Announcing ncurses @VERSION@
The ncurses (new curses)
library is a free software emulation of curses in System V
Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format, supports pads and
color and multiple highlights and forms characters and
function-key mapping, and has all the other SYSV-curses
enhancements over BSD curses.
In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared
that he considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the
keepers of Unix releases such as BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to
switch over to ncurses.
The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It has been in
use for some time with OpenBSD as the system curses library, and
on FreeBSD and NetBSD as an external package. It should port
easily to any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported
to OS/2 Warp!
The distribution includes the library and support utilities,
including a terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1),
clear(1), tput(1), tset(1), and a termcap conversion tool
captoinfo(1). Full manual pages are provided for the library and
tools.
The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the
GNU distribution site ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
It is also available at ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ .
Release Notes
This release is designed to be upward
compatible from ncurses 5.0 through 5.7; very few applications
will require recompilation, depending on the platform. These are
the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.7 release.
Interface changes
- turn on
_XOPEN_CURSES
definition in
curses.h
.
- change
_nc_has_mouse
to
has_mouse
, reflect its use in C++ and Ada95.
- add
is_pad
and is_subwin
functions for opaque access to the WINDOW structure.
- add
tiparm
, based on review of X/Open Curses
Issue 7.
New features and improvements
Library Improvements
- add a terminal driver for Windows console, which supports a
MinGW port to Windows.
- add extended functions which specify the
SCREEN
pointer for several curses functions which
use the global SP
.
- improve the
NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS
feature by
adding a check for an extended terminfo capability
U8
.
- improve performance of
tigetstr
, etc., by
using hashing code from tic.
- add WACS_xxx definitions to wide-character
configuration for thick- and double-lines.
- modify init_pair to allow caller to create extra color
pairs beyond the color_pairs limit, which use default
colors.
Improvements to Programs
- add
tabs
program.
- modify tic's -I/-C dump to reformat acsc strings into
canonical form (sorted, unique mapping).
- add checks in tic for inconsistent cursor-movement
controls, and for inconsistent printer-controls.
- add special case to
_nc_infotocap
(used by tic
and infocmp) to recognize the
setaf
/setab
strings from
xterm+256color
and xterm+88color,
and
provide a reduced version which works with termcap.
Terminal Database
- added entries:
bterm
terminfo entry, based on bogl
0.1.18
cons25-debian
entry
eterm-color
entry
linux-16color
mlterm+256color
entry, for mlterm
3.0.0
- several screen-bce.xxx entries
screen.Eterm
terminfo entry
vwmterm
entry
xterm-utf8
entry as a demo of the
U8
feature
- updated/improved entries:
- use extended capabilities:
- add
U8
feature to denote entries for
terminal emulators which do not support VT100 SI/SO
when processing UTF-8 encoding
- add
XT
capability to entries for
terminals that support both xterm-style mouse- and
title-controls, for screen
which
special-cases TERM beginning with xterm
or
rxvt
- improvements based on new checks in tic:
-
- fill in no-parameter forms of cursor-movement where
a parameterized form is available
- fill in missing cursor controls where the form of
the controls is ANSI
- add parameterized cursor-controls to
linux-basic
- modify
nsterm,
xnuppc
and
tek4115
to make
sgr
/sgr0
consistent
- change several terminfo entries to make consistent
use of ANSI clear-all-tabs
- extend
ansi.sys
pfkey
capability from kf1-kf10 to kf1-kf48, moving function key
definitions from emx-base
for
consistency.
- correct missing final 'p' in
pfkey
capability of ansi.sys-old
.
- rename
atari
and st52
terminfo entries to atari-old, st52-old, use newer entries
from FreeMiNT.
- repurpose
gnome
terminfo entries as
vte
, retaining gnome
variants for
compatibility, but generally deprecating those since the
VTE library is what actually defines the behavior of
"gnome", etc., since 2003.
- improve
interix
smso
terminfo
capability by using reverse rather than bold.
- correct
initc
capability of
linux-c-nc
end-of-range, make similar change
for dg+ccc
and dgunix+ccc
.
- update
minix
terminfo entry.
- updated
nsterm*
entries.
- remove unnecessary
kcan
assignment to
^C
from putty
.
- suppress
ncv
in screen
and
konsole-base
entries, allowing underline.
- change ncv and op capabilities in
sun-color
terminfo entry to match Sun's entry
for this.
- fix typo in
rmso
for tek4106
entry.
- improve
acsc
string for vt52
,
show arrow keys.
- add hard-reset for
rs2
to
wsvt25
to help ensure that reset ends the
alternate character set.
- add
ccc
and initc
capabilities to xterm-16color
.
Major bug fixes
- ncurses library
- wide character support
- modify length returned by
getcchar
to
count the trailing null which is documented in
X/Open.
- fix an infinite recursion when adding a
legacy-coding 8-bit value using
insch
.
- improve a workaround in adding wide-characters,
when a control character is found. The library uses
unctrl
to obtain a printable version of
the control character, but was not passing color or
video attributes.
- modify
waddch_literal
, updating
line-pointer after a multicolumn character is found to
not fit on the current row, and wrapping is done. Since
the line-pointer was not updated, the wrapped
multicolumn character was written to the beginning of
the current row.
- fixes in
wins_nwstr
and related
functions to ensure that special characters, i.e.,
control characters are handled properly with the
wide-character configuration.
- correct internal
_nc_insert_ch
to use
_nc_insert_wch
when inserting wide
characters, since the wins_wch
function
that it used did not update the cursor position.
- mouse
- add check if
Gpm_Open
returns a -2,
e.g., for "xterm". This is normally suppressed but can
be overridden using $NCURSES_GPM_TERMS
.
Ensure that Gpm_Close
is called in this
case.
- add check in mouse-driver to disable connection if
GPM returns a zero, indicating that the connection is
closed.
- modify
getmouse
to act as its
documentation implied, returning on each call the
preceding event until none are left. When no more
events remain, it will return ERR
.
- miscellaneous
- improve handling of color-pairs embedded in
attributes for the extended-colors configuration.
- add check for failure to open hashed-database
needed for db4.6.
- modify use of
$CC
environment variable
which is defined by X/Open as a curses feature, to
ignore it if it is not a single character.
- modify declaration of
cur_term
when
broken-linker is used, but enable-reentrant is not, to
match pre-5.7.
- correct limit-checks in
derwin
.
- remove old check in
mvderwin
which
prevented moving a derived window whose origin happened
to coincide with its parent's origin.
- correct limit-checks in
newwin
, to
ensure that windows have nonzero size.
- modify
set_curterm
to make
broken-linker configuration work with changes from
20090228.
- modify
wgetch
to ensure it checks
SIGWINCH
when it gets an error in
non-blocking mode.
- correct limit-check in
wredrawln
,
accounting for begy
/begx
values.
- fix a null-pointer check in
_nc_format_slks
in lib_slk.c, from
20070704 changes.
- correct translation of "^" in
_nc_infotocap
, used to transform terminfo
to termcap strings.
- modify
_nc_wgetch
to check for a -1 in
the fifo, e.g., after a SIGWINCH
, and
discard that value, to avoid confusing
application.
- other libraries
- correct transfer of multicolumn characters in multirow
field_buffer
, which stopped at the end of the
first row due to filling of unused entries in a cchar_t
array with nulls.
- correct buffer-size after internal resizing of
wide-character
set_field_buffer
, broken in
20081018 changes.
- correct layout of working window used to extract data
in wide-character configured by
set_field_buffer
Portability
- configure script:
- new options:
- --disable-libtool-version
- use the "-version-number" feature which was added
in libtool 1.5. The default value for the option uses
the newer feature, which makes libraries generated
using libtool compatible with the standard builds of
ncurses.
- --disable-rpath-hack
- disable a feature which adds rpath options for
libraries in unusual places.
- --enable-interop
- integrate changes for generic/interop support to
form-library.
- --enable-pc-files
- generate ".pc" files for each of the libraries, and
install them in
pkg-config
's library
directory.
- --enable-pthreads-eintr
- control whether to allow
EINTR
to
interrupt a read operation in wgetch
. This
applies only to the pthread configuration
- --enable-sp-funcs
- compile-in support for extended functions which
accept a
SCREEN
pointer, reducing the need
for juggling the global SP
value with
set_term
and delscreen
.
- --enable-term-driver
- compile with terminal-driver. That is used in the
MinGW port, and (being somewhat more complicated) is an
experimental alternative to the conventional termlib
internals. Currently, it requires the sp-funcs feature
to be enabled.
- --with-ncurses-wrap-prefix
- allows setting the prefix for functions used to
wrap global variables to something other than
"
_nc_
".
- --with-pkg-config=[DIR]
- check for
pkg-config
, optionally
specifying its path.
- --without-manpages
- tells the configure script to suppress the install
of ncurses' manpages.
- --without-tests
- suppress building test programs.
- improved options:
- correct logic for
--with-database
,
which was coded as an enable-type switch.
- omit the opaque-functions from
lib_gen.o
when
--disable-ext-funcs
is used.
- packaging:
- *-config scripts:
- modify
adacurses-config
to look for
".ali" files in the adalib directory.
- correct install for the Ada95 tree, which omitted
libAdaCurses.a
used in
adacurses-config
.
- change install for
adacurses-config
to
provide additional flavors such as
adacursesw-config
, for ncursesw.
- modify scripts to generate
ncurses*-config
and pc-files to add
dependency for tinfo library.
- use
ncurses*-config
scripts if
available for test/configure.
- correct name for termlib in
ncurses*-config
, e.g., if it is renamed to
provide a single file for ncurses/ncursesw
libraries.
- generate manpages for the *-config scripts, adapted
from
help2man
.
- modify install-rule for manpages so that *-config
manpages will install when building with
--srcdir
.
- build-fixes for OpenSolaris aka Solaris 11, for
wide-character configuration as well as for rpath
feature in *-config scripts.
- use
$includedir
symbol in
misc/ncurses-config.in
, add
--includedir
option.
- improve install-rules for pc-files.
- create the
pkg-config
library
directory if needed.
- fix typo "
==
" where "=
"
is needed in ncurses-config.in
and
gen-pkgconfig.in
files.
- modify
gen-pkgconfig.in
to eliminate a
dependency on rpath when deciding whether to add
$LIBS
to --libs
output; that
should be shown for the ncurses and tinfo libraries
without taking rpath into account.
- modify handling of
$PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR
to use only the first item in a possibly
colon-separated list.
- other packaging issues
- add
make-tar.sh
scripts to Ada95 and
test subdirectories to help with making those
separately distributable.
- add
Ada95/configure
script, to use in
tar-file created by
Ada95/make-tar.sh
.
- remove
tar-copy.sh
and related
configure/Makefile
chunks, since the Ada95
binding is now installed using rules in
Ada95/src
.
- cross-compiling:
- improve configure checks for location of tic and
infocmp programs used for installing database and for
generating fallback data, e.g., for cross-compiling.
- modify #define's for build-compiler to suppress cchar_t
symbol from compile of
make_hash
and
make_keys
, improving cross-compilation of
ncursesw.
- simplify include-dependencies of
make_hash
and make_keys
, to reduce the need for setting
BUILD_CPPFLAGS in cross-compiling when the build- and
target-machines differ.
- correct cross-compiling configure check for
CF_MKSTEMP
macro, by adding a check cache
variable set by AC_CHECK_FUNC
.
- library dependencies:
- revise
wadd_wch
and
wecho_wchar
to eliminate dependency on
unctrl
.
- adjust configure script so that "t" is not added to
library suffix when weak-symbols are used, allowing the
pthread configuration to more closely match the non-thread
naming.
- building the Ada95 tree:
- changes to use gnatmake project files in the Ada95
tree.
- add/use configure check to turn on project rules for
Ada95/src
.
- old gnatmake (3.15) does not produce libraries using
project-file; work around by adding script to generate
alternate makefile.
- add configure --with-ada-sharedlib option, for the
test_make rule.
- move Ada95-related logic into aclocal.m4, since
additional checks will be needed to distinguish old/new
implementations of gnat.
- add test_make / test_clean / test_install rules in
Ada95/src
- change install-path for adainclude directory to
/usr/share/ada (was /usr/lib/ada).
- other configure/build issues:
- make
CCHARW_MAX
value configurable, noting
that changing this would change the size of
cchar_t
, and would be ABI-incompatible.
- improve comparison of program-names when checking for
linked flavors such as "reset" by ignoring the executable
suffix.
- drop
mkdirs.sh
, use
"mkdir -p
".
- drop
misc/ncu-indent
and
misc/jpf-indent
; they are provided by an
external package cindent.
- change makefiles to use
$ARFLAGS
rather
than $AR_OPTS
, provide a configure check to
detect whether a "-" is needed before "ar" options.
- modify
CF_DISABLE_LEAKS
configure macro so
that the --enable-leaks option is not the same as
--disable-leaks.
- improve configure script macros
CF_HEADER_PATH
and
CF_LIBRARY_PATH
by adding CFLAGS
,
CPPFLAGS
and LDFLAGS
,
LIBS
values to the search-lists.
- improve configure macros
CF_GCC_VERSION
and CF_GCC_WARNINGS
to work with gcc 4.x's c89
alias, which gives warning messages for cases where older
versions would produce an error.
- modify
CF_WITH_LIBTOOL
configure check to
allow unreleased libtool version numbers (e.g. which
include alphabetic chars, as well as digits, after the
final '.').
- improve use of symbolic links in makefiles by using
"
-f
" option if it is supported, to eliminate
temporary removal of the target
- add a configure-time check to pick a suitable value for
CC_SHARED_OPTS
for Solaris.
- add -shared option to
MK_SHARED_LIB
when
-Bsharable is used, for *BSD's, without which "main" might
be one of the shared library's dependencies.
- modify configure script to allow building shared
libraries with gcc on AIX 5 or 6.
- suppress configure check for static/dynamic linker
flags for gcc on Solaris 10, since gcc is confused by
absence of static libc, and does not switch back to dynamic
mode before finishing the libraries.
- suppress configure check for static/dynamic linker
flags for gcc on Darwin.
- modify
misc/run_tic.in
to create parent
directory, in case this is a new install of hashed
database.
- modify configure check for tic program, used for
fallbacks, to a warning if not found. This makes it simpler
to use additonal scripts to bootstrap the fallbacks code
using tic from the build tree.
- test programs:
- add test/demo_terminfo, for comparison with
demo_termcap.
- improve test/ncurses.c 'F' test, show combining
characters in color.
- fix logic for 'V' in test/ncurses.c tests f/F.
- improve test/ncurses.c 'a test to put mouse droppings
in the proper window.
- modify ncurses 'F' test to demo wborder_set with
colored lines.
- modify ncurses 'f' test to demo wborder with colored
lines.
- improve test/ncurses.c 'a' test, using unctrl more
consistently to display meta-characters.
- correct use of
key_name
in test/ncurses.c
'A' test, which only displays wide-characters, not
key-codes since 20070612.
- add test/clip_printw.c to illustrate how to use printw
without wrapping.
- modify test-programs, e.g,. test/view.c, to address
subtle differences between Tru64/Solaris and HPUX/AIX
getcchar return values.
- add some test programs (and make these use the same
special keys by sharing
linedata.h
functions):
test/test_addstr.c test/test_addwstr.c test/test_addchstr.c
test/test_add_wchstr.c
- add test/xterm-256color.dat
- modify test programs to allow them to be built with
NetBSD curses.
- fixes for test programs to build/work on HPUX and AIX,
etc.
Features of Ncurses
The ncurses package is fully
compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:
- All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are
documented).
- Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard
mapping, color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and
automatic recognition of keypad and function keys.
- An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting a stack
of windows with backing store, is included.
- An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting a
uniform but flexible interface for menu programming, is
included.
- An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting data
collection through on-screen forms, is included.
- Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1)
implementation are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format
SVr4 curses uses.
- The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo
entries for use with less capable
curses/terminfo versions such
as the HP/UX and AIX ports.
The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over
SVr4:
- The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the
X/OPEN curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements
all BASE level features, and most EXTENDED features). It
includes many function calls not supported under SVr4 curses
(but portability of all calls is documented so you can use the
SVr4 subset only).
- Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the
rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if your terminal has
an insert-character capability.
- Ada95 and C++ bindings.
- Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and
FreeBSD and OS/2 console windows.
- Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm
package.
- The function
wresize
allows you to resize
windows, preserving their data.
- The function
use_default_colors
allows you to
use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair,
achieving the effect of transparent colors.
- The functions
keyok
and
define_key
allow you to better control the use of
function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, or by
defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key
code.
- Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm, when
configured using the
--enable-ext-colors
option.
- Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm
and modern xterm.
- Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now
features a cursor-local-movement computation more efficient
than either BSD's or System V's.
- Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code
incorporates a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables
it to make optimal use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion,
and line-deletion for screen-line movements. This algorithm is
more powerful than the 4.4BSD curses
quickch
routine.
- Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch.
The screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if
the magic- cookie unattributed spaces required just before the
beginning and after the end would step on a non-space
character. It will automatically shift highlight boundaries
when doing so would make it possible to draw the highlight
without changing the visual appearance of the screen.
- It is possible to generate the library with a list of
pre-loaded fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve
those terminal types even when no terminfo tree or termcap file
is accessible (this may be useful for support of
screen-oriented programs that must run in single-user
mode).
- The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the
ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and
AT&T extension sets.
- A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided.
- The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read
terminfo entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile
to that directory if it exists and the user has no write access
to the system directory. This feature makes it easier for users
to have personal terminfo entries without giving up access to
the system terminfo directory.
- You may specify a path of directories to search for
compiled descriptions with the environment variable
TERMINFO_DIRS (this generalizes the feature provided by
TERMINFO under stock System V.)
- In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not
just to other entries in the same source file (as in System V)
but also to compiled entries in either the system terminfo
directory or the user's $HOME/.terminfo directory.
- A script (capconvert) is provided to help
BSD users transition from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the
information in a TERMCAP environment variable and/or a
~/.termcap local entries file and converts it to an equivalent
local terminfo tree under $HOME/.terminfo.
- Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled
in when it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This
feature is neither fast nor cheap, you don't want to use it
unless you have to, but it's there.
- The table-of-entries utility toe makes it
easy for users to see exactly what terminal types are available
on the system.
- The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro
entry point have a corresponding function which may be linked
(and will be prototype-checked) if the macro definition is
disabled with
#undef
.
- An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document
provides a narrative introduction to the curses programming
interface.
State of the Package
Numerous bugs present in earlier
versions have been fixed; the library is far more reliable than
it used to be. Bounds checking in many `dangerous' entry points
has been improved. The code is now type-safe according to gcc
-Wall. The library has been checked for malloc leaks and arena
corruption by the Purify memory-allocation tester.
The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of
applications including (versions starting with those noted):
- cdk
- Curses Development Kit
http://invisible-island.net/cdk/
http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/
- ded
- directory-editor
http://invisible-island.net/ded/
- dialog
- the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and
the basis for similar applications on GNU/Linux.
http://invisible-island.net/dialog/
- lynx
- the character-screen WWW browser
http://lynx.isc.org/release/
- Midnight Commander
- file manager
http://www.midnight-commander.org/
- mutt
- mail utility
http://www.mutt.org/
- ncftp
- file-transfer utility
http://www.ncftp.com/
- nvi
- New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7
and later.
https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi
- pinfo
- Lynx-like info browser. https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/
- tin
- newsreader, supporting color, MIME http://www.tin.org/
as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support
alone:
- minicom
- terminal emulator
http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/
- vile
- vi-like-emacs
http://invisible-island.net/vile/
The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs
(including a few games).
Who's Who and What's What
Zeyd Ben-Halim started it from
a previous package pcurses, written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S.
Raymond continued development. Jürgen Pfeifer wrote most of
the form and menu libraries. Ongoing work is being done by
Thomas Dickey.
Thomas Dickey acts as the maintainer for the Free Software
Foundation, which holds the copyright on ncurses. Contact the
current maintainers at bug-ncurses@gnu.org.
To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org
containing the line:
subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the
development and testing of this package.
Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release
are made available at ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ .
Future Plans
- Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization
support.
- Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows.
We need people to help with these projects. If you are
interested in working on them, please join the ncurses list.
Other Related Resources
The distribution provides a newer
version of the terminfo-format terminal description file once
maintained by Eric
Raymond . Unlike the older version, the termcap and
terminfo data are provided in the same file, and provides several
user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open specification.
You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
not covered in the terminfo file at
Richard Shuford's archive .