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28 -- $Id: INSTALL,v 1.171 2014/04/26 20:30:01 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 distribution integrator or packager, please read and act on the
43 section titled IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR below.
45 If you are converting from BSD curses and do not have root access, be sure
46 to read the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below.
48 If you are trying to build applications using gpm with ncurses,
49 read the USING NCURSES WITH GPM section below.
51 If you are running over the Andrew File System see the note below on
52 USING NCURSES WITH AFS.
54 If you are cross-compiling, see the note below on BUILDING NCURSES WITH A
57 If you want to build the Ada95 binding, go to the Ada95 directory and
58 follow the instructions there. The Ada95 binding is not covered below.
64 You will need the following to build and install ncurses under UNIX:
66 * ANSI C compiler (gcc, for instance)
68 * awk (mawk or gawk will do)
70 * BSD or System V style install (a script is enclosed)
72 Ncurses has been also built in the OS/2 EMX environment.
75 INSTALLATION PROCEDURE:
76 ----------------------
78 1. First, decide whether you want ncurses to replace your existing library (in
79 which case you'll need super-user privileges) or be installed in parallel
82 The --prefix option to configure changes the root directory for installing
83 ncurses. The default is normally in subdirectories of /usr/local, except
84 for systems where ncurses is normally installed as a system library (see
85 "IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR"). Use --prefix=/usr to replace your
86 default curses distribution.
88 The package gets installed beneath the --prefix directory as follows:
90 In $(prefix)/bin: tic, infocmp, captoinfo, tset,
91 reset, clear, tput, toe, tabs
92 In $(prefix)/lib: libncurses*.* libcurses.a
93 In $(prefix)/share/terminfo: compiled terminal descriptions
94 In $(prefix)/include: C header files
95 Under $(prefix)/man: the manual pages
97 Note that the configure script attempts to locate previous installation of
98 ncurses, and will set the default prefix according to where it finds the
101 Do not use commands such as
103 make install prefix=XXX
105 to change the prefix after configuration, since the prefix value is used
106 for some absolute pathnames such as TERMINFO. Instead do this
108 make install DESTDIR=XXX
110 See also the discussion of --with-install-prefix.
112 2. Type `./configure' in the top-level directory of the distribution to
113 configure ncurses for your operating system and create the Makefiles.
114 Besides --prefix, various configuration options are available to customize
115 the installation; use `./configure --help' to list the available options.
117 If your operating system is not supported, read the PORTABILITY section in
118 the file ncurses/README for information on how to create a configuration
119 file for your system.
121 The `configure' script generates makefile rules for one or more object
122 models and their associated libraries:
124 libncurses.a (normal)
126 libcurses.a (normal, a link to libncurses.a)
127 This gets left out if you configure with --disable-overwrite.
129 libncurses.so (shared)
131 libncurses_g.a (debug)
133 libncurses_p.a (profile)
135 libncurses.la (libtool)
137 If you configure using the --enable-widec option, a "w" is appended to the
138 library names (e.g., libncursesw.a), and the resulting libraries support
139 wide-characters, e.g., via a UTF-8 locale. The corresponding header files
140 are compatible with the non-wide-character configuration; wide-character
141 features are provided by ifdef's in the header files. The wide-character
142 library interfaces are not binary-compatible with the non-wide-character
143 version. Building and running the wide-character code relies on a fairly
144 recent implementation of libiconv. We have built this configuration on
145 various systems using libiconv, sometimes requiring libutf8.
147 If you configure using the --with-pthread option, a "t" is appended to
148 the library names (e.g., libncursest.a, libncursestw.a).
150 If you do not specify any models, the normal and debug libraries will be
151 configured. Typing `configure' with no arguments is equivalent to:
153 ./configure --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
157 ./configure --with-shared
159 makes the shared libraries the default, resulting in
161 ./configure --with-shared --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
163 If you want only shared libraries, type
165 ./configure --with-shared --without-normal --without-debug
167 Rules for generating shared libraries are highly dependent upon the choice
168 of host system and compiler. We've been testing shared libraries on
169 several systems, but more work needs to be done to make shared libraries
170 work on other systems.
172 If you have libtool installed, you can type
174 ./configure --with-libtool
176 to generate the appropriate static and/or shared libraries for your
177 platform using libtool.
179 You can make curses and terminfo fall back to an existing file of termcap
180 definitions by configuring with --enable-termcap. If you do this, the
181 library will search /etc/termcap before the terminfo database, and will
182 also interpret the contents of the TERM environment variable. See the
183 section BSD CONVERSION NOTES below.
185 3. Type `make'. Ignore any warnings, no error messages should be produced.
186 This should compile the ncurses library, the terminfo compiler tic(1),
187 captoinfo(1), infocmp(1), toe(1), clear(1) tset(1), reset(1), and tput(1)
188 programs (see the manual pages for explanation of what they do), some test
189 programs, and the panels, menus, and forms libraries.
191 4. Run ncurses and several other test programs in the test directory to
192 verify that ncurses functions correctly before doing an install that
193 may overwrite system files. Read the file test/README for details on
196 NOTE: You must have installed the terminfo database, or set the
197 environment variable $TERMINFO to point to a SVr4-compatible terminfo
198 database before running the test programs. Not all vendors' terminfo
199 databases are SVr4-compatible, but most seem to be. Exceptions include
200 DEC's Digital Unix (formerly known as OSF/1).
202 If you run the test programs WITHOUT installing terminfo, ncurses may
203 read the termcap file and cache that in $HOME/.terminfo, which will
204 thereafter be used instead of the terminfo database. See the comments
205 on "--enable-getcap-cache", to see why this is a Bad Thing.
207 It is possible to configure ncurses to use other terminfo database formats.
208 A few are provided as examples in the include-directory (see --with-caps).
210 The ncurses program is designed specifically to test the ncurses library.
211 You can use it to verify that the screen highlights work correctly, that
212 cursor addressing and window scrolling works OK, etc.
214 5. Once you've tested, you can type `make install' to install libraries,
215 the programs, the terminfo database and the manual pages. Alternately, you
216 can type `make install' in each directory you want to install. In the
217 top-level directory, you can do a partial install using these commands:
219 'make install.progs' installs tic, infocmp, etc...
220 'make install.includes' installs the headers.
221 'make install.libs' installs the libraries (and the headers).
222 'make install.data' installs the terminfo data. (Note: `tic' must
223 be installed before the terminfo data can be
225 'make install.man' installs the manual pages.
227 ############################################################################
228 # CAVEAT EMPTOR: `install.data' run as root will NUKE any existing #
229 # terminfo database. If you have any custom or unusual entries SAVE them #
230 # before you install ncurses. I have a file called terminfo.custom for #
231 # this purpose. Don't forget to run tic on the file once you're done. #
232 ############################################################################
234 The terminfo(5) manual page must be preprocessed with tbl(1) before
235 being formatted by nroff(1). Modern man(1) implementations tend to do
236 this by default, but you may want to look at your version's manual page
237 to be sure. You may also install the manual pages after preprocessing
238 with tbl(1) by specifying the configure option --with-manpage-tbl.
240 If the system already has a curses library that you need to keep using
241 you'll need to distinguish between it and ncurses. See the discussion of
242 --disable-overwrite. If ncurses is installed outside the standard
243 directories (/usr/include and /usr/lib) then all your users will need to
244 use the -I option to compile programs and -L to link them.
246 If you have another curses installed in your system and you accidentally
247 compile using its curses.h you'll end up with a large number of
248 undefined symbols at link time.
250 IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ROOT: Change directory to the `progs' subdirectory
251 and run the `capconvert' script. This script will deduce various things
252 about your environment and use them to build you a private terminfo tree,
253 so you can use ncurses applications.
255 If more than one user at your site does this, the space for the duplicate
256 trees is wasted. Try to get your site administrators to install a system-
257 wide terminfo tree instead.
259 See the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below for a few more details.
261 6. The c++ directory has C++ classes that are built on top of ncurses and
262 panels. You must have c++ (and its libraries) installed before you can
263 compile and run the demo.
265 Use --without-cxx-binding to tell configure to not build the C++ bindings
268 If you do not have C++, you must use the --without-cxx option to tell
269 the configure script to not attempt to determine the type of 'bool'
270 which may be supported by C++. IF YOU USE THIS OPTION, BE ADVISED THAT
271 YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO COMPILE (OR RUN) NCURSES APPLICATIONS WITH C++.
274 SUMMARY OF CONFIGURE OPTIONS:
275 ----------------------------
277 The configure script provides a short list of its options when you type
281 The --help and several options are common to all configure scripts that are
282 generated with autoconf. Those are all listed before the line
284 --enable and --with options recognized:
286 The other options are specific to this package. We list them in alphabetic
289 --disable-assumed-color
290 With ncurses 5.1, we introduced a new function, assume_default_colors()
291 which allows applications to specify what the default foreground and
292 background color are assumed to be. Most color applications use
293 full-screen color; but a few do not color the background. While the
294 assumed values can be overridden by invoking assume_default_colors(),
295 you may find it useful to set the assumed values to the pre-5.1
296 convention, using this configure option.
299 Assume machine has little memory. The configure script attempts to
300 determine if your machine has enough memory (about 6Mb) to compile the
301 terminfo database without writing portions to disk. Some allocators
302 return deceptive results, so you may have to override the configure
303 script. Or you may be building tic for a smaller machine.
305 --disable-big-strings
306 Disable compile-time optimization of predefined tables which puts
307 all of their strings into a very long string, to reduce relocation
311 Use only built-in data. The ncurses libraries normally read terminfo
312 and termcap data from disk. You can configure ncurses to have a
313 built-in database, aka "fallback" entries. Embedded applications may
314 have no need for an external database. Some, but not all of the
315 programs are useful in this configuration, e.g., reset and tput versus
319 Do not install the terminal database. This is used to omit features
320 for packages, as done with --without-progs.
323 Disable function-extensions. Configure ncurses without the functions
324 that are not specified by XSI. See ncurses/modules for the exact
325 list of library modules that would be suppressed.
328 Compile without hashmap scrolling-optimization code. This algorithm is
331 --disable-home-terminfo
332 The $HOME/.terminfo directory is normally added to ncurses' search
333 list for reading/writing terminfo entries, since that directory is
334 more likely writable than the system terminfo database. Use this
335 option to disable the feature altogether.
338 Disable compiler flags needed to use large-file interfaces.
340 --disable-lib-suffixes
341 Suppress the "w", "t" or "tw" suffixes which normally would be added
342 to the library names for the --enable-widec and --with-pthread options.
344 --disable-libtool-version
345 when using --with-libtool, control how the major/minor version numbers
346 are used for constructing the library name.
348 The default uses the -version-number feature of libtool, which makes
349 the library names compatible (though not identical) with the standard
350 build using --with-shared.
352 Use --disable-libtool-version to use the libtool -version-info feature.
353 This corresponds to the setting used before patch 20100515.
356 For testing, compile-in code that frees memory that normally would not
357 be freed, to simplify analysis of memory-leaks.
359 Any implementation of curses must not free the memory associated with
360 a screen, since (even after calling endwin()), it must be available
361 for use in the next call to refresh(). There are also chunks of
362 memory held for performance reasons. That makes it hard to analyze
363 curses applications for memory leaks. To work around this, build
364 a debugging version of the ncurses library which frees those chunks
365 which it can, and provides the _nc_free_and_exit() function to free
366 the remainder on exit. The ncurses utility and test programs use this
367 feature, e.g., via the ExitProgram() macro.
370 The header files will ignore use of the _LP64 symbol to make chtype
371 and mmask_t types 32 bits (they may be long on 64-bit hosts, for
372 compatibility with older releases).
374 NOTE: this is potentially an ABI change, depending on existing
375 packages. The default for this option is "disabled" for ncurses
376 ABI 5, and "enabled" for ABI 6.
379 For testing, use functions rather than macros. The program will run
380 more slowly, but it is simpler to debug. This defines NCURSES_NOMACROS
381 at build time. See also the --enable-expanded option.
384 If you are installing ncurses on a system which contains another
385 development version of curses, or which could be confused by the loader
386 for another version, we recommend that you leave out the link to
387 -lcurses. The ncurses library is always available as -lncurses.
388 Disabling overwrite also causes the ncurses header files to be
389 installed into a subdirectory, e.g., /usr/local/include/ncurses,
390 rather than the include directory. This makes it simpler to avoid
391 compile-time conflicts with other versions of curses.h
394 If --enable-rpath is given, the generated makefiles normally will
395 rebuild the libraries during install. Use this option to simply
396 copy whatever the linked produced.
398 This option is ignored if --enable-rpath is not given.
400 --disable-root-environ
401 Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment variables
402 are not available when running as root, or via a setuid/setgid
403 application. These are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow the
404 search path for the terminfo or termcap entry to be customized.
407 Normally the configure script helps link libraries found in unusual
408 places by adding an rpath option to the link command. If you are
409 building packages, this feature may be redundant. Use this option
410 to suppress the feature.
412 --disable-scroll-hints
413 Compile without scroll-hints code. This option is ignored when
414 hashmap scrolling is configured, which is the default.
416 --disable-tic-depends
417 When building shared libraries, normally the tic library is linked to
418 depend upon the ncurses library (or equivalently, on the tinfo-library
419 if the --with-termlib option was given). The tic- and tinfo-library
420 ABIs do not depend on the --enable-widec option. Some packagers have
421 used this to reduce the number of library files which are packaged by
422 using only one copy of those libraries. To make this work properly,
423 the tic library must be built without an explicit dependency on the
424 underlying library (ncurses vs ncursesw, tinfo vs tinfow). Use this
425 configure option to do that.
427 configure --with-ticlib --with-shared --disable-tic-depends
429 --disable-tparm-varargs
430 Portable programs should call tparm() using the fixed-length parameter
431 list documented in X/Open. ncurses provides varargs support for this
432 function. Use --disable-tparm-varargs to disable this support.
435 For testing, compile-in assertion code. This is used only for a few
436 places where ncurses cannot easily recover by returning an error code.
438 --enable-broken_linker
439 A few platforms have what we consider a broken linker: it cannot link
440 objects from an archive solely by referring to data objects in those
441 files, but requires a function reference. This configure option
442 changes several data references to functions to work around this
445 NOTE: With ncurses 5.1, this may not be necessary, since we are
446 told that some linkers interpret uninitialized global data as a
447 different type of reference which behaves as described above. We have
448 explicitly initialized all of the global data to work around the
452 Recognize BSD-style prefix padding. Some ancient BSD programs (such as
453 nethack) call tputs("50") to implement delays.
456 Compile with experimental $COLORFGBG code. That environment variable
457 is set by some terminal emulators as a hint to applications, by
458 advertising the default foreground and background colors. During
459 initialization, ncurses sets color pair 0 to match this.
462 The curses interface as documented in XSI is rather old, in fact
463 including features that precede ANSI C. The prototypes generally do
464 not make effective use of "const". When using stricter compilers (or
465 gcc with appropriate warnings), you may see warnings about the mismatch
466 between const and non-const data. We provide a configure option which
467 changes the interfaces to use const - quieting these warnings and
468 reflecting the actual use of the parameters more closely. The ncurses
469 library uses the symbol NCURSES_CONST for these instances of const,
470 and if you have asked for compiler warnings, will add gcc's const-qual
471 warning. There will still be warnings due to subtle inconsistencies
472 in the interface, but at a lower level.
474 NOTE: configuring ncurses with this option may detract from the
475 portability of your applications by encouraging you to use const in
476 places where the XSI curses interface would not allow them. Similar
477 issues arise when porting to SVr4 curses, which uses const in even
481 Use the option --disable-echo to make the build-log less verbose by
482 suppressing the display of the compile and link commands. This makes
483 it easier to see the compiler warnings. (You can always use "make -n"
484 to see the options that are used).
487 For testing, generate functions for certain macros to make them visible
488 as such to the debugger. See also the --disable-macros option.
491 Extend the cchar_t structure to allow more than 16 colors to be
492 encoded. This applies only to the wide-character (--enable-widec)
495 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
496 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
497 applications which have an array of cchar_t's must be recompiled.
500 Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th mouse button.
501 That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel mouse with xterm or
502 similar X terminal emulators.
504 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
505 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
506 applications which have mouse mask mmask_t's must be recompiled.
509 Use the 4.4BSD getcap code if available, or a bundled version of it to
510 fetch termcap entries. Entries read in this way cannot use (make
511 cross-references to) the terminfo tree, but it is faster than reading
514 If configured for one of the *BSD systems, this automatically uses
515 the hashed database system produced using cap_mkdb or similar tools.
516 In that case, there is no advantage in using the --enable-getcap-cache
519 See also the --with-hashed-db option.
521 --enable-getcap-cache
522 Cache translated termcaps under the directory $HOME/.terminfo
524 NOTE: this sounds good - it makes ncurses run faster the second time.
525 But look where the data comes from - an /etc/termcap containing lots of
526 entries that are not up to date. If you configure with this option and
527 forget to install the terminfo database before running an ncurses
528 application, you will end up with a hidden terminfo database that
529 generally does not support color and will miss some function keys.
532 Compile-in cursor-optimization code that uses hard-tabs. We would make
533 this a standard feature except for the concern that the terminfo entry
534 may not be accurate, or that your stty settings have disabled the use
538 Compile-in experimental interop bindings. These provide generic types
539 for the form-library.
542 Controls whether the filesystem on which the terminfo database resides
543 supports mixed-case filenames (normal for UNIX, but not on other
544 systems). If you do not specify this option, the configure script
545 checks the current filesystem.
548 Compile-in support for the $NCURSES_NO_PADDING environment variable,
549 which allows you to suppress the effect of non-mandatory padding in
550 terminfo entries. This is the default, unless you have disabled the
554 If pkg-config is found (see --with-pkg-config), generate ".pc" files
555 for each of the libraries, and install them in pkg-config's library
558 --enable-pthreads-eintr
559 add logic in threaded configuration to ensure that a read(2) system
560 call can be interrupted for SIGWINCH.
563 Compile experimental configuration which improves reentrant use of the
564 library by reducing global and static variables. This option is also
565 set if --with-pthread is used.
567 Enabling this option adds a "t" to the library names, except for the
568 special case when --enable-weak-symbols is also used.
571 Use rpath option when generating shared libraries, and (with some
572 restrictions) when linking the corresponding programs. This originally
573 (in 1997) applied mainly to systems using the GNU linker (read the
576 More recently it is useful for systems that require special treatment
577 shared libraries in "unusual" locations. The "system" libraries reside
578 in directories which are on the loader's default search-path. While
579 you may be able to use workarounds such as the $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
580 environment variable, they do not work with setuid applications since
581 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable would be unset in that situation.
583 This option does not apply to --with-libtool, since libtool makes
584 extra assumptions about rpath.
586 --enable-safe-sprintf
587 Compile with experimental safe-sprintf code. You may consider using
588 this if you are building ncurses for a system that has neither
589 vsnprintf() or vsprintf(). It is slow, however.
592 Compile support for ncurses' SIGWINCH handler. If your application has
593 its own SIGWINCH handler, ncurses will not use its own. The ncurses
594 handler causes wgetch() to return KEY_RESIZE when the screen-size
595 changes. This option is the default, unless you have disabled the
599 The term.h header declares a Booleans[] array typed "char". But it
600 stores signed values there and "char" is not necessarily signed.
601 Some packagers choose to alter the type of Booleans[] though this
602 is not strictly compatible. This option allows one to implement this
603 alteration without patching the source code.
606 Compile-in support for extended functions which accept a SCREEN pointer,
607 reducing the need for juggling the global SP value with set_term() and
610 --enable-string-hacks
611 Controls whether strlcat and strlcpy may be used. The same issue
612 applies to OpenBSD's warnings about snprintf, noting that this function
613 is weakly standardized.
615 Aside from stifling these warnings, there is no functional improvement
619 If your system supports symbolic links, make tic use symbolic links
620 rather than hard links to save diskspace when writing aliases in the
624 Compile-in support for user-definable terminal capabilities. Use the
625 -x option of tic and infocmp to treat unrecognized terminal
626 capabilities as user-defined strings. This option is the default,
627 unless you have disabled the extended functions.
630 Enable experimental terminal-driver. This is currently used for the
631 MinGW port, by providing a way to substitute the low-level terminfo
632 library with different terminal drivers.
635 Compile in support for reading terminal descriptions from termcap if no
636 match is found in the terminfo database. See also the --enable-getcap
637 and --enable-getcap-cache options.
639 Termcap support requires run-time parsing rather than loading
640 predigested data. If you have specified --with-ticlib, then you
641 cannot have termcap support since run-time parsing is done in the
642 tic library, which is intentionally not part of normal linkage
646 Turn on GCC compiler warnings. There should be only a few.
648 --enable-weak-symbols
649 If the --with-pthread option is set, check if the compiler supports
650 weak-symbols. If it does, then name the thread-capable library without
651 the "t" (libncurses rather than libncursest), and provide for
652 dynamically loading the pthreads entrypoints at runtime. This allows
653 one to reduce the number of library files for ncurses.
655 --enable-wgetch-events
656 Compile with experimental wgetch-events code. See ncurses/README.IZ
659 Compile with wide-character code. This makes a different version of
660 the libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so), which stores characters as
663 NOTE: applications compiled with this configuration are not compatible
664 with those built for 8-bit characters. You cannot simply make a
665 symbolic link to equate libncurses.so with libncursesw.so
667 NOTE: the Ada95 binding may be built against either version of the the
668 ncurses library, but you must decide which: the binding installs the
669 same set of files for either version. Currently (2002/6/22) it does
670 not use the extended features from the wide-character code, so it is
671 probably better to not install the binding for that configuration.
674 Compile-in support experimental xmc (magic cookie) code.
676 --with-abi-version=NUM
677 Override the ABI version, which is used in shared library filenames.
678 Normally this is the same as the release version; some ports have
679 special requirements for compatibility.
681 This option does not affect linking with libtool, which uses the
682 release major/minor numbers.
684 --with-ada-compiler=CMD
685 Specify the Ada95 compiler command (default "gnatmake")
687 --with-ada-include=DIR
688 Tell where to install the Ada includes (default:
689 PREFIX/lib/ada/adainclude)
691 --with-ada-objects=DIR
692 Tell where to install the Ada objects (default: PREFIX/lib/ada/adalib)
695 Build a shared library for Ada95 binding, if the compiler permits.
697 NOTE: You must also set the --with-shared option on some platforms
698 for a successful build. You need not use this option when you set
699 --with-shared, unless you want to use the Ada shared library.
702 If --without-cxx is specified, override the type used for the "bool"
703 declared in curses.h (normally the type is automatically chosen to
704 correspond with that in <stdbool.h>, or defaults to platform-specific
708 This option is provided by the same macro used for $BUILD_CC, etc.,
709 but is not directly used by ncurses.
712 If cross-compiling, specify a host C compiler, which is needed to
713 compile a few utilities which generate source modules for ncurses.
714 If you do not give this option, the configure script checks if the
715 $BUILD_CC variable is set, and otherwise defaults to gcc or cc.
717 --with-build-cflags=XXX
718 If cross-compiling, specify the host C compiler-flags. You might need
719 to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse the
722 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_CFLAGS rather than
725 --with-build-cppflags=XXX
726 If cross-compiling, specify the host C preprocessor-flags. You might
727 need to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse
730 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_CPPFLAGS rather than
733 --with-build-ldflags=XXX
734 If cross-compiling, specify the host linker-flags. You might need to
735 do this if the target linker has unusual flags which confuse the host
738 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_LDFLAGS rather than
741 --with-build-libs=XXX
742 If cross-compiling, the host libraries. You might need to do this if
743 the target environment requires unusual libraries.
745 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_LIBS rather than
749 Specify an alternate terminfo capabilities file, which makes the
750 configure script look for "include/Caps.XXX". A few systems, e.g.,
751 AIX 4.x use the same overall file-format as ncurses for terminfo
752 data, but use different alignments within the tables to support
753 legacy applications. For those systems, you can configure ncurses
754 to use a terminfo database which is compatible with the native
757 --with-ccharw-max=XXX
758 Override the size of the wide-character array in cchar_t structures.
759 Changing this will alter the binary interface. This defaults to 5.
762 Override type of chtype, which stores the video attributes and (if
763 --enable-widec is not given) a character. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this
764 was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it may be unsigned.
765 Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility with 64-bit
766 executables, e.g., by setting "--with-chtype=long" (the configure
767 script supplies "unsigned").
770 When --with-shared is set, build libncurses++ as a shared library.
771 This implicitly relies upon building with gcc/g++, since other
772 compiler suites may have differences in the way shared libraries are
773 built. libtool by the way has similar limitations.
776 Specify the terminfo source file to install. Usually you will wish
777 to install ncurses' default (misc/terminfo.src). Certain systems
778 have special requirements, e.g, OS/2 EMX has a customized terminfo
782 For testing, compile and link with Conor Cahill's dbmalloc library.
783 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
786 Generate debug-libraries (default). These are named by adding "_g"
787 to the root, e.g., libncurses_g.a
789 --with-default-terminfo-dir=XXX
790 Specify the default terminfo database directory. This is normally
791 DATADIR/terminfo, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo.
794 For testing, compile and link with Gray Watson's dmalloc library.
795 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
798 Specify a list of fallback terminal descriptions which will be
799 compiled into the ncurses library. See CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES.
802 use Alessandro Rubini's GPM library to provide mouse support on the
803 Linux console. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this introduced a dependency on
806 Currently ncurses uses the dlsym() function to bind to the library at
807 runtime, so it is only necessary that the library be present when
808 ncurses is built, to obtain the filename (or soname) used in the
809 corresponding dlopen() call. If you give a value for this option,
812 --with-gpm=$HOME/tmp/test-gpm.so
814 that overrides the configure check for the soname.
816 See also --without-dlsym
818 --with-hashed-db[=XXX]
819 Use a hashed database for storing terminfo data rather than storing
820 each compiled entry in a separate binary file within a directory
823 In particular, this uses the Berkeley database 1.8.5 interface, as
824 provided by that and its successors db 2, 3, and 4. The actual
825 interface is slightly different in the successor versions of the
826 Berkeley database. The database should have been configured using
827 "--enable-compat185".
829 If you use this option for configuring ncurses, tic will only be able
830 to write entries in the hashed database. infocmp can still read
831 entries from a directory tree as well as reading entries from the
832 hashed database. To do this, infocmp determines whether the $TERMINFO
833 variable points to a directory or a file, and reads the directory-tree
834 or hashed database respectively.
836 You cannot have a directory containing both hashed-database and
837 filesystem-based terminfo entries.
839 Use the parameter value to give the install-prefix used for the
841 --with-hashed-db=/usr/local/BigBase
842 to find the corresponding include- and lib-directories under the
843 given directory. Alternatively, you can specify a directory leaf
846 to make the configure script look for files in a subdirectory such as
847 /usr/include/db4/db.h
848 /usr/lib/db4/libdb.so
850 See also the --enable-getcap option.
852 --with-install-prefix=XXX
853 Allows you to specify an alternate location for installing ncurses
854 after building it. The value you specify is prepended to the "real"
855 install location. This simplifies making binary packages. The
856 makefile variable DESTDIR is set by this option. It is also possible
858 make install DESTDIR=XXX
859 since the makefiles pass that variable to subordinate makes.
861 NOTE: a few systems build shared libraries with fixed pathnames; this
862 option probably will not work for those configurations.
864 --with-lib-prefix=XXX
865 OS/2 EMX used a different naming convention from most Unix-like
866 platforms. It required that the "lib" part of a library name was
867 omitted. Newer EMX as part of eComStation does not follow that
868 convention. Use this option to override the configure script's
869 assumptions about the library-prefix. If this option is omitted, it
870 uses the original OS/2 EMX convention for that platform. Use
871 "--with-lib-prefix=lib" for the newer EMX in eComStation. Use
872 "--without-lib-prefix" to suppress it for other odd platforms.
875 Generate libraries with libtool. If this option is selected, then it
876 overrides all other library model specifications. Note that libtool
877 must already be installed, uses makefile rules dependent on GNU make,
878 and does not promise to follow the version numbering convention of
879 other shared libraries on your system. However, if the --with-shared
880 option does not succeed, you may get better results with this option.
882 If a parameter value is given, it must be the full pathname of the
883 particular version of libtool, e.g.,
884 /usr/bin/libtool-1.2.3
886 It is possible to rebuild the configure script to use the automake
887 macros for libtool, e.g., AC_PROG_LIBTOOL. See the comments in
888 aclocal.m4 for CF_PROG_LIBTOOL, and ensure that you build configure
889 using the appropriate patch for autoconf from
890 http://invisible-island.net/autoconf/
892 --with-manpage-aliases
893 Tell the configure script you wish to create entries in the
894 man-directory for aliases to manpages which list them, e.g., the
895 functions in the panel manpage. This is the default. You can disable
896 it if your man program does this. You can also disable
897 --with-manpage-symlinks to install files containing a ".so" command
898 rather than symbolic links.
900 --with-manpage-format=XXX
901 Tell the configure script how you would like to install man-pages. The
902 option value must be one of these: gzip, compress, BSDI, normal,
903 formatted. If you do not give this option, the configure script
904 attempts to determine which is the case.
906 --with-manpage-renames=XXX
907 Tell the configure script that you wish to rename the manpages while
908 installing. Currently the only distribution which does this is Debian.
909 The option value specifies the name of a file that lists the renamed
910 files, e.g., $srcdir/man/man_db.renames
912 --with-manpage-symlinks
913 Tell the configure script that you wish to make symbolic links in the
914 man-directory for aliases to the man-pages. This is the default, but
915 can be disabled for systems that provide this automatically. Doing
916 this on systems that do not support symbolic links will result in
917 copying the man-page for each alias.
920 Tell the configure script that you with to preprocess the manpages
921 by running them through tbl to generate tables understandable by
925 Override type of mmask_t, which stores the mouse mask. Prior to
926 ncurses 5.5, this was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it
927 may be unsigned. Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility
928 with 64-bit executables.
931 Generate normal (i.e., static) libraries (default).
933 Note: on Linux, the configure script will attempt to use the GPM
934 library via the dlsym() function call. Use --without-dlsym to disable
935 this feature, or --without-gpm, depending on whether you wish to use
939 Override type of ospeed variable, which is part of the termcap
940 compatibility interface. In termcap, this is a 'short', which works
941 for a wide range of baudrates because ospeed is not the actual speed
942 but the encoded value, e.g., B9600 would be a small number such as 13.
943 However the encoding scheme originally allowed for values "only" up to
944 38400bd. A newer set of definitions past 38400bd is not encoded as
945 compactly, and is not guaranteed to fit into a short (see the function
946 cfgetospeed(), which returns a speed_t for this reason). In practice,
947 applications that required knowledge of the ospeed variable, i.e.,
948 those using termcap, do not use the higher speeds. Your application
949 (or system, in general) may or may not.
951 --with-pkg-config=[DIR]
952 Check for pkg-config, optionally specifying its path.
954 --with-pkg-config-libdir=[DIR]
955 If pkg-config was found, override the automatic check for its library
959 Generate profile-libraries These are named by adding "_p" to the root,
963 Link with POSIX threads, set --enable-reentrant. The use_window() and
964 use_screen() functions will use mutex's, allowing rudimentary support
965 for multithreaded applications.
968 Compile-in RCS identifiers. Most of the C files have an identifier.
970 --with-rel-version=NUM
971 Override the release version, which may be used in shared library
972 filenames. This consists of a major and minor version number separated
973 by ".". Normally the major version number is the same as the ABI
974 version; some ports have special requirements for compatibility.
977 Generate shared-libraries. The names given depend on the system for
978 which you are building, typically using a ".so" suffix, along with
979 symbolic links that refer to the release version.
981 NOTE: Unless you override the configure script by setting the $CFLAGS
982 environment variable, these will not be built with the -g debugging
985 NOTE: For some configurations, e.g., installing a new version of
986 ncurses shared libraries on a machine which already has ncurses
987 shared libraries, you may encounter problems with the linker.
988 For example, it may prevent you from running the build tree's
989 copy of tic (for installing the terminfo database) because it
990 loads the system's copy of the ncurses shared libraries. In that
991 case, using the misc/shlib script may be helpful, since it sets
992 $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the build tree, e.g.,
993 ./misc/shlib make install
995 NOTE: If you use the --with-ada-sharedlib option, you should also
996 set this option, to ensure that C-language modules needed for the
997 Ada binding use appropriate compiler options.
999 --with-shlib-version=XXX
1000 Specify whether to use the release or ABI version for shared libraries.
1001 This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of system
1002 which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure script.
1005 use FreeBSD sysmouse interface provide mouse support on the console.
1007 --with-system-type=XXX
1008 For testing, override the derived host system-type which is used to
1009 decide things such as the linker commands used to build shared
1010 libraries. This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of
1011 system which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure
1014 --with-terminfo-dirs=XXX
1015 Specify a search-list of terminfo directories which will be compiled
1016 into the ncurses library (default: DATADIR/terminfo)
1018 --with-termlib[=XXX]
1019 When building the ncurses library, organize this as two parts: the
1020 curses library (libncurses) and the low-level terminfo library
1021 (libtinfo). This is done to accommodate applications that use only
1022 the latter. The terminfo library is about half the size of the total.
1024 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the terminfo
1025 library. For instance, if the wide-character version is built, the
1026 terminfo library would be named libtinfow. But the libtinfow interface
1027 is upward compatible from libtinfo, so it would be possible to overlay
1028 libtinfo.so with a "wide" version of libtinfow.so by renaming it with
1032 Specify a search-list of termcap files which will be compiled into the
1033 ncurses library (default: /etc/termcap:/usr/share/misc/termcap)
1036 When building the ncurses library, build a separate library for
1037 the modules that are used only by the utility programs. Normally
1038 those would be bundled with the termlib or ncurses libraries.
1040 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the tic
1041 library. As in termlib, there is no ABI difference between the
1042 "wide" libticw.so and libtic.so
1044 NOTE: Overriding the name of the tic library may be useful if you are
1045 also using the --with-termlib option to rename libtinfo. If you are
1046 not doing that, renaming the tic library can result in conflicting
1047 library dependencies for tic and other programs built with the tic
1050 --with-tparm-arg[=XXX]
1051 Override the type used for tparm() arguments, which normally is a
1052 "long". However the function must assume that its arguments can hold a
1053 pointer to char's which is not always workable for 64-bit platforms. A
1054 better choice would be intptr_t, which was not available at the time
1055 tparm's interface was defined.
1057 If the option is not given, this defaults to "long".
1060 Configure the trace() function as part of the all models of the ncurses
1061 library. Normally it is part of the debug (libncurses_g) library only.
1063 --with-xterm-kbs=XXX
1064 Configure xterm's terminfo entries to use either BS (^H, i.e., ASCII
1065 backspace) or DEL (^?, or 127). XXX can be BS (or bs, 8) or DEL
1068 During installation, the makefile and scripts modifies the "xterm+kbs"
1069 terminfo entry to use this setting.
1072 For testing, compile with debug option.
1073 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
1075 --with-wrap-prefix=XXX
1076 When using the --enable-reentrant option, ncurses redefines variables
1077 that would be global in curses, e.g., LINES, as a macro that calls a
1078 "wrapping" function which fetches the data from the current SCREEN
1079 structure. Normally that function is named by prepending "_nc_" to the
1080 variable's name. The function is technically private (since portable
1081 applications would not refer directly to it). But according to one
1082 line of reasoning, it is not the same type of "private" as functions
1083 which applications should not call even via a macro. This configure
1084 option lets you choose the prefix for these wrapped variables.
1087 Suppress the configure script's check for Ada95, do not build the
1088 Ada95 binding and related demo.
1091 Don't install the ncurses header with the name "curses.h". Rather,
1092 install as "ncurses.h" and modify the installed headers and manpages
1095 Likewise, do not install an alias "curses" for the ncurses manpage.
1098 XSI curses declares "bool" as part of the interface. C++ also declares
1099 "bool". Neither specifies the size and type of booleans, but both
1100 insist on the same name. We chose to accommodate this by making the
1101 configure script check for the size and type (e.g., unsigned or signed)
1102 that your C++ compiler uses for booleans. If you do not wish to use
1103 ncurses with C++, use this option to tell the configure script to not
1104 adjust ncurses bool to match C++.
1106 --without-cxx-binding
1107 Suppress the configure script's check for C++, do not build the
1108 C++ binding and related demo.
1111 Disable development options. This does not include those that change
1112 the interface, such as --enable-widec.
1115 Do not use dlsym() to load GPM dynamically.
1118 Tell the configure script to suppress the install of ncurses' manpages.
1121 Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' application
1122 programs (e.g., tic). The test applications will still be built if you
1123 type "make", though not if you simply do "make install".
1126 Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' test
1130 Tell the configure script to use "xterm-old" for the entry used in
1131 the terminfo database. This will work with variations such as
1132 X11R5 and X11R6 xterm.
1135 COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER VERSIONS OF NCURSES:
1136 --------------------------------------------
1138 Because ncurses implements the X/Open Curses Specification, its interface
1139 is fairly stable. That does not mean the interface does not change.
1140 Changes are made to the documented interfaces when we find differences
1141 between ncurses and X/Open or implementations which they certify (such as
1142 Solaris). We add extensions to those interfaces to solve problems not
1143 addressed by the original curses design, but those must not conflict with
1144 the X/Open documentation.
1146 Here are some of the major interface changes, and related problems which
1147 you may encounter when building a system with different versions of
1153 + add an alternate library configuration, i.e., "terminal driver" to
1154 support port to Windows, built with MinGW. There are two drivers
1155 (terminfo and Windows console). The terminfo driver works on other
1158 + add a new set of functions which accept a SCREEN* parameter, in
1159 contrast with the original set which use the global value "sp".
1160 By default, these names end with "_sp", and are otherwise
1161 functionally identical with the originals.
1163 In addition to the "_sp" functions, there are a few new functions
1164 associated with this feature: ceiling_panel, ground_panel,
1167 If the library is not built with the sp-funcs extension, there
1168 are no related interface changes.
1170 + add tiparm function based on review of X/Open Curses Issue 7.
1172 + change internal _nc_has_mouse function to public has_mouse function
1176 + add a few more functions to support the NCURSES_OPAQUE feature:
1177 get_escdelay, is_pad, is_subwin
1179 Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants):
1188 _nc_retrace_int_attr_t
1194 Removed internal functions:
1195 _nc_makenew (some configurations replace by _nc_makenew_sp)
1197 Modified internal functions:
1204 5.7 (November 2, 2008)
1207 + generate linkable stubs for some macros:
1210 + Add new library configuration for tic-library (the non-curses portion
1211 of the ncurses library used for the tic program as well as some
1212 others such as tack. There is no API change, but makefiles would be
1213 changed to use the tic-library built separately.
1215 tack, distributed separately from ncurses, uses some of the internal
1216 _nc_XXX functions, which are declared in the tic.h header file.
1218 The reason for providing this separate library is that none of the
1219 functions in it are suitable for threaded applications.
1221 + Add new library configuration (ncursest, ncurseswt) which provides
1222 rudimentary support for POSIX threads. This introduces opaque
1223 access functions to the WINDOW structure and adds a parameter to
1224 several internal functions.
1226 + move most internal variables (except tic-library) into data blocks
1227 _nc_globals and _nc_prescreen to simplify analysis. Those were
1228 globally accessible, but since they were not part of the documented
1229 API, there is no ABI change.
1231 + changed static tables of strings to be indices into long strings, to
1232 improve startup performance. This changes parameter lists for some
1233 of the internal functions.
1237 + add NCURSES_OPAQUE definition in curses.h to control whether internal
1238 details of the WINDOW structure are visible to an application. This
1239 is always defined when the threaded library is built, and is optional
1240 otherwise. New functions for this: is_cleared, is_idcok, is_idlok,
1241 is_immedok, is_keypad, is_leaveok, is_nodelay, is_notimeout,
1242 is_scrollok, is_syncok, wgetparent and wgetscrreg.
1244 + the threaded library (ncursest) also disallows direct updating of
1245 global curses-level variables, providing functions (via macros) for
1246 obtaining their value. A few of those variables can be modified by
1247 the application, using new functions: set_escdelay, set_tabsize
1249 + added functions use_window() and use_screen() which wrap a mutex
1250 (if threading is configured) around a call to a user-supplied
1253 Added internal functions:
1264 These are used for leak-testing, and are stubs for
1265 ABI compatibility when ncurses is not configured for that
1266 using the --disable-leaks configure script option:
1271 Removed internal functions:
1274 Modified internal functions:
1280 _nc_locale_breaks_acs
1282 _nc_update_screensize
1284 Use new typedef TRIES to replace "struct tries":
1292 5.6 (December 17, 2006)
1295 + generate linkable stubs for some macros:
1297 getbegx, getbegy, getcurx, getcury, getmaxx, getmaxy, getparx,
1300 and (for libncursesw)
1308 Added internal functions:
1322 Also (if using the hashed database configuration):
1337 Removed internal functions:
1340 Modified internal functions:
1347 5.5 (October 10, 2005)
1350 + terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
1351 "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
1353 + terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
1354 still use ncurses 4.2).
1356 + modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing
1357 initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are
1358 still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old
1361 + form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data.
1362 Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the
1363 FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw, since
1364 that no longer points to an array of char. The set_field_buffer()
1365 and field_buffer() functions translate to/from the actual field
1368 + change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure that
1369 libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason for this
1370 is that the corresponding data which belongs to the upper-level
1371 ncurses library has a different size in each model.
1373 + winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
1374 wide-character configuration.
1376 + assume_default_colors() no longer requires that use_default_colors()
1379 + data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
1381 + slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
1382 multicolumn characters.
1384 + start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started.
1385 start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
1387 + pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if it
1388 corresponds to the default-color.
1390 + unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond
1391 to an unsigned char.
1394 Experimental mouse version 2 supports wheel mice with buttons
1395 4 and 5. This requires ABI 6 because it modifies the encoding
1398 Experimental extended colors allows encoding of 256 foreground
1399 and background colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
1400 xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6 because
1401 it changes the size of cchar_t.
1403 Added internal functions:
1407 _nc_retrace_cvoid_ptr
1408 _nc_retrace_void_ptr
1411 Removed internal functions:
1414 Modified internal functions:
1419 5.4 (February 8, 2004)
1422 + add the remaining functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1423 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1424 --enable-widec option.
1428 + write getyx() and related 2-return macros in terms of getcury(),
1431 + simplify ifdef for bool declaration in curses.h
1433 + modify ifdef's in curses.h that disabled use of __attribute__() for
1434 g++, since recent versions implement the cases which ncurses uses.
1436 + change some interfaces to use const:
1448 Added internal functions:
1451 _nc_is_charable() wide
1452 _nc_locale_breaks_acs()
1455 _nc_to_widechar() wide
1457 _nc_trace_bufcat() debug
1458 _nc_unicode_locale()
1460 Removed internal functions:
1464 Modified internal functions:
1466 _nc_retrace_chtype()
1468 5.3 (October 12, 2002)
1471 + change type for bool used in headers to NCURSES_BOOL, which usually
1472 is the same as the compiler's definition for 'bool'.
1474 + add all but two functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1475 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1476 --enable-widec option. Missing functions are
1480 + add environment variable $NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS to modify the
1481 assume_default_colors() extension.
1487 Added internal functions:
1488 _nc_altcharset_name() debug
1490 _nc_retrace_bool() debug
1491 _nc_retrace_unsigned() debug
1493 _nc_trace_ttymode() debug
1498 Removed internal functions:
1501 Modified internal functions:
1504 5.2 (October 21, 2000)
1507 + revert termcap ospeed variable to 'short' (see discussion of the
1508 --with-ospeed configure option).
1513 + made the extended terminal capabilities
1514 (configure --enable-tcap-names) a standard feature. This should
1515 be transparent to applications that do not require it.
1517 + removed the trace() function and related trace support from the
1520 + modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict
1523 Added extensions: assume_default_colors().
1525 5.0 (October 23, 1999)
1528 + implemented the wcolor_set() and slk_color() functions.
1530 + move macro winch to a function, to hide details of struct ldat
1532 + corrected prototypes for slk_* functions, using chtype rather than
1535 + the slk_attr_{set,off,on} functions need an additional void*
1536 parameter according to XSI.
1538 + modified several prototypes to correspond with 1997 version of X/Open
1539 Curses: [w]attr_get(), [w]attr_set(), border_set() have different
1540 parameters. Some functions were renamed or misspelled:
1541 erase_wchar(), in_wchntr(), mvin_wchntr(). Some developers have used
1544 Added extensions: keybound(), curses_version().
1546 Terminfo database changes:
1548 + change translation for termcap 'rs' to terminfo 'rs2', which is
1549 the documented equivalent, rather than 'rs1'.
1551 The problems are subtler in recent releases.
1553 a) This release provides users with the ability to define their own
1554 terminal capability extensions, like termcap. To accomplish this,
1555 we redesigned the TERMTYPE struct (in term.h). Very few
1556 applications use this struct. They must be recompiled to work with
1559 a) If you use the extended terminfo names (i.e., you used configure
1560 --enable-tcap-names), the resulting terminfo database can have some
1561 entries which are not readable by older versions of ncurses. This
1562 is a bug in the older versions:
1564 + the terminfo database stores booleans, numbers and strings in
1565 arrays. The capabilities that are listed in the arrays are
1566 specified by X/Open. ncurses recognizes a number of obsolete and
1567 extended names which are stored past the end of the specified
1570 + a change to read_entry.c in 951001 made the library do an lseek()
1571 call incorrectly skipping data which is already read from the
1572 string array. This happens when the number of strings in the
1573 terminfo data file is greater than STRCOUNT, the number of
1574 specified and obsolete or extended strings.
1576 + as part of alignment with the X/Open final specification, in the
1577 990109 patch we added two new terminfo capabilities:
1578 set_a_attributes and set_pglen_inch). This makes the indices for
1579 the obsolete and extended capabilities shift up by 2.
1581 + the last two capabilities in the obsolete/extended list are memu
1582 and meml, which are found in most terminfo descriptions for xterm.
1584 When trying to read this terminfo entry, the spurious lseek()
1585 causes the library to attempt to read the final portion of the
1586 terminfo data (the text of the string capabilities) 4 characters
1587 past its starting point, and reads 4 characters too few. The
1588 library rejects the data, and applications are unable to
1589 initialize that terminal type.
1591 FIX: remove memu and meml from the xterm description. They are
1592 obsolete, not used by ncurses. (It appears that the feature was
1593 added to xterm to make it more like hpterm).
1595 This is not a problem if you do not use the -x option of tic to
1596 create a terminfo database with extended names. Note that the
1597 user-defined terminal capabilities are not affected by this bug,
1598 since they are stored in a table after the older terminfo data ends,
1599 and are invisible to the older libraries.
1601 c) Some developers did not wish to use the C++ binding, and used the
1602 configure --without-cxx option. This causes problems if someone
1603 uses the ncurses library from C++ because that configure test
1604 determines the type for C++'s bool and makes ncurses match it, since
1605 both C++ and curses are specified to declare bool. Calling ncurses
1606 functions with the incorrect type for bool will cause execution
1607 errors. In 5.0 we added a configure option "--without-cxx-binding"
1608 which controls whether the binding itself is built and installed.
1613 + correct prototype for termattrs() as per XPG4 version 2.
1615 + add placeholder prototypes for color_set(), erasewchar(),
1616 term_attrs(), wcolor_set() as per XPG4 version 2.
1618 + add macros getcur[xy] getbeg[xy] getpar[xy], which are defined in
1621 New extensions: keyok() and define_key().
1623 Terminfo database changes:
1625 + corrected definition in curses.h for ACS_LANTERN, which was 'I'
1630 We added these extensions: use_default_colors(). Also added
1631 configure option --enable-const, to support the use of const where
1632 X/Open should have, but did not, specify.
1634 The terminfo database content changed the representation of color for
1635 most entries that use ANSI colors. SVr4 curses treats the setaf/setab
1636 and setf/setb capabilities differently, interchanging the red/blue
1637 colors in the latter.
1639 4.0 (December 24, 1996)
1641 We bumped to version 4.0 because the newly released Linux dynamic
1642 loader (ld.so.1.8.5) did not load shared libraries whose ABI and REL
1643 versions were inconsistent. At that point, ncurses ABI was 3.4 and the
1644 REL was 1.9.9g, so we made them consistent.
1646 1.9.9g (December 1, 1996)
1648 This fixed most of the problems with 1.9.9e, and made these interface
1651 + remove tparam(), which had been provided for compatibility with
1652 some termcap. tparm() is standard, and does not conflict with
1653 application's fallback for missing tparam().
1655 + turn off hardware echo in initscr(). This changes the sense of the
1656 echo() function, which was initialized to echoing rather than
1657 nonechoing (the latter is specified). There were several other
1658 corrections to the terminal I/O settings which cause applications to
1661 + implemented several functions (such as attr_on()) which were
1662 available only as macros.
1664 + corrected several typos in curses.h.in (i.e., the mvXXXX macros).
1666 + corrected prototypes for delay_output(),
1667 has_color, immedok() and idcok().
1669 + corrected misspelled getbkgd(). Some applications used the
1672 + added _yoffset to WINDOW. The size of WINDOW does not impact
1673 applications, since they use only pointers to WINDOW structs.
1675 These changes were made to the terminfo database:
1677 + removed boolean 'getm' which was available as an extended name.
1679 We added these extensions: wresize(), resizeterm(), has_key() and
1682 1.9.9e (March 24, 1996)
1684 not recommended (a last-minute/untested change left the forms and
1685 menus libraries unusable since they do not repaint the screen).
1686 Foreground/background colors are combined incorrectly, working properly
1687 only on a black background. When this was released, the X/Open
1688 specification was available only in draft form.
1690 Some applications (such as lxdialog) were "fixed" to work with the
1691 incorrect color scheme.
1694 IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR:
1695 ------------------------------
1697 Configuration and Installation:
1699 On platforms where ncurses is assumed to be installed in /usr/lib,
1700 the configure script uses "/usr" as a default:
1702 GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Cygwin
1704 For other platforms, the default is "/usr/local". See the discussion
1705 of the "--disable-overwrite" option.
1707 The location of the terminfo is set indirectly by the "--datadir"
1708 configure option, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo, given a datadir of
1709 /usr/share. You may want to override this if you are installing
1710 ncurses libraries in nonstandard locations, but wish to share the
1713 Normally the ncurses library is configured in a pure-terminfo mode;
1714 that is, with the --disable-termcap option. This makes the ncurses
1715 library smaller and faster. The ncurses library includes a termcap
1716 emulation that queries the terminfo database, so even applications that
1717 use raw termcap to query terminal characteristics will win (providing
1718 you recompile and relink them!).
1720 If you must configure with termcap fallback enabled, you may also wish
1721 to use the --enable-getcap option. This speeds up termcap-based
1722 startups, at the expense of not allowing personal termcap entries to
1723 reference the terminfo tree. See comments in
1724 ncurses/tinfo/read_termcap.c for further details.
1726 Note that if you have $TERMCAP set, ncurses will use that value
1727 to locate termcap data. In particular, running from xterm will
1728 set $TERMCAP to the contents of the xterm's termcap entry.
1729 If ncurses sees that, it will not examine /etc/termcap.
1733 The terminfo file assumes that Shift-Tab generates \E[Z (the ECMA-48
1734 reverse-tabulation sequence) rather than ^I. Here are the loadkeys -d
1735 mappings that will set this up:
1737 keycode 15 = Tab Tab
1738 alt keycode 15 = Meta_Tab
1739 shift keycode 15 = F26
1740 string F26 ="\033[Z"
1742 Naming the Console Terminal
1744 In various systems there has been a practice of designating the system
1745 console driver type as `console'. Please do not do this! It
1746 complicates peoples' lives, because it can mean that several different
1747 terminfo entries from different operating systems all logically want to
1748 be called `console'.
1750 Please pick a name unique to your console driver and set that up
1751 in the /etc/inittab table or local equivalent. Send the entry to the
1752 terminfo maintainer (listed in the misc/terminfo file) to be included
1753 in the terminfo file, if it's not already there. See the
1754 term(7) manual page included with this distribution for more on
1755 conventions for choosing type names.
1757 Here are some recommended primary console names:
1759 linux -- Linux console driver
1764 If you are responsible for integrating ncurses for one of these
1765 distributions, please either use the recommended name or get back
1766 to us explaining why you don't want to, so we can work out nomenclature
1767 that will make users' lives easier rather than harder.
1770 RECENT XTERM VERSIONS:
1771 ---------------------
1773 The terminfo database file included with this distribution assumes you
1774 are running a modern xterm based on XFree86 (i.e., xterm-new). The
1775 earlier X11R6 entry (xterm-r6) and X11R5 entry (xterm-r5) is provided
1776 as well. See the --without-xterm-new configure script option if you
1777 are unable to update your system.
1780 CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES:
1781 ----------------------------
1783 In order to support operation of ncurses programs before the terminfo
1784 tree is accessible (that is, in single-user mode or at OS installation
1785 time) the ncurses library can be compiled to include an array of
1786 pre-fetched fallback entries. This must be done on a machine which
1787 has ncurses' infocmp and terminfo database installed (as well as
1788 ncurses' tic and infocmp programs).
1790 These entries are checked by setupterm() only when the conventional
1791 fetches from the terminfo tree and the termcap fallback (if configured)
1792 have been tried and failed. Thus, the presence of a fallback will not
1793 shadow modifications to the on-disk entry for the same type, when that
1794 entry is accessible.
1796 By default, there are no entries on the fallback list. After you have
1797 built the ncurses suite for the first time, you can change the list
1798 (the process needs infocmp(1)). To do so, use the script
1799 ncurses/tinfo/MKfallback.sh. The configure script option
1800 --with-fallbacks does this (it accepts a comma-separated list of the
1801 names you wish, and does not require a rebuild).
1803 If you wanted (say) to have linux, vt100, and xterm fallbacks, you
1804 might use the commands
1807 tinfo/MKfallback.sh \
1809 ../misc/terminfo.src \
1811 linux vt100 xterm >fallback.c
1813 The first three parameters of the script are normally supplied by
1814 the configured makefiles via the "--with-fallbacks" option. They
1817 1) the location of the terminfo database
1818 2) the source for the terminfo entries
1819 3) the location of the tic program, used to create a terminfo
1822 Then just rebuild and reinstall the library as you would normally.
1823 You can restore the default empty fallback list with
1825 tinfo/MKfallback.sh \
1827 ../misc/terminfo.src \
1831 The overhead for an empty fallback list is one trivial stub function.
1832 Any non-empty fallback list is const-ed and therefore lives in sharable
1833 text space. You can look at the comment trailing each initializer in
1834 the generated ncurses/fallback.c file to see the core cost of the
1835 fallbacks. A good rule of thumb for modern vt100-like entries is that
1836 each one will cost about 2.5K of text space.
1839 BSD CONVERSION NOTES:
1840 --------------------
1842 If you need to support really ancient BSD programs, you probably
1843 want to configure with the --enable-bsdpad option. What this does
1844 is enable code in tputs() that recognizes a numeric prefix on a
1845 capability as a request for that much trailing padding in milliseconds.
1846 There are old BSD programs that do things like tputs("50").
1848 (If you are distributing ncurses as a support-library component of
1849 an application you probably want to put the remainder of this section
1850 in the package README file.)
1852 The following note applies only if you have configured ncurses with
1855 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
1857 If you are installing this application privately (either because you
1858 have no root access or want to experiment with it before doing a root
1859 installation), there are a couple of details you need to be aware of.
1860 They have to do with the ncurses library, which uses terminfo rather
1861 than termcap for describing terminal characteristics.
1863 Though the ncurses library is terminfo-based, it will interpret your
1864 TERMCAP variable (if present), any local termcap files you reference
1865 through it, and the system termcap file. However, in order to avoid
1866 slowing down your application startup, it will only do this once per
1869 The first time you load a given terminal type from your termcap
1870 database, the library initialization code will automatically write it
1871 in terminfo format to a subdirectory under $HOME/.terminfo. After
1872 that, the initialization code will find it there and do a (much
1873 faster) terminfo fetch.
1875 Usually, all this means is that your home directory will silently grow
1876 an invisible .terminfo subdirectory which will get filled in with
1877 terminfo descriptions of terminal types as you invoke them. If anyone
1878 ever installs a global terminfo tree on your system, this will quietly
1879 stop happening and your $HOME/.terminfo will become redundant.
1881 The objective of all this logic is to make converting from BSD termcap
1882 as painless as possible without slowing down your application (termcap
1883 compilation is expensive).
1885 If you don't have a TERMCAP variable or custom personal termcap file,
1886 you can skip the rest of this dissertation.
1888 If you *do* have a TERMCAP variable and/or a custom personal termcap file
1889 that defines a terminal type, that definition will stop being visible
1890 to this application after the first time you run it, because it will
1891 instead see the terminfo entry that it wrote to $HOME/terminfo the
1894 Subsequently, editing the TERMCAP variable or personal TERMCAP file
1895 will have no effect unless you explicitly remove the terminfo entry
1896 under $HOME/terminfo. If you do that, the entry will be recompiled
1897 from your termcap resources the next time it is invoked.
1899 To avoid these complications, use infocmp(1) and tic(1) to edit the
1900 terminfo directory directly.
1902 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
1904 USING NCURSES WITH AFS:
1905 AFS treats each directory as a separate logical filesystem, you
1906 can't hard-link across them. The --enable-symlinks option copes
1907 with this by making tic use symbolic links.
1909 USING NCURSES WITH GPM:
1910 Ncurses 4.1 and up can be configured to use GPM (General Purpose Mouse)
1911 which is used with Linux console. Be aware that GPM is commonly
1912 installed as a shared library which contains a wrapper for the curses
1913 wgetch() function (libcurses.o). Some integrators have simplified
1914 linking applications by combining all or part of libcurses.so into the
1915 libgpm.so file, producing symbol conflicts with ncurses (specifically
1916 the wgetch function). This was originally the BSD curses, but
1917 generally whatever curses library exists on the system.
1919 You may be able to work around this problem by linking as follows:
1921 cc -o foo foo.o -lncurses -lgpm -lncurses
1923 but the linker may not cooperate, producing mysterious errors.
1924 See the FAQ, as well as the discussion under the --with-gpm option:
1926 http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#using_gpm_lib
1928 BUILDING NCURSES WITH A CROSS-COMPILER
1929 Ncurses can be built with a cross-compiler. Some parts must be built
1930 with the host's compiler since they are used for building programs
1931 (e.g., ncurses/make_hash and ncurses/make_keys) that generate tables
1932 that are compiled into the ncurses library. The essential thing to do
1933 is set the BUILD_CC environment variable to your host's compiler, and
1934 run the configure script configuring for the cross-compiler.
1936 The configure options --with-build-cc, etc., are provided to make this
1937 simpler. Since make_hash and make_keys use only ANSI C features, it
1938 is normally not necessary to provide the other options such as
1939 --with-build-libs, but they are provided for completeness.
1941 Note that all of the generated source-files which are part of ncurses
1942 will be made if you use
1946 This would be useful in porting to an environment which has little
1947 support for the tools used to generate the sources, e.g., sed, awk and
1950 When ncurses has been successfully cross-compiled, you may want to use
1951 "make install" (with a suitable target directory) to construct an
1952 install tree. Note that in this case (as with the --with-fallbacks
1953 option), ncurses uses the development platform's tic to do the
1954 "make install.data" portion.
1956 The system's tic program is used to install the terminal database,
1957 even for cross-compiles. For best results, the tic program should
1958 be from the most current version of ncurses.
1961 Send any feedback to the ncurses mailing list at
1962 bug-ncurses@gnu.org. To subscribe send mail to
1963 bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with body that reads:
1964 subscribe ncurses <your-email-address-here>
1966 The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines
1967 on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly.