1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 -- Copyright 2018-2020,2021 Thomas E. Dickey --
3 -- Copyright 1998-2017,2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc. --
5 -- Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a --
6 -- copy of this software and associated documentation files (the --
7 -- "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including --
8 -- without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, --
9 -- distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell copies --
10 -- of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished --
11 -- to do so, subject to the following conditions: --
13 -- The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included --
14 -- in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. --
16 -- THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS --
17 -- OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF --
18 -- MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN --
19 -- NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, --
20 -- DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR --
21 -- OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE --
22 -- USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. --
24 -- Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright --
25 -- holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the --
26 -- sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written --
28 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
29 -- $Id: INSTALL,v 1.231 2021/06/26 21:02:02 tom Exp $
30 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
31 How to install Ncurses/Terminfo on your system
32 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
34 ************************************************************
35 * READ ALL OF THIS FILE BEFORE YOU TRY TO INSTALL NCURSES. *
36 ************************************************************
38 You should be reading the file INSTALL in a directory called ncurses-d.d, where
39 d.d is the current version number. There should be several subdirectories,
40 including `c++', `form', `man', `menu', 'misc', `ncurses', `panel', `progs',
41 and `test'. See the README file for a roadmap to the package.
43 If you are a distribution integrator or packager, please read and act on the
44 section titled FOR SYSTEM INTEGRATORS below.
46 If you are converting from BSD curses and do not have root access, be sure
47 to read the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below.
49 If you are trying to build applications using gpm with ncurses,
50 read the USING NCURSES WITH GPM section below.
52 If you are cross-compiling, see the note below on BUILDING WITH A CROSS-COMPILER.
54 If you want to build the Ada95 binding, go to the Ada95 directory and
55 follow the instructions there. The Ada95 binding is not covered below.
61 You will need the following to build and install ncurses under UNIX:
63 * ANSI C compiler (gcc, for instance)
65 * awk (mawk or gawk will do)
67 * BSD or System V style install (a script is enclosed)
69 Ncurses has been also built in the OS/2 EMX environment.
72 INSTALLATION PROCEDURE:
73 ----------------------
75 1. First, decide whether you want ncurses to replace your existing library (in
76 which case you'll need super-user privileges) or be installed in parallel
79 The --prefix option to configure changes the root directory for installing
80 ncurses. The default is normally in subdirectories of /usr/local, except
81 for systems where ncurses is normally installed as a system library (see
82 "IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR"). Use --prefix=/usr to replace your
83 default curses distribution.
85 The package gets installed beneath the --prefix directory as follows:
87 In $(prefix)/bin: tic, infocmp, captoinfo, tset,
88 reset, clear, tput, toe, tabs
89 In $(prefix)/lib: libncurses*.* libcurses.a
90 In $(prefix)/share/terminfo: compiled terminal descriptions
91 In $(prefix)/include: C header files
92 Under $(prefix)/man: the manual pages
94 Note that the configure script attempts to locate previous installation of
95 ncurses, and will set the default prefix according to where it finds the
98 Do not use commands such as
100 make install prefix=XXX
102 to change the prefix after configuration, since the prefix value is used
103 for some absolute pathnames such as TERMINFO. Instead do this
105 make install DESTDIR=XXX
107 See also the discussion of --with-install-prefix.
109 2. Type `./configure' in the top-level directory of the distribution to
110 configure ncurses for your operating system and create the Makefiles.
111 Besides --prefix, various configuration options are available to customize
112 the installation; use `./configure --help' to list the available options.
114 If your operating system is not supported, read the PORTABILITY section in
115 the file ncurses/README for information on how to create a configuration
116 file for your system.
118 The `configure' script generates makefile rules for one or more object
119 models and their associated libraries:
121 libncurses.a (normal)
123 libcurses.a (normal, a link to libncurses.a)
124 This gets left out if you configure with --disable-overwrite.
126 libncurses.so (shared)
128 libncurses_g.a (debug)
130 libncurses_p.a (profile)
132 libncurses.la (libtool)
134 If you configure using the --enable-widec option, a "w" is appended to the
135 library names (e.g., libncursesw.a), and the resulting libraries support
136 wide-characters, e.g., via a UTF-8 locale. The corresponding header files
137 are compatible with the non-wide-character configuration; wide-character
138 features are provided by ifdef's in the header files. The wide-character
139 library interfaces are not binary-compatible with the non-wide-character
140 version. Building and running the wide-character code relies on a fairly
141 recent implementation of libiconv. We have built this configuration on
142 various systems using libiconv, sometimes requiring libutf8.
144 If you configure using the --with-pthread option, a "t" is appended to
145 the library names (e.g., libncursest.a, libncursestw.a).
147 If you do not specify any models, the normal and debug libraries will be
148 configured. Typing `configure' with no arguments is equivalent to:
150 ./configure --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
154 ./configure --with-shared
156 makes the shared libraries the default, resulting in
158 ./configure --with-shared --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
160 If you want only shared libraries, type
162 ./configure --with-shared --without-normal --without-debug
164 Rules for generating shared libraries are highly dependent upon the choice
165 of host system and compiler. We've been testing shared libraries on
166 several systems, but more work needs to be done to make shared libraries
167 work on other systems.
169 If you have libtool installed, you can type
171 ./configure --with-libtool
173 to generate the appropriate static and/or shared libraries for your
174 platform using libtool.
176 You can make curses and terminfo fall back to an existing file of termcap
177 definitions by configuring with --enable-termcap. If you do this, the
178 library will search /etc/termcap before the terminfo database, and will
179 also interpret the contents of the TERM environment variable. See the
180 section BSD CONVERSION NOTES below.
182 3. Type `make'. Ignore any warnings, no error messages should be produced.
183 This should compile the ncurses library, the terminfo compiler tic(1),
184 captoinfo(1), infocmp(1), toe(1), clear(1) tset(1), reset(1), and tput(1)
185 programs (see the manual pages for explanation of what they do), some test
186 programs, and the panels, menus, and forms libraries.
188 4. Run ncurses and several other test programs in the test directory to
189 verify that ncurses functions correctly before doing an install that
190 may overwrite system files. Read the file test/README for details on
193 NOTE: You must have installed the terminfo database, or set the
194 environment variable $TERMINFO to point to a SVr4-compatible terminfo
195 database before running the test programs. Not all vendors' terminfo
196 databases are SVr4-compatible, but most seem to be.
198 It is possible to configure ncurses to use other terminfo database formats.
199 A few are provided as examples in the include-directory (see --with-caps).
201 If you run the test programs WITHOUT installing terminfo, ncurses may
202 read the termcap file and cache that in $HOME/.terminfo, which will
203 thereafter be used instead of the terminfo database. See the comments
204 on "--enable-getcap-cache", to see why this is a Bad Thing.
206 The ncurses program is designed specifically to test the ncurses library.
207 You can use it to verify that the screen highlights work correctly, that
208 cursor addressing and window scrolling works OK, etc.
210 5. Once you've tested, you can type `make install' to install libraries,
211 the programs, the terminfo database and the manual pages. Alternately, you
212 can type `make install' in each directory you want to install. In the
213 top-level directory, you can do a partial install using these commands:
215 'make install.progs' installs tic, infocmp, etc...
216 'make install.includes' installs the headers.
217 'make install.libs' installs the libraries (and the headers).
218 'make install.data' installs the terminfo data. (Note: `tic' must
219 be installed before the terminfo data can be
221 'make install.man' installs the manual pages.
223 ############################################################################
224 # CAVEAT EMPTOR: `install.data' run as root will NUKE any existing #
225 # terminfo database. If you have any custom or unusual entries SAVE them #
226 # before you install ncurses. #
227 ############################################################################
229 The terminfo(5) manual page must be preprocessed with tbl(1) before
230 being formatted by nroff(1). Modern man(1) implementations tend to do
231 this by default, but you may want to look at your version's manual page
232 to be sure. You may also install the manual pages after preprocessing
233 with tbl(1) by specifying the configure option --with-manpage-tbl.
235 If the system already has a curses library that you need to keep using
236 you'll need to distinguish between it and ncurses. See the discussion of
237 --disable-overwrite. If ncurses is installed outside the standard
238 directories (/usr/include and /usr/lib) then all your users will need to
239 use the -I option to compile programs and -L to link them.
241 If you have another curses installed in your system and you accidentally
242 compile using its curses.h you'll end up with a large number of
243 undefined symbols at link time.
245 IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ROOT: Change directory to the `progs' subdirectory
246 and run the `capconvert' script. This script will deduce various things
247 about your environment and use them to build you a private terminfo tree,
248 so you can use ncurses applications.
250 If more than one user at your site does this, the space for the duplicate
251 trees is wasted. Try to get your site administrators to install a system-
252 wide terminfo tree instead.
254 See the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below for a few more details.
256 6. The c++ directory has C++ classes that are built on top of ncurses and
257 panels. You must have c++ (and its libraries) installed before you can
258 compile and run the demo.
260 Use --without-cxx-binding to tell configure to not build the C++ bindings
263 If you do not have C++, you must use the --without-cxx option to tell
264 the configure script to not attempt to determine the type of 'bool'
265 which may be supported by C++. IF YOU USE THIS OPTION, BE ADVISED THAT
266 YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO COMPILE (OR RUN) NCURSES APPLICATIONS WITH C++.
272 The configure script provides a short list of its options when you type
276 The --help and several options are common to all configure scripts that are
277 generated with autoconf. Those are all listed before the line
279 --enable and --with options recognized:
281 The other options are specific to this package. We list them in alphabetic
284 --disable-assumed-color
285 With ncurses 5.1, we introduced a new function, assume_default_colors()
286 which allows applications to specify what the default foreground and
287 background color are assumed to be. Most color applications use
288 full-screen color; but a few do not color the background. While the
289 assumed values can be overridden by invoking assume_default_colors(),
290 you may find it useful to set the assumed values to the pre-5.1
291 convention, using this configure option.
294 Assume machine has little memory. The configure script attempts to
295 determine if your machine has enough memory (about 6Mb) to compile the
296 terminfo database without writing portions to disk. Some allocators
297 return deceptive results, so you may have to override the configure
298 script. Or you may be building tic for a smaller machine.
300 --disable-big-strings
301 Disable compile-time optimization of predefined tables which puts
302 all of their strings into a very long string, to reduce relocation
306 Use only built-in data. The ncurses libraries normally read terminfo
307 and termcap data from disk. You can configure ncurses to have a
308 built-in database, aka "fallback" entries. Embedded applications may
309 have no need for an external database. Some, but not all of the
310 programs are useful in this configuration, e.g., tset and tput versus
314 Do not install the terminal database. This is used to omit features
315 for packages, as done with --without-progs.
318 Use the option --disable-echo to make the build-log less verbose by
319 suppressing the display of the compile and link commands. This makes
320 it easier to see the compiler warnings. (You can always use "make -n"
321 to see the options that are used).
324 Disable function-extensions. Configure ncurses without the functions
325 that are not specified by XSI. See ncurses/modules for the exact
326 list of library modules that would be suppressed.
328 --disable-gnat-projects
329 Disable GNAT projects even if usable, for testing old makefile rules.
332 Compile without hashmap scrolling-optimization code. This algorithm is
335 --disable-home-terminfo
336 The $HOME/.terminfo directory is normally added to ncurses' search
337 list for reading/writing terminfo entries, since that directory is
338 more likely writable than the system terminfo database. Use this
339 option to disable the feature altogether.
342 Disable compiler flags needed to use large-file interfaces.
345 For testing, compile-in code that frees memory that normally would not
346 be freed, to simplify analysis of memory-leaks.
348 Any implementation of curses must not free the memory associated with
349 a screen, since (even after calling endwin()), it must be available
350 for use in the next call to refresh(). There are also chunks of
351 memory held for performance reasons. That makes it hard to analyze
352 curses applications for memory leaks. To work around this, build a
353 debugging version of the ncurses library which frees those chunks
354 which it can, and provides the _nc_free_and_exit() function to free
355 the remainder and then exit. The ncurses utility and test programs
356 use this feature, e.g., via the ExitProgram() macro.
358 Because this lies outside of the library's intended usage, it is not
359 normally considered part of the ABI. If there were some (as yet
360 unplanned) extension which frees memory in a manner that would let the
361 library resume and reallocate memory, then that would not use a "_nc_"
364 --disable-lib-suffixes
365 Suppress the "w", "t" or "tw" suffixes which normally would be added
366 to the library names for the --enable-widec and --with-pthread options.
368 --disable-libtool-version
369 when using --with-libtool, control how the major/minor version numbers
370 are used for constructing the library name.
372 The default uses the -version-number feature of libtool, which makes
373 the library names compatible (though not identical) with the standard
374 build using --with-shared.
376 Use --disable-libtool-version to use the libtool -version-info feature.
377 This corresponds to the setting used before patch 20100515.
379 Starting with patch 20141115, using this option causes the configure
380 script to apply the top-level VERSION file to the ABI version used
384 The header files will ignore use of the _LP64 symbol to make chtype
385 and mmask_t types 32 bits (they may be long on 64-bit hosts, for
386 compatibility with older releases).
388 NOTE: this is potentially an ABI change, depending on existing
389 packages. The default for this option is "disabled" for ncurses
390 ABI 5, and "enabled" for ABI 6.
393 For testing, use functions rather than macros. The program will run
394 more slowly, but it is simpler to debug. This defines NCURSES_NOMACROS
395 at build time. See also the --enable-expanded option.
398 If you are installing ncurses on a system which contains another
399 development version of curses, or which could be confused by the loader
400 for another version, we recommend that you leave out the link to
401 -lcurses. The ncurses library is always available as -lncurses.
402 Disabling overwrite also causes the ncurses header files to be
403 installed into a subdirectory, e.g., /usr/local/include/ncurses,
404 rather than the include directory. This makes it simpler to avoid
405 compile-time conflicts with other versions of curses.h
407 Putting the header files into a subdirectory assumes that applications
408 will follow the (standard) practice of including the headers with
409 reference to the subdirectory name. For instance, the normal ncurses
410 header would be included using
412 #include <ncurses/curses.h>
413 #include <ncurses/term.h>
415 while the ncursesw headers would be found this way:
417 #include <ncursesw/curses.h>
418 #include <ncursesw/term.h>
420 In either case (with or without the --disable-overwrite option),
421 almost all applications are designed to include a related set of
422 curses header files from the same directory.
424 Manipulating the --includedir configure option to put header files
425 directly in a subdirectory of the normal include-directory defeats
426 this, and breaks builds of portable applications. Likewise, putting
427 some headers in /usr/include, and others in a subdirectory is a good
430 When configured with --disable-overwrite, the installed header files'
431 embedded #include's are adjusted to use the same style of includes
432 noted above. In particular, the unctrl.h header is included from
433 curses.h, which means that a makefile which tells the compiler to
434 include directly from the subdirectory will fail to compile correctly.
435 Without some special effort, it will either fail to compile at all,
436 or the compiler may find a different unctrl.h file.
438 In addition to the curses library, a system may provide its own
439 versions of the add-on libraries (form, menu, panel), which would
440 not be compatible with ncurses. These options allow you to rename
441 ncurses' add-on libraries to avoid conflicts when linking:
443 --with-form-libname=XXX
444 --with-menu-libname=XXX
445 --with-panel-libname=XXX
447 Rather than renaming them abitrarily, a prefix or suffix is
448 recommended. An "n" prefix provides consistency with ncurses versus
451 --with-form-libname=nform
452 --with-menu-libname=nmenu
453 --with-panel-libname=npanel
455 --disable-pkg-ldflags
456 Omit options in $LDFLAGS and $EXTRA_LDFLAGS from the pkg-config ".pc"
457 and corresponding ncurses*-config script which normally are listed via
458 the "--libs" option. These options are normally used to facilitate
459 linking to ncurses when it was configured to use the rpath feature.
461 See also --enable-rpath and --disable-rpath-hack.
464 If --enable-rpath is given, the generated makefiles normally will
465 rebuild shared libraries during install. Use this option to simply
466 copy whatever the linker produced.
468 Static libraries cannot simply be copied because tools use timestamps
469 to determine if the library's symbol table is up to date. If your
470 install program supports the "-p" (preserve timestamp) option, that
471 is used when --disable-relink is given, to avoid rebuilding the symbol
474 Finally, some tools ignore the subsecond timestamps supported by some
475 filesystems. This option adds a 1-second sleep to help those tools
476 avoid unnecessary relinking during the install process.
478 --disable-root-access
479 Compile with environment restriction, so most file-access is limited
480 when running via a setuid/setgid application.
482 --disable-root-environ
483 Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment variables
484 are not available when running as root, or via a setuid/setgid
485 application. These are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow the
486 search path for the terminfo or termcap entry to be customized.
489 Normally the configure script helps link libraries found in unusual
490 places by adding an rpath option to the link command. If you are
491 building packages, this feature may be redundant. Use this option
492 to suppress the feature.
494 --disable-scroll-hints
495 Compile without scroll-hints code. This option is ignored when
496 hashmap scrolling is configured, which is the default.
499 Do not strip installed executables.
501 --disable-tic-depends
502 When building shared libraries, normally the tic library is linked to
503 depend upon the ncurses library (or equivalently, on the tinfo-library
504 if the --with-termlib option was given). The tic- and tinfo-library
505 ABIs do not depend on the --enable-widec option. Some packagers have
506 used this to reduce the number of library files which are packaged by
507 using only one copy of those libraries. To make this work properly,
508 the tic library must be built without an explicit dependency on the
509 underlying library (ncurses vs ncursesw, tinfo vs tinfow). Use this
510 configure option to do that.
512 configure --with-ticlib --with-shared --disable-tic-depends
514 --disable-tparm-varargs
515 Portable programs should call tparm() using the fixed-length parameter
516 list documented in X/Open. ncurses provides varargs support for this
517 function. Use --disable-tparm-varargs to disable this support.
519 --disable-wattr-macros
520 The 6.0 ABI adds support for extended colors and for extended mouse.
521 The former is a noticeable problem when developers inadvertently
522 compile using the ncurses6 header files and link with an ncurses5
523 library, because the wattr* macros use a new field in the WINDOW
524 structure. These macros are used in several applications.
526 Since ncurses provides an actual function for each of these macros,
527 suppressing them from the curses.h header allows the ncurses5 libraries
528 to be used in most applications.
530 NOTE: The extended colors also are used in the cchar_t structure, but
531 fewer applications use that.
533 NOTE: This workaround does not help with mismatches in the ncurses
534 mouse version. The extended mouse feature uses one less fewer bit for
535 each button, so that only the first button will work as expected with
536 a mismatch between header and library. Again, most applications will
537 work, since most use only the first button.
540 For testing, compile-in assertion code. This is used only for a few
541 places where ncurses cannot easily recover by returning an error code.
543 --enable-broken_linker
544 A few platforms have what we consider a broken linker: it cannot link
545 objects from an archive solely by referring to data objects in those
546 files, but requires a function reference. This configure option
547 changes several data references to functions to work around this
550 NOTE: With ncurses 5.1, this may not be necessary, since we are
551 told that some linkers interpret uninitialized global data as a
552 different type of reference which behaves as described above. We have
553 explicitly initialized all of the global data to work around the
557 Recognize BSD-style prefix padding. Some ancient BSD programs (such as
558 nethack) call tputs("50") to implement delays.
561 Compile with experimental $COLORFGBG code. That environment variable
562 is set by some terminal emulators as a hint to applications, by
563 advertising the default foreground and background colors. During
564 initialization, ncurses sets color pair 0 to match this.
567 The curses interface as documented in XSI is rather old, in fact
568 including features that precede ANSI C. The prototypes generally do
569 not make effective use of "const". When using stricter compilers (or
570 gcc with appropriate warnings), you may see warnings about the mismatch
571 between const and non-const data. We provide a configure option which
572 changes the interfaces to use const - quieting these warnings and
573 reflecting the actual use of the parameters more closely. The ncurses
574 library uses the symbol NCURSES_CONST for these instances of const,
575 and if you have asked for compiler warnings, will add gcc's const-qual
576 warning. There will still be warnings due to subtle inconsistencies
577 in the interface, but at a lower level.
579 NOTE: configuring ncurses with this option may detract from the
580 portability of your applications by encouraging you to use const in
581 places where the XSI curses interface would not allow them. Similar
582 issues arise when porting to SVr4 curses, which uses const in even
586 For testing, generate functions for certain macros to make them visible
587 as such to the debugger. See also the --disable-macros option.
590 When configuring for MinGW, use the experimental Windows 10 driver.
593 Extend the cchar_t structure to allow more than 16 colors to be
594 encoded. This applies only to the wide-character (--enable-widec)
597 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
598 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
599 applications which have an array of cchar_t's must be recompiled.
602 Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th mouse button.
603 That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel mouse with xterm or
604 similar X terminal emulators.
606 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
607 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
608 applications which have mouse mask mmask_t's must be recompiled.
611 Modify the file-format written by putwin() to use printable text rather
612 than binary files, allowing getwin() to read screen dumps written by
613 differently-configured ncurses libraries. The extended getwin() can
614 still read binary screen dumps from the "same" configuration of
615 ncurses. This does not change the ABI (the binary interface seen by
616 calling applications).
619 Use the gcc "-fvisibility=hidden" option to make symbols which are not
620 explicitly exported, "hidden". Doing this may reduce the number of
621 symbols exported in the C++ binding; it should have less effect on the
622 C libraries when symbol-versioning is used.
625 Use the 4.4BSD getcap code if available, or a bundled version of it to
626 fetch termcap entries. Entries read in this way cannot use (make
627 cross-references to) the terminfo tree, but it is faster than reading
630 If configured for one of the *BSD systems, this automatically uses
631 the hashed database system produced using cap_mkdb or similar tools.
632 In that case, there is no advantage in using the --enable-getcap-cache
635 See also the --with-hashed-db option.
637 --enable-getcap-cache
638 Cache translated termcaps under the directory $HOME/.terminfo
640 NOTE: this sounds good - it makes ncurses run faster the second time.
641 But look where the data comes from - an /etc/termcap containing lots of
642 entries that are not up to date. If you configure with this option and
643 forget to install the terminfo database before running an ncurses
644 application, you will end up with a hidden terminfo database that
645 generally does not support color and will miss some function keys.
648 Compile-in cursor-optimization code that uses hard-tabs. We would make
649 this a standard feature except for the concern that the terminfo entry
650 may not be accurate, or that your stty settings have disabled the use
654 Compile-in experimental interop bindings. These provide generic types
655 for the form-library.
658 Controls whether the filesystem on which the terminfo database resides
659 supports mixed-case filenames (normal for UNIX, but not on other
660 systems). If you do not specify this option, the configure script
661 checks the current filesystem.
664 Compile-in support for the $NCURSES_NO_PADDING environment variable,
665 which allows you to suppress the effect of non-mandatory padding in
666 terminfo entries. This is the default, unless you have disabled the
669 --enable-opaque-curses
672 --enable-opaque-panel
673 Define symbol in curses.h which controls whether some library
674 structures are treated as "opaque". The --enable-opaque-curses option
675 is overridden by the --enable-reentrant option.
678 If pkg-config is found (see --with-pkg-config), generate ".pc" files
679 for each of the libraries, and install them in pkg-config's library
682 --enable-pthreads-eintr
683 add logic in threaded configuration to ensure that a read(2) system
684 call can be interrupted for SIGWINCH.
687 Compile configuration which improves reentrant use of the library by
688 reducing global and static variables. This option is also set if
689 --with-pthread is used.
691 Enabling this option adds a "t" to the library names, except for the
692 special case when --enable-weak-symbols is also used.
695 Use rpath option when generating shared libraries, and (with some
696 restrictions) when linking the corresponding programs. This originally
697 (in 1997) applied mainly to systems using the GNU linker (read the
700 More recently it is useful for systems that require special treatment
701 shared libraries in "unusual" locations. The "system" libraries reside
702 in directories which are on the loader's default search-path. While
703 you may be able to use workarounds such as the $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
704 environment variable, they do not work with setuid applications since
705 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable would be unset in that situation.
707 This option does not apply to --with-libtool, since libtool makes
708 extra assumptions about rpath.
710 --enable-safe-sprintf
711 Compile with experimental safe-sprintf code. You may consider using
712 this if you are building ncurses for a system that has neither
713 vsnprintf() or vsprintf(). It is slow, however, and is used only on
714 very old systems which lack vsnprintf().
717 The term.h header declares a Booleans[] array typed "char". But it
718 stores signed values there and "char" is not necessarily signed.
719 Some packagers choose to alter the type of Booleans[] though this
720 is not strictly compatible. This option allows one to implement this
721 alteration without patching the source code.
724 Compile support for ncurses' SIGWINCH handler. If your application has
725 its own SIGWINCH handler, ncurses will not use its own. The ncurses
726 handler causes wgetch() to return KEY_RESIZE when the screen-size
727 changes. This option is the default, unless you have disabled the
731 Compile-in support for extended functions which accept a SCREEN pointer,
732 reducing the need for juggling the global SP value with set_term() and
736 When enabled, check if the <stdnoreturn.h> header exists, and if found
737 define GCC_NORETURN to _Noreturn rather than either the gcc-specific
738 __attribute__((noreturn)) or an empty token. Doing this may require
739 calling programs which use GCC_NORETURN in their own function
740 definitions to be modified, because _Noreturn is only accepted as
741 the first token in a declaration.
743 --enable-string-hacks
744 Controls whether strlcat and strlcpy may be used. The same issue
745 applies to OpenBSD's warnings about snprintf, noting that this function
746 is weakly standardized.
748 Aside from stifling these warnings, there is no functional improvement
752 If your system supports symbolic links, make tic use symbolic links
753 rather than hard links to save diskspace when writing aliases in the
757 Compile-in support for user-definable terminal capabilities. Use the
758 -x option of tic and infocmp to treat unrecognized terminal
759 capabilities as user-defined strings. This option is the default,
760 unless you have disabled the extended functions.
763 Enable experimental terminal-driver. This is currently used for the
764 MinGW port, by providing a way to substitute the low-level terminfo
765 library with different terminal drivers.
768 Compile in support for reading terminal descriptions from termcap if no
769 match is found in the terminfo database. See also the --enable-getcap
770 and --enable-getcap-cache options.
772 Termcap support requires run-time parsing rather than loading
773 predigested data. If you have specified --with-ticlib, then you
774 cannot have termcap support since run-time parsing is done in the
775 tic library, which is intentionally not part of normal linkage
779 Turn on GCC compiler warnings. There should be only a few.
781 --enable-weak-symbols
782 If the --with-pthread option is set, check if the compiler supports
783 weak-symbols. If it does, then name the thread-capable library without
784 the "t" (libncurses rather than libncursest), and provide for
785 dynamically loading the pthreads entrypoints at runtime. This allows
786 one to reduce the number of library files for ncurses.
788 --enable-wgetch-events
789 Compile with experimental wgetch-events code. See ncurses/README.IZ
792 Compile with wide-character code. This makes a different version of
793 the libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so), which stores characters as
796 NOTE: applications compiled with this configuration are not compatible
797 with those built for 8-bit characters. You cannot simply make a
798 symbolic link to equate libncurses.so with libncursesw.so
800 NOTE: the Ada95 binding may be built against either version of the the
801 ncurses library, but you must decide which: the binding installs the
802 same set of files for either version. Currently (2002/6/22) it does
803 not use the extended features from the wide-character code, so it is
804 probably better to not install the binding for that configuration.
807 Compile-in support experimental xmc (magic cookie) code.
809 --with-abi-version=NUM
810 Override the ABI version, which is used in shared library filenames.
811 Normally this is the same as the release version; some ports have
812 special requirements for compatibility.
814 This option does not affect linking with libtool, which uses the
815 release major/minor numbers.
817 --with-ada-compiler=CMD
818 Specify the Ada95 compiler command (default "gnatmake")
820 --with-ada-include=DIR
821 Tell where to install the Ada includes (default:
822 PREFIX/lib/ada/adainclude)
824 --with-ada-libname=NAME
825 Override the name of the Ada binding (default: "AdaCurses")
827 --with-ada-objects=DIR
828 Tell where to install the Ada objects (default: PREFIX/lib/ada/adalib)
831 Build a shared library for Ada95 binding, if the compiler permits.
833 NOTE: You must also set the --with-shared option on some platforms
834 for a successful build. You need not use this option when you set
835 --with-shared, unless you want to use the Ada shared library.
838 If --without-cxx is specified, override the type used for the "bool"
839 declared in curses.h (normally the type is automatically chosen to
840 correspond with that in <stdbool.h>, or defaults to platform-specific
844 If cross-compiling, specify a host C compiler, which is needed to
845 compile a few utilities which generate source modules for ncurses.
846 If you do not give this option, the configure script checks if the
847 $BUILD_CC variable is set, and otherwise defaults to gcc or cc.
849 --with-build-cflags=XXX
850 If cross-compiling, specify the host C compiler-flags. You might need
851 to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse the
854 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_CFLAGS rather than
858 This option is provided by the same macro used for $BUILD_CC, etc.,
859 but is not directly used by ncurses.
861 --with-build-cppflags=XXX
862 If cross-compiling, specify the host C preprocessor-flags. You might
863 need to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse
866 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_CPPFLAGS rather than
869 --with-build-ldflags=XXX
870 If cross-compiling, specify the host linker-flags. You might need to
871 do this if the target linker has unusual flags which confuse the host
874 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_LDFLAGS rather than
877 --with-build-libs=XXX
878 If cross-compiling, the host libraries. You might need to do this if
879 the target environment requires unusual libraries.
881 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_LIBS rather than
885 Specify an alternate terminfo capabilities file, which makes the
886 configure script look for "include/Caps.XXX". A few systems, e.g.,
887 AIX 4.x use the same overall file-format as ncurses for terminfo
888 data, but use different alignments within the tables to support
889 legacy applications. For those systems, you can configure ncurses
890 to use a terminfo database which is compatible with the native
893 --with-ccharw-max=XXX
894 Override the size of the wide-character array in cchar_t structures.
895 Changing this will alter the binary interface. This defaults to 5.
898 Override type of chtype, which stores the video attributes and (if
899 --enable-widec is not given) a character. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this
900 was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it may be unsigned.
901 Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility with 64-bit
902 executables, e.g., by setting "--with-chtype=long" (the configure
903 script supplies "unsigned").
905 --with-config-suffix=XXX
906 Specify a suffix for the ncursesw6-config file, etc., used to work
907 around conflicts with packages.
909 --with-cxx-libname=NAME
910 Override the basename of the ncurses++ library (default: "ncurses++")
913 When --with-shared is set, build libncurses++ as a shared library.
914 This implicitly relies upon building with gcc/g++, since other
915 compiler suites may have differences in the way shared libraries are
916 built. libtool by the way has similar limitations.
919 Specify the terminfo source file to install. Usually you will wish
920 to install ncurses' default (misc/terminfo.src). Certain systems
921 have special requirements, e.g, OS/2 EMX has a customized terminfo
925 For testing, compile and link with Conor Cahill's dbmalloc library.
926 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
929 Generate debug-libraries (default). These are named by adding "_g"
930 to the root, e.g., libncurses_g.a
932 --with-default-terminfo-dir=XXX
933 Specify the default terminfo database directory. This is normally
934 DATADIR/terminfo, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo.
937 For testing, compile and link with Gray Watson's dmalloc library.
938 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
940 --with-export-syms[=XXX]
941 Limit exported symbols using libtool. The configure script
942 automatically chooses an appropriate ".sym" file, which lists the
943 symbols which are part of the ABI.
945 --with-extra-suffix[=XXX]
946 Add the given suffix to header- and library-names to simplify
947 installing incompatible ncurses libraries, e.g., those using a
948 different ABI. The renaming affects the name of the
949 include-subdirectory if --disable-overwrite is given.
952 Specify a list of fallback terminal descriptions which will be
953 compiled into the ncurses library. See CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES.
955 See also "--with-tic-path" and "--with-infocmp-path".
957 --with-form-libname=NAME
958 Override the basename of the form library (default: "form")
961 use Alessandro Rubini's GPM library to provide mouse support on the
962 Linux console. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this introduced a dependency on
965 Currently ncurses uses the dlsym() function to bind to the library at
966 runtime, so it is only necessary that the library be present when
967 ncurses is built, to obtain the filename (or soname) used in the
968 corresponding dlopen() call. If you give a value for this option,
971 --with-gpm=$HOME/tmp/test-gpm.so
973 that overrides the configure check for the soname.
975 See also --without-dlsym
977 --with-hashed-db[=XXX]
978 Use a hashed database for storing terminfo data rather than storing
979 each compiled entry in a separate binary file within a directory
982 In particular, this uses the Berkeley database 1.8.5 interface, as
983 provided by that and its successors db 2, 3, and 4. The actual
984 interface is slightly different in the successor versions of the
985 Berkeley database. The database should have been configured using
986 "--enable-compat185".
988 If you use this option for configuring ncurses, tic will only be able
989 to write entries in the hashed database. infocmp can still read
990 entries from a directory tree as well as reading entries from the
991 hashed database. To do this, infocmp determines whether the $TERMINFO
992 variable points to a directory or a file, and reads the directory-tree
993 or hashed database respectively.
995 You cannot have a directory containing both hashed-database and
996 filesystem-based terminfo entries.
998 Use the parameter value to give the install-prefix used for the
1000 --with-hashed-db=/usr/local/BigBase
1001 to find the corresponding include- and lib-directories under the
1002 given directory. Alternatively, you can specify a directory leaf
1004 --with-hashed-db=db4
1005 to make the configure script look for files in a subdirectory such as
1006 /usr/include/db4/db.h
1007 /usr/lib/db4/libdb.so
1009 See also the --enable-getcap option.
1011 --with-infocmp-path[=XXX]
1012 Use this option to override the automatic detection of tic in your
1013 $PATH when building fallbacks (see "--with-fallbacks").
1015 --with-install-prefix=XXX
1016 Allows you to specify an alternate location for installing ncurses
1017 after building it. The value you specify is prepended to the "real"
1018 install location. This simplifies making binary packages. The
1019 makefile variable DESTDIR is set by this option. It is also possible
1021 make install DESTDIR=XXX
1022 since the makefiles pass that variable to subordinate makes.
1024 NOTE: a few systems build shared libraries with fixed pathnames; this
1025 option probably will not work for those configurations.
1027 --with-lib-prefix=XXX
1028 OS/2 EMX used a different naming convention from most Unix-like
1029 platforms. It required that the "lib" part of a library name was
1030 omitted. Newer EMX as part of eComStation does not follow that
1031 convention. Use this option to override the configure script's
1032 assumptions about the library-prefix. If this option is omitted, it
1033 uses the original OS/2 EMX convention for that platform. Use
1034 "--with-lib-prefix=lib" for the newer EMX in eComStation. Use
1035 "--without-lib-prefix" to suppress it for other odd platforms.
1037 --with-libtool[=XXX]
1038 Generate libraries with libtool. If this option is selected, then it
1039 overrides all other library model specifications. Note that libtool
1040 must already be installed, uses makefile rules dependent on GNU make,
1041 and does not promise to follow the version numbering convention of
1042 other shared libraries on your system. However, if the --with-shared
1043 option does not succeed, you may get better results with this option.
1045 If a parameter value is given, it must be the full pathname of the
1046 particular version of libtool, e.g.,
1047 /usr/bin/libtool-1.2.3
1049 It is possible to rebuild the configure script to use the automake
1050 macros for libtool, e.g., AC_PROG_LIBTOOL. See the comments in
1051 aclocal.m4 for CF_PROG_LIBTOOL, and ensure that you build configure
1052 using the appropriate patch for autoconf from
1053 https://invisible-island.net/autoconf/
1055 --with-libtool-opts=XXX
1056 Allow user to pass additional libtool options into the library creation
1057 and link steps. The main use for this is to do something like
1058 ./configure --with-libtool-opts=-static
1059 to get the same behavior as automake-flavored
1060 ./configure --enable-static
1062 --with-manpage-aliases
1063 Tell the configure script you wish to create entries in the
1064 man-directory for aliases to manpages which list them, e.g., the
1065 functions in the panel manpage. This is the default. You can disable
1066 it if your man program does this. You can also disable
1067 --with-manpage-symlinks to install files containing a ".so" command
1068 rather than symbolic links.
1070 --with-manpage-format=XXX
1071 Tell the configure script how you would like to install man-pages. The
1072 option value must be one of these: gzip, compress, BSDI, normal,
1073 formatted. If you do not give this option, the configure script
1074 attempts to determine which is the case.
1076 --with-manpage-renames=XXX
1077 Tell the configure script that you wish to rename the manpages while
1078 installing. Currently the only distribution which does this is Debian.
1079 The option value specifies the name of a file that lists the renamed
1080 files, e.g., $srcdir/man/man_db.renames
1082 --with-manpage-symlinks
1083 Tell the configure script that you wish to make symbolic links in the
1084 man-directory for aliases to the man-pages. This is the default, but
1085 can be disabled for systems that provide this automatically. Doing
1086 this on systems that do not support symbolic links will result in
1087 copying the man-page for each alias.
1090 Tell the configure script that you wish to preprocess the manpages
1091 by running them through tbl to generate tables understandable by
1094 --with-menu-libname=NAME
1095 Override the basename of the menu library (default: "menu")
1098 Override type of mmask_t, which stores the mouse mask. Prior to
1099 ncurses 5.5, this was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it
1100 may be unsigned. Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility
1101 with 64-bit executables.
1104 Generate normal (i.e., static) libraries (default).
1106 Note: on Linux, the configure script will attempt to use the GPM
1107 library via the dlsym() function call. Use --without-dlsym to disable
1108 this feature, or --without-gpm, depending on whether you wish to use
1112 Override type of ospeed variable, which is part of the termcap
1113 compatibility interface. In termcap, this is a 'short', which works
1114 for a wide range of baudrates because ospeed is not the actual speed
1115 but the encoded value, e.g., B9600 would be a small number such as 13.
1116 However the encoding scheme originally allowed for values "only" up to
1117 38400bd. A newer set of definitions past 38400bd is not encoded as
1118 compactly, and is not guaranteed to fit into a short (see the function
1119 cfgetospeed(), which returns a speed_t for this reason). In practice,
1120 applications that required knowledge of the ospeed variable, i.e.,
1121 those using termcap, do not use the higher speeds. Your application
1122 (or system, in general) may or may not.
1124 --with-panel-libname=NAME
1125 Override the basename of the panel library (default: "panel")
1127 --with-pc-suffix=SUFFIX
1128 If ".pc" files are installed, optionally add a suffix to the files
1129 and corresponding package names to separate unusual configurations.
1130 If no option value is given (or if it is "none"), no suffix is added.
1133 Add PCRE2 (Perl-compatible regular expressions v2) to the build if it
1134 is available and the user requests it. Assume the application will
1135 otherwise use the POSIX interface.
1137 This is useful for MinGW builds because the usual POSIX interface is
1138 not supplied by the development environment, while ncurses' form
1139 library uses a regular expression feature for one of the field types.
1141 --with-pkg-config=[DIR]
1142 Check for pkg-config, optionally specifying its path.
1144 --with-pkg-config-libdir=[DIR]
1145 If pkg-config was found, override the automatic check for its library
1149 Generate profile-libraries These are named by adding "_p" to the root,
1150 e.g., libncurses_p.a
1153 Link with POSIX threads, set --enable-reentrant. The use_window() and
1154 use_screen() functions will use mutex's, allowing rudimentary support
1155 for multithreaded applications.
1158 Compile-in RCS identifiers. Most of the C files have an identifier.
1160 --with-rel-version=NUM
1161 Override the release version, which may be used in shared library
1162 filenames. This consists of a major and minor version number separated
1163 by ".". Normally the major version number is the same as the ABI
1164 version; some ports have special requirements for compatibility.
1167 Generate shared-libraries. The names given depend on the system for
1168 which you are building, typically using a ".so" suffix, along with
1169 symbolic links that refer to the release version.
1171 NOTE: Unless you override the configure script by setting the $CFLAGS
1172 environment variable, these will not be built with the -g debugging
1175 NOTE: For some configurations, e.g., installing a new version of
1176 ncurses shared libraries on a machine which already has ncurses
1177 shared libraries, you may encounter problems with the linker.
1178 For example, it may prevent you from running the build tree's
1179 copy of tic (for installing the terminfo database) because it
1180 loads the system's copy of the ncurses shared libraries.
1182 In that case, using the misc/shlib script may be helpful, since it
1183 sets $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the build tree, e.g.,
1185 ./misc/shlib make install
1187 Alternatively, for most platforms, the linker accepts a list of
1188 directories which will be searched for libraries at run-time. The
1189 configure script allows you to modify this list using the
1190 RPATH_LIST environment variable. It is a colon-separated list of
1191 directories (default: the "libdir" set via the configure script).
1192 If you set that to put "../lib" first in the list, the linker will
1193 look first at the build-directory, and avoid conflict with libraries
1194 already installed. One drawback to this approach is that libraries
1195 can be accidentally searched in any "../lib" directory.
1197 NOTE: If you use the --with-ada-sharedlib option, you should also
1198 set this option, to ensure that C-language modules needed for the
1199 Ada binding use appropriate compiler options.
1201 --with-shlib-version=XXX
1202 Specify whether to use the release or ABI version for shared libraries.
1203 This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of system
1204 which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure script.
1207 use FreeBSD sysmouse interface provide mouse support on the console.
1209 --with-system-type=XXX
1210 For testing, override the derived host system-type which is used to
1211 decide things such as the linker commands used to build shared
1212 libraries. This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of
1213 system which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure
1216 --with-terminfo-dirs=XXX
1217 Specify a search-list of terminfo directories which will be compiled
1218 into the ncurses library (default: DATADIR/terminfo)
1220 This is a colon-separated list, like the TERMINFO_DIRS environment
1223 --with-termlib[=XXX]
1224 When building the ncurses library, organize this as two parts: the
1225 curses library (libncurses) and the low-level terminfo library
1226 (libtinfo). This is done to accommodate applications that use only
1227 the latter. The terminfo library is about half the size of the total.
1229 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the terminfo
1230 library. For instance, if the wide-character version is built, the
1231 terminfo library would be named libtinfow. But the libtinfow interface
1232 is upward compatible from libtinfo, so it would be possible to overlay
1233 libtinfo.so with a "wide" version of libtinfow.so by renaming it with
1237 Specify a search-list of termcap files which will be compiled into the
1238 ncurses library (default: /etc/termcap:/usr/share/misc/termcap)
1240 --with-tic-path[=XXX]
1241 Use this option to override the automatic detection of tic in your
1242 $PATH when building fallbacks (see "--with-fallbacks").
1245 When building the ncurses library, build a separate library for
1246 the modules that are used only by the utility programs. Normally
1247 those would be bundled with the termlib or ncurses libraries.
1249 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the tic
1250 library. As in termlib, there is no ABI difference between the
1251 "wide" libticw.so and libtic.so
1253 NOTE: Overriding the name of the tic library may be useful if you are
1254 also using the --with-termlib option to rename libtinfo. If you are
1255 not doing that, renaming the tic library can result in conflicting
1256 library dependencies for tic and other programs built with the tic
1259 --with-tparm-arg[=XXX]
1260 Override the type used for tparm() arguments, which normally is a
1261 "long". However the function must assume that its arguments can hold a
1262 pointer to char's which is not always workable for 64-bit platforms. A
1263 better choice would be intptr_t, which was not available at the time
1264 tparm's interface was defined.
1266 If the option is not given, this defaults to "long".
1269 Configure the trace() function as part of the all models of the ncurses
1270 library. Normally it is part of the debug (libncurses_g) library only.
1273 For testing, compile with debug option.
1274 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
1276 --with-versioned-syms[=XXX]
1277 The Solaris, GNU and reportedly some other linkers (ld) accept a
1278 "--version-script" option which tells the linker to annotate the
1279 resulting objects with version identifiers.
1281 Use "objdump -T" on a library to see the annotations.
1283 The configure script attempts to automatically apply a suitable ".map"
1284 file to provide this information for Linux. Solaris mapfiles differ:
1286 a) comments are not accepted
1287 b) wildcards are not accepted, except for a special case of "_*".
1288 c) each symbol listed in the map file must exist in the library
1290 The Solaris limitations conflict with the development goal of providing
1291 a small set of ".map" files as examples, which cover the most common
1292 configurations. Because that coverage is done by merging together
1293 several builds, some symbols will be listed in the the ".map" files
1294 that do not happen to be present in one configuration or another.
1296 The sample ".map" (and ".sym") files are generated using a set of
1297 scripts which build several configurations for each release version,
1298 checking to see which of the "_nc_" symbols can be made local. In
1299 addition to the ncurses libraries and programs, the symbols used
1300 by the "tack" program before version 1.08 are made global.
1302 These sample ".map" files will not cover all possible combinations.
1303 In some cases, e.g., when using the --with-weak-symbols option, you
1304 may prefer to use a different ".map" file by setting this option's
1307 --with-wrap-prefix=XXX
1308 When using the --enable-reentrant option, ncurses redefines variables
1309 that would be global in curses, e.g., LINES, as a macro that calls a
1310 "wrapping" function which fetches the data from the current SCREEN
1311 structure. Normally that function is named by prepending "_nc_" to the
1312 variable's name. The function is technically private (since portable
1313 applications would not refer directly to it). But according to one
1314 line of reasoning, it is not the same type of "private" as functions
1315 which applications should not call even via a macro. This configure
1316 option lets you choose the prefix for these wrapped variables.
1319 Provide a pathname for the X11 rgb file, used by the picsmap program.
1320 This overrides a configure check which usually works, but is needed
1321 due to the lack of standardization for X11's files.
1323 --with-xterm-kbs=XXX
1324 Configure xterm's terminfo entries to use either BS (^H, i.e., ASCII
1325 backspace) or DEL (^?, or 127). XXX can be BS (or bs, 8) or DEL
1328 During installation, the makefile and scripts modifies the "xterm+kbs"
1329 terminfo entry to use this setting.
1332 Suppress the configure script's check for Ada95, do not build the
1333 Ada95 binding and related demo.
1336 Don't install the ncurses header with the name "curses.h". Rather,
1337 install as "ncurses.h" and modify the installed headers and manpages
1340 Likewise, do not install an alias "curses" for the ncurses manpage.
1343 XSI curses declares "bool" as part of the interface. C++ also declares
1344 "bool". Neither specifies the size and type of booleans, but both
1345 insist on the same name. We chose to accommodate this by making the
1346 configure script check for the size and type (e.g., unsigned or signed)
1347 that your C++ compiler uses for booleans. If you do not wish to use
1348 ncurses with C++, use this option to tell the configure script to not
1349 adjust ncurses bool to match C++.
1351 --without-cxx-binding
1352 Suppress the configure script's check for C++, do not build the
1353 C++ binding and related demo.
1356 Disable development options. This does not include those that change
1357 the interface, such as --enable-widec.
1360 Do not use dlsym() to load GPM dynamically.
1363 Tell the configure script to suppress the install of ncurses' manpages.
1366 Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' application
1367 programs (e.g., tic). The test applications will still be built if you
1368 type "make", though not if you simply do "make install".
1371 Suppress build/install with tack program, if it happens to be
1372 in the same build-tree (tack was moved out of the ncurses source-tree
1376 Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' test
1380 Tell the configure script to use "xterm-old" for the entry used in
1381 the terminfo database. This will work with variations such as
1382 X11R5 and X11R6 xterm.
1385 COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER RELEASES:
1386 ---------------------------------
1388 Because ncurses implements X/Open Curses, its interface is fairly stable.
1389 That does not mean the interface does not change. Changes are made to the
1390 documented interfaces when we find differences between ncurses and X/Open
1391 or implementations which largely correspond to X/Open (such as Solaris).
1392 We add extensions to those interfaces to solve problems not addressed by
1393 the original curses design, but those must not conflict with the X/Open
1396 Here are some of the major interface changes, and related problems which
1397 you may encounter when building a system with different versions of
1403 + the terminal database must be compiled with ncurses 6.2 tic;
1404 older versions of tic/infocmp will not work. Aside from that,
1405 the compiled database will work with older applications.
1407 + "*.pc" and "ncurses*-config" files give the same information.
1409 + vwprintw and vwscanw are deprecated.
1413 + These make it simpler to substitute a debug-configuration of the
1414 library for non-debug:
1419 Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants):
1421 + These provide fast-lookup of common user-defined capabilities:
1423 _nc_get_userdefs_table
1426 + This is added to work around compiler-warnings:
1429 Removed internal functions:
1431 + _nc_import_termtype
1433 Modified internal functions:
1435 + _nc_reserve_pairs no longer returns a value
1440 + X/Open Curses specifies a "reserved" void* parameter in several
1441 functions, saying that it must be NULL. In this release, if the
1442 parameter is non-NULL, it is interpreted as a point to an integer
1443 containing a color pair. In previous releases, a non-NULL parameter
1444 caused an error return. Portable applications are unaffected. Here
1445 are the functions which have been extended:
1464 + the TERMINAL structure declared in <term.h> has been made opaque,
1465 and its size increased to handle the increased size of color pair
1466 and color value, as well as other numeric capabilities.
1468 A few applications required change, e.g., to use def_prog_mode;
1469 only one application (tack) is known to have a valid reason for
1470 accessing these internal details, and that was addressed by the
1471 release of tack 1.08 in 2017. Internal functions marked as used
1472 by tack will be deprecated in future releases.
1476 + Several new functions were added to manipulate extended color pairs
1477 and color values. These include:
1479 extended_color_content
1480 extended_pair_content
1488 as well as corresponding sp-functions.
1490 + A new terminfo capability "RGB" tells the ncurses library that the
1491 color values are red/green/blue, to eliminate the need for palettes
1492 in that special case for the color_content function.
1494 Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants):
1496 _nc_export_termtype2
1504 Removed internal functions:
1508 Modified internal functions:
1510 + symbols are used by tic/infocmp/toe:
1511 _nc_align_termtype - change parameters to TERMTYPE2*
1512 _nc_check_termtype2 - change parameter to TERMTYPE2*
1513 _nc_read_file_entry - change parameter to TERMTYPE2*
1514 _nc_read_termtype - change parameter to TERMTYPE2*
1515 _nc_trim_sgr0 - change parameter to TERMTYPE2*
1516 _nc_write_entry - change parameter to TERMTYPE2*
1518 + symbols used only within the library:
1519 _nc_fallback - change return type to TERMTYPE2*
1520 _nc_init_termtype - change parameter to TERMTYPE2*
1525 + The 6.0 ABI modifies the defaults for these configure options:
1533 --with-chtype=uint32_t
1534 --with-mmask_t=uint32_t
1535 --with-tparm-arg=intptr_t
1537 + ncurses supports symbol versioning. If you use this feature, about
1538 half of the "_nc_" private symbols are changed to local symbols.
1540 + a few applications may need to explicitly flush the standard output
1541 when switching between printf's and (curses) printw.
1545 + use_tioctl is an improvement over use_env
1547 + added wgetdelay to support the NCURSES_OPAQUE feature.
1549 Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants):
1556 Removed internal functions:
1559 Modified internal functions:
1560 _nc_do_color - change parameters from short/bool to int
1561 _nc_keypad - change parameter from bool to int
1562 _nc_setupscreen - change parameter from bool to int
1563 _nc_signal_handler - change parameter from bool to int
1569 + add an alternate library configuration, i.e., "terminal driver" to
1570 support port to Windows, built with MinGW. There are two drivers
1571 (terminfo and Windows console). The terminfo driver works on other
1574 + add a new set of functions which accept a SCREEN* parameter, in
1575 contrast with the original set which use the global value "sp".
1576 By default, these names end with "_sp", and are otherwise
1577 functionally identical with the originals.
1579 In addition to the "_sp" functions, there are a few new functions
1580 associated with this feature: ceiling_panel, ground_panel,
1583 If the library is not built with the sp-funcs extension, there
1584 are no related interface changes.
1586 + add tiparm function based on review of X/Open Curses Issue 7.
1588 + change internal _nc_has_mouse function to public has_mouse function
1592 + add a few more functions to support the NCURSES_OPAQUE feature:
1593 get_escdelay, is_pad, is_subwin
1595 Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants):
1604 _nc_retrace_int_attr_t
1610 Removed internal functions:
1611 _nc_makenew (some configurations replace by _nc_makenew_sp)
1613 Modified internal functions:
1620 5.7 (November 2, 2008)
1623 + generate linkable stubs for some macros:
1626 + Add new library configuration for tic-library (the non-curses portion
1627 of the ncurses library used for the tic program as well as some
1628 others such as tack. There is no API change, but makefiles would be
1629 changed to use the tic-library built separately.
1631 tack, distributed separately from ncurses, uses some of the internal
1632 _nc_XXX functions, which are declared in the tic.h header file.
1634 The reason for providing this separate library is that none of the
1635 functions in it are suitable for threaded applications.
1637 + Add new library configuration (ncursest, ncurseswt) which provides
1638 rudimentary support for POSIX threads. This introduces opaque
1639 access functions to the WINDOW structure and adds a parameter to
1640 several internal functions.
1642 + move most internal variables (except tic-library) into data blocks
1643 _nc_globals and _nc_prescreen to simplify analysis. Those were
1644 globally accessible, but since they were not part of the documented
1645 API, there is no ABI change.
1647 + changed static tables of strings to be indices into long strings, to
1648 improve startup performance. This changes parameter lists for some
1649 of the internal functions.
1653 + add NCURSES_OPAQUE definition in curses.h to control whether internal
1654 details of the WINDOW structure are visible to an application. This
1655 is always defined when the threaded library is built, and is optional
1656 otherwise. New functions for this: is_cleared, is_idcok, is_idlok,
1657 is_immedok, is_keypad, is_leaveok, is_nodelay, is_notimeout,
1658 is_scrollok, is_syncok, wgetparent and wgetscrreg.
1660 + the threaded library (ncursest) also disallows direct updating of
1661 global curses-level variables, providing functions (via macros) for
1662 obtaining their value. A few of those variables can be modified by
1663 the application, using new functions: set_escdelay, set_tabsize
1665 + added functions use_window() and use_screen() which wrap a mutex
1666 (if threading is configured) around a call to a user-supplied
1669 Added internal functions:
1680 These are used for leak-testing, and are stubs for
1681 ABI compatibility when ncurses is not configured for that
1682 using the --disable-leaks configure script option:
1687 Removed internal functions:
1690 Modified internal functions:
1696 _nc_locale_breaks_acs
1698 _nc_update_screensize
1700 Use new typedef TRIES to replace "struct tries":
1708 5.6 (December 17, 2006)
1711 + generate linkable stubs for some macros:
1713 getbegx, getbegy, getcurx, getcury, getmaxx, getmaxy, getparx,
1716 and (for libncursesw)
1724 Added internal functions:
1738 Also (if using the hashed database configuration):
1753 Removed internal functions:
1756 Modified internal functions:
1763 5.5 (October 10, 2005)
1766 + terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
1767 "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
1769 + terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
1770 still use ncurses 4.2).
1772 + modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing
1773 initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are
1774 still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old
1777 + form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data.
1778 Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the
1779 FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw, since
1780 that no longer points to an array of char. The set_field_buffer()
1781 and field_buffer() functions translate to/from the actual field
1784 + change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure that
1785 libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason for this
1786 is that the corresponding data which belongs to the upper-level
1787 ncurses library has a different size in each model.
1789 + winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
1790 wide-character configuration.
1792 + assume_default_colors() no longer requires that use_default_colors()
1795 + data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
1797 + slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
1798 multicolumn characters.
1800 + start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started.
1801 start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
1803 + pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if it
1804 corresponds to the default-color.
1806 + unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond
1807 to an unsigned char.
1810 Experimental mouse version 2 supports wheel mice with buttons
1811 4 and 5. This requires ABI 6 because it modifies the encoding
1814 Experimental extended colors allows encoding of 256 foreground
1815 and background colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
1816 xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6 because
1817 it changes the size of cchar_t.
1819 Added internal functions:
1823 _nc_retrace_cvoid_ptr
1824 _nc_retrace_void_ptr
1827 Removed internal functions:
1830 Modified internal functions:
1835 5.4 (February 8, 2004)
1838 + add the remaining functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1839 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1840 --enable-widec option.
1844 + write getyx() and related 2-return macros in terms of getcury(),
1847 + simplify ifdef for bool declaration in curses.h
1849 + modify ifdef's in curses.h that disabled use of __attribute__() for
1850 g++, since recent versions implement the cases which ncurses uses.
1852 + change some interfaces to use const:
1864 Added internal functions:
1867 _nc_is_charable() wide
1868 _nc_locale_breaks_acs()
1871 _nc_to_widechar() wide
1873 _nc_trace_bufcat() debug
1874 _nc_unicode_locale()
1876 Removed internal functions:
1880 Modified internal functions:
1882 _nc_retrace_chtype()
1884 5.3 (October 12, 2002)
1887 + change type for bool used in headers to NCURSES_BOOL, which usually
1888 is the same as the compiler's definition for 'bool'.
1890 + add all but two functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1891 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1892 --enable-widec option. Missing functions are
1896 + add environment variable $NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS to modify the
1897 assume_default_colors() extension.
1903 Added internal functions:
1904 _nc_altcharset_name() debug
1906 _nc_retrace_bool() debug
1907 _nc_retrace_unsigned() debug
1909 _nc_trace_ttymode() debug
1914 Removed internal functions:
1917 Modified internal functions:
1920 5.2 (October 21, 2000)
1923 + revert termcap ospeed variable to 'short' (see discussion of the
1924 --with-ospeed configure option).
1929 + made the extended terminal capabilities
1930 (configure --enable-tcap-names) a standard feature. This should
1931 be transparent to applications that do not require it.
1933 + removed the trace() function and related trace support from the
1936 + modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict
1939 Added extensions: assume_default_colors().
1941 5.0 (October 23, 1999)
1944 + implemented the wcolor_set() and slk_color() functions.
1946 + move macro winch to a function, to hide details of struct ldat
1948 + corrected prototypes for slk_* functions, using chtype rather than
1951 + the slk_attr_{set,off,on} functions need an additional void*
1952 parameter according to XSI.
1954 + modified several prototypes to correspond with 1997 version of X/Open
1955 Curses: [w]attr_get(), [w]attr_set(), border_set() have different
1956 parameters. Some functions were renamed or misspelled:
1957 erase_wchar(), in_wchntr(), mvin_wchntr(). Some developers have used
1960 Added extensions: keybound(), curses_version().
1962 Terminfo database changes:
1964 + change translation for termcap 'rs' to terminfo 'rs2', which is
1965 the documented equivalent, rather than 'rs1'.
1967 The problems are subtler in recent releases.
1969 a) This release provides users with the ability to define their own
1970 terminal capability extensions, like termcap. To accomplish this,
1971 we redesigned the TERMTYPE struct (in term.h). Very few
1972 applications use this struct. They must be recompiled to work with
1975 a) If you use the extended terminfo names (i.e., you used configure
1976 --enable-tcap-names), the resulting terminfo database can have some
1977 entries which are not readable by older versions of ncurses. This
1978 is a bug in the older versions:
1980 + the terminfo database stores booleans, numbers and strings in
1981 arrays. The capabilities that are listed in the arrays are
1982 specified by X/Open. ncurses recognizes a number of obsolete and
1983 extended names which are stored past the end of the specified
1986 + a change to read_entry.c in 951001 made the library do an lseek()
1987 call incorrectly skipping data which is already read from the
1988 string array. This happens when the number of strings in the
1989 terminfo data file is greater than STRCOUNT, the number of
1990 specified and obsolete or extended strings.
1992 + as part of alignment with the X/Open final specification, in the
1993 990109 patch we added two new terminfo capabilities:
1994 set_a_attributes and set_pglen_inch). This makes the indices for
1995 the obsolete and extended capabilities shift up by 2.
1997 + the last two capabilities in the obsolete/extended list are memu
1998 and meml, which are found in most terminfo descriptions for xterm.
2000 When trying to read this terminfo entry, the spurious lseek()
2001 causes the library to attempt to read the final portion of the
2002 terminfo data (the text of the string capabilities) 4 characters
2003 past its starting point, and reads 4 characters too few. The
2004 library rejects the data, and applications are unable to
2005 initialize that terminal type.
2007 FIX: remove memu and meml from the xterm description. They are
2008 obsolete, not used by ncurses. (It appears that the feature was
2009 added to xterm to make it more like hpterm).
2011 This is not a problem if you do not use the -x option of tic to
2012 create a terminfo database with extended names. Note that the
2013 user-defined terminal capabilities are not affected by this bug,
2014 since they are stored in a table after the older terminfo data ends,
2015 and are invisible to the older libraries.
2017 c) Some developers did not wish to use the C++ binding, and used the
2018 configure --without-cxx option. This causes problems if someone
2019 uses the ncurses library from C++ because that configure test
2020 determines the type for C++'s bool and makes ncurses match it, since
2021 both C++ and curses are specified to declare bool. Calling ncurses
2022 functions with the incorrect type for bool will cause execution
2023 errors. In 5.0 we added a configure option "--without-cxx-binding"
2024 which controls whether the binding itself is built and installed.
2029 + correct prototype for termattrs() as per XPG4 version 2.
2031 + add placeholder prototypes for color_set(), erasewchar(),
2032 term_attrs(), wcolor_set() as per XPG4 version 2.
2034 + add macros getcur[xy] getbeg[xy] getpar[xy], which are defined in
2037 New extensions: keyok() and define_key().
2039 Terminfo database changes:
2041 + corrected definition in curses.h for ACS_LANTERN, which was 'I'
2046 We added these extensions: use_default_colors(). Also added
2047 configure option --enable-const, to support the use of const where
2048 X/Open should have, but did not, specify.
2050 The terminfo database content changed the representation of color for
2051 most entries that use ANSI colors. SVr4 curses treats the setaf/setab
2052 and setf/setb capabilities differently, interchanging the red/blue
2053 colors in the latter.
2055 4.0 (December 24, 1996)
2057 We bumped to version 4.0 because the newly released Linux dynamic
2058 loader (ld.so.1.8.5) did not load shared libraries whose ABI and REL
2059 versions were inconsistent. At that point, ncurses ABI was 3.4 and the
2060 REL was 1.9.9g, so we made them consistent.
2062 1.9.9g (December 1, 1996)
2064 This fixed most of the problems with 1.9.9e, and made these interface
2067 + remove tparam(), which had been provided for compatibility with
2068 some termcap. tparm() is standard, and does not conflict with
2069 application's fallback for missing tparam().
2071 + turn off hardware echo in initscr(). This changes the sense of the
2072 echo() function, which was initialized to echoing rather than
2073 nonechoing (the latter is specified). There were several other
2074 corrections to the terminal I/O settings which cause applications to
2077 + implemented several functions (such as attr_on()) which were
2078 available only as macros.
2080 + corrected several typos in curses.h.in (i.e., the mvXXXX macros).
2082 + corrected prototypes for delay_output(),
2083 has_color, immedok() and idcok().
2085 + corrected misspelled getbkgd(). Some applications used the
2088 + added _yoffset to WINDOW. The size of WINDOW does not impact
2089 applications, since they use only pointers to WINDOW structs.
2091 These changes were made to the terminfo database:
2093 + removed boolean 'getm' which was available as an extended name.
2095 We added these extensions: wresize(), resizeterm(), has_key() and
2098 1.9.9e (March 24, 1996)
2100 not recommended (a last-minute/untested change left the forms and
2101 menus libraries unusable since they do not repaint the screen).
2102 Foreground/background colors are combined incorrectly, working properly
2103 only on a black background. When this was released, the X/Open
2104 specification was available only in draft form.
2106 Some applications (such as lxdialog) were "fixed" to work with the
2107 incorrect color scheme.
2110 FOR SYSTEM INTEGRATORS:
2111 ----------------------
2113 Configuration and Installation:
2115 On platforms where ncurses is assumed to be installed in /usr/lib,
2116 the configure script uses "/usr" as a default. These include any
2117 that use the Linux kernel, as well as these special cases:
2119 FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Cygwin, MinGW
2121 For other platforms, the default is "/usr/local". See the discussion
2122 of the "--disable-overwrite" option.
2124 The location of the terminfo is set indirectly by the "--datadir"
2125 configure option, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo, given a datadir of
2126 /usr/share. You may want to override this if you are installing
2127 ncurses libraries in nonstandard locations, but wish to share the
2130 Normally the ncurses library is configured in a pure-terminfo mode;
2131 that is, with the --disable-termcap option. This makes the ncurses
2132 library smaller and faster. The ncurses library includes a termcap
2133 emulation that queries the terminfo database, so even applications that
2134 use raw termcap to query terminal characteristics will win (providing
2135 you recompile and relink them!).
2137 If you must configure with termcap fallback enabled, you may also wish
2138 to use the --enable-getcap option. This speeds up termcap-based
2139 startups, at the expense of not allowing personal termcap entries to
2140 reference the terminfo tree. See comments in
2141 ncurses/tinfo/read_termcap.c for further details.
2143 Note that if you have $TERMCAP set, ncurses will use that value
2144 to locate termcap data. In particular, running from xterm will
2145 set $TERMCAP to the contents of the xterm's termcap entry.
2146 If ncurses sees that, it will not examine /etc/termcap.
2150 The terminfo file assumes that Shift-Tab generates \E[Z (the ECMA-48
2151 reverse-tabulation sequence) rather than ^I. Here are the loadkeys -d
2152 mappings that will set this up:
2154 keycode 15 = Tab Tab
2155 alt keycode 15 = Meta_Tab
2156 shift keycode 15 = F26
2157 string F26 ="\033[Z"
2159 Naming the Console Terminal
2161 In various systems there has been a practice of designating the system
2162 console driver type as `console'. Please do not do this! It
2163 complicates peoples' lives, because it can mean that several different
2164 terminfo entries from different operating systems all logically want to
2165 be called `console'.
2167 Please pick a name unique to your console driver and set that up
2168 in the /etc/inittab table or local equivalent. Send the entry to the
2169 terminfo maintainer (listed in the misc/terminfo file) to be included
2170 in the terminfo file, if it's not already there. See the
2171 term(7) manual page included with this distribution for more on
2172 conventions for choosing type names.
2174 Here are some recommended primary console names:
2176 linux -- Linux console driver
2181 If you are responsible for integrating ncurses for one of these
2182 distributions, please either use the recommended name or get back
2183 to us explaining why you don't want to, so we can work out nomenclature
2184 that will make users' lives easier rather than harder.
2187 MODERN XTERM VERSIONS:
2188 ---------------------
2190 The terminfo database file included with this distribution assumes you
2191 are running a modern xterm based on XFree86 (i.e., xterm-new). The
2192 earlier X11R6 entry (xterm-r6) and X11R5 entry (xterm-r5) is provided
2193 as well. See the --without-xterm-new configure script option if you
2194 are unable to update your system.
2197 CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES:
2198 ----------------------------
2200 In order to support operation of ncurses programs before the terminfo
2201 tree is accessible (that is, in single-user mode or at OS installation
2202 time) the ncurses library can be compiled to include an array of
2203 pre-fetched fallback entries.
2205 NOTE: This must be done on a machine which has ncurses' infocmp and
2206 terminfo database installed (as well as ncurses' tic and infocmp
2207 programs). That is because the fallback sources are generated and
2208 compiled into the library before the build-tree's copy of infocmp is
2211 These entries are checked by setupterm() only when the conventional
2212 fetches from the terminfo tree and the termcap fallback (if configured)
2213 have been tried and failed. Thus, the presence of a fallback will not
2214 shadow modifications to the on-disk entry for the same type, when that
2215 entry is accessible.
2217 By default, there are no entries on the fallback list. After you have
2218 built the ncurses suite for the first time, you can change the list
2219 (the process needs infocmp(1)). To do so, use the script
2220 ncurses/tinfo/MKfallback.sh. The configure script option
2221 --with-fallbacks does this (it accepts a comma-separated list of the
2222 names you wish, and does not require a rebuild).
2224 If you wanted (say) to have linux, vt100, and xterm fallbacks, you
2225 might use the commands
2228 tinfo/MKfallback.sh \
2230 ../misc/terminfo.src \
2233 linux vt100 xterm >fallback.c
2235 The first four parameters of the script are normally supplied by
2236 the configured makefiles via the "--with-fallbacks" option. They
2239 1) the location of the terminfo database
2240 2) the source for the terminfo entries
2241 3) the location of the tic program, used to create a terminfo
2243 4) the location of the infocmp program, used to print a terminfo
2246 Then just rebuild and reinstall the library as you would normally.
2247 You can restore the default empty fallback list with
2249 tinfo/MKfallback.sh \
2251 ../misc/terminfo.src \
2256 The overhead for an empty fallback list is one trivial stub function.
2257 Any non-empty fallback list is const'd and therefore lives in shareable
2258 text space. You can look at the comment trailing each initializer in
2259 the generated ncurses/fallback.c file to see the core cost of the
2260 fallbacks. A good rule of thumb for modern vt100-like entries is that
2261 each one will cost about 2.5K of text space.
2264 BSD CONVERSION NOTES:
2265 --------------------
2267 If you need to support really ancient BSD programs, you probably
2268 want to configure with the --enable-bsdpad option. What this does
2269 is enable code in tputs() that recognizes a numeric prefix on a
2270 capability as a request for that much trailing padding in milliseconds.
2271 There are old BSD programs that do things like tputs("50").
2273 (If you are distributing ncurses as a support-library component of
2274 an application you probably want to put the remainder of this section
2275 in the package README file.)
2277 The following note applies only if you have configured ncurses with
2280 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
2282 If you are installing this application privately (either because you
2283 have no root access or want to experiment with it before doing a root
2284 installation), there are a couple of details you need to be aware of.
2285 They have to do with the ncurses library, which uses terminfo rather
2286 than termcap for describing terminal characteristics.
2288 Though the ncurses library is terminfo-based, it can interpret your
2289 TERMCAP variable (if present), any local termcap files you reference
2290 through it, and the system termcap file. However, to avoid slowing
2291 down your application startup, it does this only once per terminal type!
2293 The first time you load a given terminal type from your termcap
2294 database, the library initialization code will automatically write it
2295 in terminfo format to a subdirectory under $HOME/.terminfo. After
2296 that, the initialization code will find it there and do a (much
2297 faster) terminfo fetch.
2299 Usually, all this means is that your home directory will silently grow
2300 an invisible .terminfo subdirectory which will get filled in with
2301 terminfo descriptions of terminal types as you invoke them. If anyone
2302 ever installs a global terminfo tree on your system, this will quietly
2303 stop happening and your $HOME/.terminfo will become redundant.
2305 The objective of all this logic is to make converting from BSD termcap
2306 as painless as possible without slowing down your application (termcap
2307 compilation is expensive).
2309 If you don't have a TERMCAP variable or custom personal termcap file,
2310 you can skip the rest of this dissertation.
2312 If you *do* have a TERMCAP variable and/or a custom personal termcap file
2313 that defines a terminal type, that definition will stop being visible
2314 to this application after the first time you run it, because it will
2315 instead see the terminfo entry that it wrote to $HOME/terminfo the
2318 Subsequently, editing the TERMCAP variable or personal TERMCAP file
2319 will have no effect unless you explicitly remove the terminfo entry
2320 under $HOME/terminfo. If you do that, the entry will be recompiled
2321 from your termcap resources the next time it is invoked.
2323 To avoid these complications, use infocmp(1) and tic(1) to edit the
2324 terminfo directory directly.
2326 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
2330 Ncurses 4.1 and up can be configured to use GPM (General Purpose Mouse)
2331 which is used with Linux console. Be aware that GPM is commonly
2332 installed as a shared library which contains a wrapper for the curses
2333 wgetch() function (libcurses.o). Some integrators have simplified
2334 linking applications by combining all or part of libcurses.so into the
2335 libgpm.so file, producing symbol conflicts with ncurses (specifically
2336 the wgetch function). This was originally the BSD curses, but
2337 generally whatever curses library exists on the system.
2339 You may be able to work around this problem by linking as follows:
2341 cc -o foo foo.o -lncurses -lgpm -lncurses
2343 but the linker may not cooperate, producing mysterious errors.
2344 See the FAQ, as well as the discussion under the --with-gpm option:
2346 https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#using_gpm_lib
2349 BUILDING WITH A CROSS-COMPILER:
2350 ------------------------------
2351 Ncurses can be built with a cross-compiler. Some parts must be built
2352 with the host's compiler since they are used for building programs
2353 (e.g., ncurses/make_hash and ncurses/make_keys) that generate tables
2354 that are compiled into the ncurses library. The essential thing to do
2355 is set the BUILD_CC environment variable to your host's compiler, and
2356 run the configure script configuring for the cross-compiler.
2358 The configure options --with-build-cc, etc., are provided to make this
2359 simpler. Since make_hash and make_keys use only ANSI C features, it
2360 is normally not necessary to provide the other options such as
2361 --with-build-libs, but they are provided for completeness.
2363 Note that all of the generated source-files which are part of ncurses
2364 will be made if you use
2368 This would be useful in porting to an environment which has little
2369 support for the tools used to generate the sources, e.g., sed, awk and
2372 When ncurses has been successfully cross-compiled, you may want to use
2373 "make install" (with a suitable target directory) to construct an
2374 install tree. Note that in this case (as with the --with-fallbacks
2375 option), ncurses uses the development platform's tic to do the "make
2376 install.data" portion.
2378 The system's tic program is used to install the terminal database,
2379 even for cross-compiles. For best results, the tic program should be
2380 from the most current version of ncurses.
2382 NOTE: the system's tic program may use a different terminfo database
2383 format than the target system. For instance, as described in term(5),
2384 the conventional terminfo layout uses a directory hierarchy with one
2385 letter names, while some platforms use two-letter names to work with
2386 case-insensitive filesystems. The configure script searches for a tic
2387 program using the AC_CHECK_TOOL macro, which will prefer programs
2388 using the canonical host prefix in their name. You can use this fact
2389 to provide a cross-compiler support utility tic, otherwise you can
2390 override the configure script's choice using --with-tic-path
2395 Send any feedback to the ncurses mailing list at
2396 bug-ncurses@gnu.org. To subscribe send mail to
2397 bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with body that reads:
2398 subscribe ncurses <your-email-address-here>
2400 The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines
2401 on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly.
projects / ncurses.git / blob