additional void*
1176 parameter according to XSI.
1178 + modified several prototypes to correspond with 1997 version of X/Open
1179 Curses: [w]attr_get(), [w]attr_set(), border_set() have different
1180 parameters. Some functions were renamed or misspelled:
1181 erase_wchar(), in_wchntr(), mvin_wchntr(). Some developers have used
1184 Added extensions: keybound(), curses_version().
1186 Terminfo database changes:
1188 + change translation for termcap 'rs' to terminfo 'rs2', which is
1189 the documented equivalent, rather than 'rs1'.
1191 The problems are subtler in recent releases.
1193 a) This release provides users with the ability to define their own
1194 terminal capability extensions, like termcap. To accomplish this,
1195 we redesigned the TERMTYPE struct (in term.h). Very few
1196 applications use this struct. They must be recompiled to work with
1199 a) If you use the extended terminfo names (i.e., you used configure
1200 --enable-tcap-names), the resulting terminfo database can have some
1201 entries which are not readable by older versions of ncurses. This
1202 is a bug in the older versions:
1204 + the terminfo database stores booleans, numbers and strings in
1205 arrays. The capabilities that are listed in the arrays are
1206 specified by X/Open. ncurses recognizes a number of obsolete and
1207 extended names which are stored past the end of the specified
1210 + a change to read_entry.c in 951001 made the library do an lseek()
1211 call incorrectly skipping data which is already read from the
1212 string array. This happens when the number of strings in the
1213 terminfo data file is greater than STRCOUNT, the number of
1214 specified and obsolete or extended strings.
1216 + as part of alignment with the X/Open final specification, in the
1217 990109 patch we added two new terminfo capabilities:
1218 set_a_attributes and set_pglen_inch). This makes the indices for
1219 the obsolete and extended capabilities shift up by 2.
1221 + the last two capabilities in the obsolete/extended list are memu
1222 and meml, which are found in most terminfo descriptions for xterm.
1224 When trying to read this terminfo entry, the spurious lseek()
1225 causes the library to attempt to read the final portion of the
1226 terminfo data (the text of the string capabilities) 4 characters
1227 past its starting point, and reads 4 characters too few. The
1228 library rejects the data, and applications are unable to
1229 initialize that terminal type.
1231 FIX: remove memu and meml from the xterm description. They are
1232 obsolete, not used by ncurses. (It appears that the feature was
1233 added to xterm to make it more like hpterm).
1235 This is not a problem if you do not use the -x option of tic to
1236 create a terminfo database with extended names. Note that the
1237 user-defined terminal capabilities are not affected by this bug,
1238 since they are stored in a table after the older terminfo data ends,
1239 and are invisible to the older libraries.
1241 c) Some developers did not wish to use the C++ binding, and used the
1242 configure --without-cxx option. This causes problems if someone
1243 uses the ncurses library from C++ because that configure test
1244 determines the type for C++'s bool and makes ncurses match it, since
1245 both C++ and curses are specified to declare bool. Calling ncurses
1246 functions with the incorrect type for bool will cause execution
1247 errors. In 5.0 we added a configure option "--without-cxx-binding"
1248 which controls whether the binding itself is built and installed.
1253 + correct prototype for termattrs() as per XPG4 version 2.
1255 + add placeholder prototypes for color_set(), erasewchar(),
1256 term_attrs(), wcolor_set() as per XPG4 version 2.
1258 + add macros getcur[xy] getbeg[xy] getpar[xy], which are defined in
1261 New extensions: keyok() and define_key().
1263 Terminfo database changes:
1265 + corrected definition in curses.h for ACS_LANTERN, which was 'I'
1270 We added these extensions: use_default_colors(). Also added
1271 configure option --enable-const, to support the use of const where
1272 X/Open should have, but did not, specify.
1274 The terminfo database content changed the representation of color for
1275 most entries that use ANSI colors. SVr4 curses treats the setaf/setab
1276 and setf/setb capabilities differently, interchanging the red/blue
1277 colors in the latter.
1279 4.0 (December 24, 1996)
1281 We bumped to version 4.0 because the newly released dynamic loader
1282 (ld.so.1.8.5) on Linux did not load shared libraries whose ABI and REL
1283 versions were inconsistent. At that point, ncurses ABI was 3.4 and the
1284 REL was 1.9.9g, so we made them consistent.
1286 1.9.9g (December 1, 1996)
1288 This fixed most of the problems with 1.9.9e, and made these interface
1291 + remove tparam(), which had been provided for compatibility with
1292 some termcap. tparm() is standard, and does not conflict with
1293 application's fallback for missing tparam().
1295 + turn off hardware echo in initscr(). This changes the sense of the
1296 echo() function, which was initialized to echoing rather than
1297 nonechoing (the latter is specified). There were several other
1298 corrections to the terminal I/O settings which cause applications to
1301 + implemented several functions (such as attr_on()) which were
1302 available only as macros.
1304 + corrected several typos in curses.h.in (i.e., the mvXXXX macros).
1306 + corrected prototypes for delay_output(),
1307 has_color, immedok() and idcok().
1309 + corrected misspelled getbkgd(). Some applications used the
1312 + added _yoffset to WINDOW. The size of WINDOW does not impact
1313 applications, since they use only pointers to WINDOW structs.
1315 These changes were made to the terminfo database:
1317 + removed boolean 'getm' which was available as an extended name.
1319 We added these extensions: wresize(), resizeterm(), has_key() and
1322 1.9.9e (March 24, 1996)
1324 not recommended (a last-minute/untested change left the forms and
1325 menus libraries unusable since they do not repaint the screen).
1326 Foreground/background colors are combined incorrectly, working properly
1327 only on a black background. When this was released, the X/Open
1328 specification was available only in draft form.
1330 Some applications (such as lxdialog) were "fixed" to work with the
1331 incorrect color scheme.
1334 IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR:
1335 ------------------------------
1337 Configuration and Installation:
1339 On platforms where ncurses is assumed to be installed in /usr/lib,
1340 the configure script uses "/usr" as a default:
1342 Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Cygwin
1344 For other platforms, the default is "/usr/local". See the discussion
1345 of the "--disable-overwrite" option.
1347 The location of the terminfo is set indirectly by the "--datadir"
1348 configure option, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo, given a datadir of
1349 /usr/share. You may want to override this if you are installing
1350 ncurses libraries in nonstandard locations, but wish to share the
1353 Normally the ncurses library is configured in a pure-terminfo mode;
1354 that is, with the --disable-termcap option. This makes the ncurses
1355 library smaller and faster. The ncurses library includes a termcap
1356 emulation that queries the terminfo database, so even applications that
1357 use raw termcap to query terminal characteristics will win (providing
1358 you recompile and relink them!).
1360 If you must configure with termcap fallback enabled, you may also wish
1361 to use the --enable-getcap option. This speeds up termcap-based
1362 startups, at the expense of not allowing personal termcap entries to
1363 reference the terminfo tree. See comments in
1364 ncurses/tinfo/read_termcap.c for further details.
1366 Note that if you have $TERMCAP set, ncurses will use that value
1367 to locate termcap data. In particular, running from xterm will
1368 set $TERMCAP to the contents of the xterm's termcap entry.
1369 If ncurses sees that, it will not examine /etc/termcap.
1373 The terminfo file assumes that Shift-Tab generates \E[Z (the ECMA-48
1374 reverse-tabulation sequence) rather than ^I. Here are the loadkeys -d
1375 mappings that will set this up:
1377 keycode 15 = Tab Tab
1378 alt keycode 15 = Meta_Tab
1379 shift keycode 15 = F26
1380 string F26 ="\033[Z"
1382 Naming the Console Terminal
1384 In various systems there has been a practice of designating the system
1385 console driver type as `console'. Please do not do this! It
1386 complicates peoples' lives, because it can mean that several different
1387 terminfo entries from different operating systems all logically want to
1388 be called `console'.
1390 Please pick a name unique to your console driver and set that up
1391 in the /etc/inittab table or local equivalent. Send the entry to the
1392 terminfo maintainer (listed in the misc/terminfo file) to be included
1393 in the terminfo file, if it's not already there. See the
1394 term(7) manual page included with this distribution for more on
1395 conventions for choosing type names.
1397 Here are some recommended primary console names:
1399 linux -- Linux console driver
1404 If you are responsible for integrating ncurses for one of these
1405 distribution, please either use the recommended name or get back
1406 to us explaining why you don't want to, so we can work out nomenclature
1407 that will make users' lives easier rather than harder.
1410 RECENT XTERM VERSIONS:
1411 ---------------------
1413 The terminfo database file included with this distribution assumes you
1414 are running a modern xterm based on XFree86 (i.e., xterm-new). The
1415 earlier X11R6 entry (xterm-r6) and X11R5 entry (xterm-r5) is provided
1416 as well. See the --without-xterm-new configure script option if you
1417 are unable to update your system.
1420 CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES:
1421 ----------------------------
1423 In order to support operation of ncurses programs before the terminfo
1424 tree is accessible (that is, in single-user mode or at OS installation
1425 time) the ncurses library can be compiled to include an array of
1426 pre-fetched fallback entries. This must be done on a machine which
1427 has ncurses' infocmp and terminfo database installed.
1429 These entries are checked by setupterm() only when the conventional
1430 fetches from the terminfo tree and the termcap fallback (if configured)
1431 have been tried and failed. Thus, the presence of a fallback will not
1432 shadow modifications to the on-disk entry for the same type, when that
1433 entry is accessible.
1435 By default, there are no entries on the fallback list. After you have
1436 built the ncurses suite for the first time, you can change the list
1437 (the process needs infocmp(1)). To do so, use the script
1438 ncurses/tinfo/MKfallback.sh. A configure script option
1439 --with-fallbacks does this (it accepts a comma-separated list of the
1440 names you wish, and does not require a rebuild).
1442 If you wanted (say) to have linux, vt100, and xterm fallbacks, you
1443 would use the commands
1446 tinfo/MKfallback.sh linux vt100 xterm >fallback.c
1448 Then just rebuild and reinstall the library as you would normally.
1449 You can restore the default empty fallback list with
1451 tinfo/MKfallback.sh >fallback.c
1453 The overhead for an empty fallback list is one trivial stub function.
1454 Any non-empty fallback list is const-ed and therefore lives in sharable
1455 text space. You can look at the comment trailing each initializer in
1456 the generated ncurses/fallback.c file to see the core cost of the
1457 fallbacks. A good rule of thumb for modern vt100-like entries is that
1458 each one will cost about 2.5K of text space.
1461 BSD CONVERSION NOTES:
1462 --------------------
1464 If you need to support really ancient BSD programs, you probably
1465 want to configure with the --enable-bsdpad option. What this does
1466 is enable code in tputs() that recognizes a numeric prefix on a
1467 capability as a request for that much trailing padding in milliseconds.
1468 There are old BSD programs that do things like tputs("50").
1470 (If you are distributing ncurses as a support-library component of
1471 an application you probably want to put the remainder of this section
1472 in the package README file.)
1474 The following note applies only if you have configured ncurses with
1477 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
1479 If you are installing this application privately (either because you
1480 have no root access or want to experiment with it before doing a root
1481 installation), there are a couple of details you need to be aware of.
1482 They have to do with the ncurses library, which uses terminfo rather
1483 than termcap for describing terminal characteristics.
1485 Though the ncurses library is terminfo-based, it will interpret your
1486 TERMCAP variable (if present), any local termcap files you reference
1487 through it, and the system termcap file. However, in order to avoid
1488 slowing down your application startup, it will only do this once per
1491 The first time you load a given terminal type from your termcap
1492 database, the library initialization code will automatically write it
1493 in terminfo format to a subdirectory under $HOME/.terminfo. After
1494 that, the initialization code will find it there and do a (much
1495 faster) terminfo fetch.
1497 Usually, all this means is that your home directory will silently grow
1498 an invisible .terminfo subdirectory which will get filled in with
1499 terminfo descriptions of terminal types as you invoke them. If anyone
1500 ever installs a global terminfo tree on your system, this will quietly
1501 stop happening and your $HOME/.terminfo will become redundant.
1503 The objective of all this logic is to make converting from BSD termcap
1504 as painless as possible without slowing down your application (termcap
1505 compilation is expensive).
1507 If you don't have a TERMCAP variable or custom personal termcap file,
1508 you can skip the rest of this dissertation.
1510 If you *do* have a TERMCAP variable and/or a custom personal termcap file
1511 that defines a terminal type, that definition will stop being visible
1512 to this application after the first time you run it, because it will
1513 instead see the terminfo entry that it wrote to $HOME/terminfo the
1516 Subsequently, editing the TERMCAP variable or personal TERMCAP file
1517 will have no effect unless you explicitly remove the terminfo entry
1518 under $HOME/terminfo. If you do that, the entry will be recompiled
1519 from your termcap resources the next time it is invoked.
1521 To avoid these complications, use infocmp(1) and tic(1) to edit the
1522 terminfo directory directly.
1524 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
1526 USING NCURSES WITH AFS:
1527 AFS treats each directory as a separate logical filesystem, you
1528 can't hard-link across them. The --enable-symlinks option copes
1529 with this by making tic use symbolic links.
1531 USING NCURSES WITH GPM:
1532 Ncurses 4.1 and up can be configured to use GPM (General Purpose
1533 Mouse) which is used on Linux console. Be aware that GPM is commonly
1534 installed as a shared library which contains a wrapper for the curses
1535 wgetch() function (libcurses.o). Some integrators have simplified
1536 linking applications by combining all or part of libcurses.so into the
1537 libgpm.so file, producing symbol conflicts with ncurses (specifically
1538 the wgetch function). This was originally the BSD curses, but
1539 generally whatever curses library exists on the system.
1541 You may be able to work around this problem by linking as follows:
1543 cc -o foo foo.o -lncurses -lgpm -lncurses
1545 but the linker may not cooperate, producing mysterious errors.
1546 See the FAQ, as well as the discussion under the --with-gpm option:
1548 http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#using_gpm_lib
1550 BUILDING NCURSES WITH A CROSS-COMPILER
1551 Ncurses can be built with a cross-compiler. Some parts must be built
1552 with the host's compiler since they are used for building programs
1553 (e.g., ncurses/make_hash and ncurses/make_keys) that generate tables
1554 that are compiled into the ncurses library. The essential thing to do
1555 is set the BUILD_CC environment variable to your host's compiler, and
1556 run the configure script configuring for the cross-compiler.
1558 The configure options --with-build-cc, etc., are provided to make this
1559 simpler. Since make_hash and make_keys use only ANSI C features, it
1560 is normally not necessary to provide the other options such as
1561 --with-build-libs, but they are provided for completeness.
1563 Note that all of the generated source-files which are part of ncurses
1564 will be made if you use
1568 This would be useful in porting to an environment which has little
1569 support for the tools used to generate the sources, e.g., sed, awk and
1572 When ncurses has been successfully cross-compiled, you may want to use
1573 "make install" (with a suitable target directory) to construct an
1574 install tree. Note that in this case (as with the --with-fallbacks
1575 option), ncurses uses the development platform's tic to do the
1576 "make install.data" portion.
1579 Send any feedback to the ncurses mailing list at
1580 bug-ncurses@gnu.org. To subscribe send mail to
1581 bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with body that reads:
1582 subscribe ncurses <your-email-address-here>
1584 The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines
1585 on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly.