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28 -- $Id: INSTALL,v 1.140 2009/08/01 19:32:04 tom Exp $
29 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
30 How to install Ncurses/Terminfo on your system
31 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
33 ************************************************************
34 * READ ALL OF THIS FILE BEFORE YOU TRY TO INSTALL NCURSES. *
35 ************************************************************
37 You should be reading the file INSTALL in a directory called ncurses-d.d, where
38 d.d is the current version number. There should be several subdirectories,
39 including `c++', `form', `man', `menu', 'misc', `ncurses', `panel', `progs',
40 and `test'. See the README file for a roadmap to the package.
42 If you are a Linux or FreeBSD or NetBSD distribution integrator or packager,
43 please read and act on the section titled IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR
46 If you are converting from BSD curses and do not have root access, be sure
47 to read the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below.
49 If you are trying to build applications using gpm with ncurses,
50 read the USING NCURSES WITH GPM section below.
52 If you are running over the Andrew File System see the note below on
53 USING NCURSES WITH AFS.
55 If you are cross-compiling, see the note below on BUILDING NCURSES WITH A
58 If you want to build the Ada95 binding, go to the Ada95 directory and
59 follow the instructions there. The Ada95 binding is not covered below.
61 If you are using anything but (a) Linux, or (b) one of the 4.4BSD-based
62 i386 Unixes, go read the Portability section in the TO-DO file before you
69 You will need the following to build and install ncurses under UNIX:
71 * ANSI C compiler (gcc, for instance)
73 * awk (mawk or gawk will do)
75 * BSD or System V style install (a script is enclosed)
77 Ncurses has been also built in the OS/2 EMX environment.
80 INSTALLATION PROCEDURE:
81 ----------------------
83 1. First, decide whether you want ncurses to replace your existing library (in
84 which case you'll need super-user privileges) or be installed in parallel
87 The --prefix option to configure changes the root directory for installing
88 ncurses. The default is normally in subdirectories of /usr/local, except
89 for systems where ncurses is normally installed as a system library, e.g.,
90 Linux, the various BSD systems and Cygwin. Use --prefix=/usr to replace
91 your default curses distribution.
93 The package gets installed beneath the --prefix directory as follows:
95 In $(prefix)/bin: tic, infocmp, captoinfo, tset,
96 reset, clear, tput, toe
97 In $(prefix)/lib: libncurses*.* libcurses.a
98 In $(prefix)/share/terminfo: compiled terminal descriptions
99 In $(prefix)/include: C header files
100 Under $(prefix)/man: the manual pages
102 Note that the configure script attempts to locate previous installation of
103 ncurses, and will set the default prefix according to where it finds the
106 Do not use commands such as
108 make install prefix=XXX
110 to change the prefix after configuration, since the prefix value is used
111 for some absolute pathnames such as TERMINFO. Instead do this
113 make install DESTDIR=XXX
115 See also the discussion of --with-install-prefix.
117 2. Type `./configure' in the top-level directory of the distribution to
118 configure ncurses for your operating system and create the Makefiles.
119 Besides --prefix, various configuration options are available to customize
120 the installation; use `./configure --help' to list the available options.
122 If your operating system is not supported, read the PORTABILITY section in
123 the file ncurses/README for information on how to create a configuration
124 file for your system.
126 The `configure' script generates makefile rules for one or more object
127 models and their associated libraries:
129 libncurses.a (normal)
131 libcurses.a (normal, a link to libncurses.a)
132 This gets left out if you configure with --disable-overwrite.
134 libncurses.so (shared)
136 libncurses_g.a (debug)
138 libncurses_p.a (profile)
140 libncurses.la (libtool)
142 If you configure using the --enable-widec option, a "w" is appended to the
143 library names (e.g., libncursesw.a), and the resulting libraries support
144 wide-characters, e.g., via a UTF-8 locale. The corresponding header files
145 are compatible with the non-wide-character configuration; wide-character
146 features are provided by ifdef's in the header files. The wide-character
147 library interfaces are not binary-compatible with the non-wide-character
148 version. Building and running the wide-character code relies on a fairly
149 recent implementation of libiconv. We have built this configuration on
150 Linux using libiconv, sometimes requiring libutf8.
152 If you configure using the --with-pthread option, a "t" is appended to
153 the library names (e.g., libncursest.a, libncursestw.a).
155 If you do not specify any models, the normal and debug libraries will be
156 configured. Typing `configure' with no arguments is equivalent to:
158 ./configure --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
162 ./configure --with-shared
164 makes the shared libraries the default, resulting in
166 ./configure --with-shared --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
168 If you want only shared libraries, type
170 ./configure --with-shared --without-normal --without-debug
172 Rules for generating shared libraries are highly dependent upon the choice
173 of host system and compiler. We've been testing shared libraries on Linux
174 and SunOS with gcc, but more work needs to be done to make shared libraries
175 work on other systems.
177 If you have libtool installed, you can type
179 ./configure --with-libtool
181 to generate the appropriate static and/or shared libraries for your
182 platform using libtool.
184 You can make curses and terminfo fall back to an existing file of termcap
185 definitions by configuring with --enable-termcap. If you do this, the
186 library will search /etc/termcap before the terminfo database, and will
187 also interpret the contents of the TERM environment variable. See the
188 section BSD CONVERSION NOTES below.
190 3. Type `make'. Ignore any warnings, no error messages should be produced.
191 This should compile the ncurses library, the terminfo compiler tic(1),
192 captoinfo(1), infocmp(1), toe(1), clear(1) tset(1), reset(1), and tput(1)
193 programs (see the manual pages for explanation of what they do), some test
194 programs, and the panels, menus, and forms libraries.
196 4. Run ncurses and several other test programs in the test directory to
197 verify that ncurses functions correctly before doing an install that
198 may overwrite system files. Read the file test/README for details on
201 NOTE: You must have installed the terminfo database, or set the
202 environment variable $TERMINFO to point to a SVr4-compatible terminfo
203 database before running the test programs. Not all vendors' terminfo
204 databases are SVr4-compatible, but most seem to be. Exceptions include
205 DEC's Digital Unix (formerly known as OSF/1).
207 If you run the test programs WITHOUT installing terminfo, ncurses may
208 read the termcap file and cache that in $HOME/.terminfo, which will
209 thereafter be used instead of the terminfo database. See the comments
210 on "--enable-getcap-cache", to see why this is a Bad Thing.
212 It is possible to configure ncurses to use other terminfo database formats.
213 A few are provided as examples in the include-directory (see --with-caps).
215 The ncurses program is designed specifically to test the ncurses library.
216 You can use it to verify that the screen highlights work correctly, that
217 cursor addressing and window scrolling works OK, etc.
219 5. Once you've tested, you can type `make install' to install libraries,
220 the programs, the terminfo database and the manual pages. Alternately, you
221 can type `make install' in each directory you want to install. In the
222 top-level directory, you can do a partial install using these commands:
224 'make install.progs' installs tic, infocmp, etc...
225 'make install.includes' installs the headers.
226 'make install.libs' installs the libraries (and the headers).
227 'make install.data' installs the terminfo data. (Note: `tic' must
228 be installed before the terminfo data can be
230 'make install.man' installs the manual pages.
232 ############################################################################
233 # CAVEAT EMPTOR: `install.data' run as root will NUKE any existing #
234 # terminfo database. If you have any custom or unusual entries SAVE them #
235 # before you install ncurses. I have a file called terminfo.custom for #
236 # this purpose. Don't forget to run tic on the file once you're done. #
237 ############################################################################
239 The terminfo(5) manual page must be preprocessed with tbl(1) before
240 being formatted by nroff(1). Modern man(1) implementations tend to do
241 this by default, but you may want to look at your version's manual page
242 to be sure. You may also install the manual pages after preprocessing
243 with tbl(1) by specifying the configure option --with-manpage-tbl.
245 If the system already has a curses library that you need to keep using
246 you'll need to distinguish between it and ncurses. See the discussion of
247 --disable-overwrite. If ncurses is installed outside the standard
248 directories (/usr/include and /usr/lib) then all your users will need to
249 use the -I option to compile programs and -L to link them.
251 If you have another curses installed in your system and you accidentally
252 compile using its curses.h you'll end up with a large number of
253 undefined symbols at link time.
255 IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ROOT: Change directory to the `progs' subdirectory
256 and run the `capconvert' script. This script will deduce various things
257 about your environment and use them to build you a private terminfo tree,
258 so you can use ncurses applications.
260 If more than one user at your site does this, the space for the duplicate
261 trees is wasted. Try to get your site administrators to install a system-
262 wide terminfo tree instead.
264 See the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below for a few more details.
266 6. The c++ directory has C++ classes that are built on top of ncurses and
267 panels. You must have c++ (and its libraries) installed before you can
268 compile and run the demo.
270 Use --without-cxx-binding to tell configure to not build the C++ bindings
273 If you do not have C++, you must use the --without-cxx option to tell
274 the configure script to not attempt to determine the type of 'bool'
275 which may be supported by C++. IF YOU USE THIS OPTION, BE ADVISED THAT
276 YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO COMPILE (OR RUN) NCURSES APPLICATIONS WITH C++.
279 SUMMARY OF CONFIGURE OPTIONS:
280 ----------------------------
282 The configure script provides a short list of its options when you type
286 The --help and several options are common to all configure scripts that are
287 generated with autoconf. Those are all listed before the line
289 --enable and --with options recognized:
291 The other options are specific to this package. We list them in alphabetic
294 --disable-assumed-color
295 With ncurses 5.1, we introduced a new function, assume_default_colors()
296 which allows applications to specify what the default foreground and
297 background color are assumed to be. Most color applications use
298 full-screen color; but a few do not color the background. While the
299 assumed values can be overridden by invoking assume_default_colors(),
300 you may find it useful to set the assumed values to the pre-5.1
301 convention, using this configure option.
304 Assume machine has little memory. The configure script attempts to
305 determine if your machine has enough memory (about 6Mb) to compile the
306 terminfo database without writing portions to disk. Some allocators
307 return deceptive results, so you may have to override the configure
308 script. Or you may be building tic for a smaller machine.
310 --disable-big-strings
311 Disable compile-time optimization of predefined tables which puts
312 all of their strings into a very long string, to reduce relocation
316 Use only built-in data. The ncurses libraries normally read terminfo
317 and termcap data from disk. You can configure ncurses to have a
318 built-in database, aka "fallback" entries. Embedded applications may
319 have no need for an external database. Some, but not all of the
320 programs are useful in this configuration, e.g., reset and tput versus
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.
329 Compile without hashmap scrolling-optimization code. This algorithm is
332 --disable-home-terminfo
333 The $HOME/.terminfo directory is normally added to ncurses' search
334 list for reading/writing terminfo entries, since that directory is
335 more likely writable than the system terminfo database. Use this
336 option to disable the feature altogether.
339 Disable compiler flags needed to use large-file interfaces.
342 For testing, compile-in code that frees memory that normally would not
343 be freed, to simplify analysis of memory-leaks.
345 Any implementation of curses must not free the memory associated with
346 a screen, since (even after calling endwin()), it must be available
347 for use in the next call to refresh(). There are also chunks of
348 memory held for performance reasons. That makes it hard to analyze
349 curses applications for memory leaks. To work around this, build
350 a debugging version of the ncurses library which frees those chunks
351 which it can, and provides the _nc_free_and_exit() function to free
352 the remainder on exit. The ncurses utility and test programs use this
353 feature, e.g., via the ExitProgram() macro.
356 The header files will ignore use of the _LP64 symbol to make chtype
357 and mmask_t types 32 bits (they may be long on 64-bit hosts, for
358 compatibility with older releases).
360 NOTE: this is potentially an ABI change, depending on existing
361 packages. The default for this option is "disabled" for ncurses
362 ABI 5, and "enabled" for ABI 6.
365 For testing, use functions rather than macros. The program will run
366 more slowly, but it is simpler to debug. This defines NCURSES_NOMACROS
367 at build time. See also the --enable-expanded option.
370 If you are installing ncurses on a system which contains another
371 development version of curses, or which could be confused by the loader
372 for another version, we recommend that you leave out the link to
373 -lcurses. The ncurses library is always available as -lncurses.
374 Disabling overwrite also causes the ncurses header files to be
375 installed into a subdirectory, e.g., /usr/local/include/ncurses,
376 rather than the include directory. This makes it simpler to avoid
377 compile-time conflicts with other versions of curses.h
380 If --enable-rpath is given, the generated makefiles normally will
381 rebuild the libraries during install. Use this option to simply
382 copy whatever the linked produced.
384 This option is ignored if --enable-rpath is not given.
386 --disable-root-environ
387 Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment variables
388 are not available when running as root, or via a setuid/setgid
389 application. These are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow the
390 search path for the terminfo or termcap entry to be customized.
392 --disable-scroll-hints
393 Compile without scroll-hints code. This option is ignored when
394 hashmap scrolling is configured, which is the default.
396 --disable-tic-depends
397 When building shared libraries, normally the tic library is linked to
398 depend upon the ncurses library (and in turn, on the term-library if
399 the --with-termlib option was given). The tic- and term-libraries
400 ABI does not depend on the --enable-widec option. Some packagers have
401 used this to reduce the number of library files which are packaged
402 by using only one copy of those libraries. To make this work properly,
403 the tic library must be built without an explicit dependency on the
404 ncurses (or ncursesw) library. Use this configure option to do that.
406 configure --with-ticlib --with-shared --disable-tic-depends
408 --disable-tparm-varargs
409 Portable programs should call tparm() using the fixed-length parameter
410 list documented in X/Open. ncurses provides varargs support for this
411 function. Use --disable-tparm-varargs to disable this support.
414 For testing, compile-in assertion code. This is used only for a few
415 places where ncurses cannot easily recover by returning an error code.
417 --enable-broken_linker
418 A few platforms have what we consider a broken linker: it cannot link
419 objects from an archive solely by referring to data objects in those
420 files, but requires a function reference. This configure option
421 changes several data references to functions to work around this
424 NOTE: With ncurses 5.1, this may not be necessary, since we are
425 told that some linkers interpret uninitialized global data as a
426 different type of reference which behaves as described above. We have
427 explicitly initialized all of the global data to work around the
431 Recognize BSD-style prefix padding. Some ancient BSD programs (such as
432 nethack) call tputs("50") to implement delays.
435 Compile with experimental $COLORFGBG code. That environment variable
436 is set by some terminal emulators as a hint to applications, by
437 advertising the default foreground and background colors. During
438 initialization, ncurses sets color pair 0 to match this.
441 The curses interface as documented in XSI is rather old, in fact
442 including features that precede ANSI C. The prototypes generally do
443 not make effective use of "const". When using stricter compilers (or
444 gcc with appropriate warnings), you may see warnings about the mismatch
445 between const and non-const data. We provide a configure option which
446 changes the interfaces to use const - quieting these warnings and
447 reflecting the actual use of the parameters more closely. The ncurses
448 library uses the symbol NCURSES_CONST for these instances of const,
449 and if you have asked for compiler warnings, will add gcc's const-qual
450 warning. There will still be warnings due to subtle inconsistencies
451 in the interface, but at a lower level.
453 NOTE: configuring ncurses with this option may detract from the
454 portability of your applications by encouraging you to use const in
455 places where the XSI curses interface would not allow them. Similar
456 issues arise when porting to SVr4 curses, which uses const in even
460 Use the option --disable-echo to make the build-log less verbose by
461 suppressing the display of the compile and link commands. This makes
462 it easier to see the compiler warnings. (You can always use "make -n"
463 to see the options that are used).
466 For testing, generate functions for certain macros to make them visible
467 as such to the debugger. See also the --disable-macros option.
470 Extend the cchar_t structure to allow more than 16 colors to be
471 encoded. This applies only to the wide-character (--enable-widec)
474 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
475 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
476 applications which have an array of cchar_t's must be recompiled.
479 Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th mouse button.
480 That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel mouse with xterm or
481 similar X terminal emulators.
483 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
484 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
485 applications which have mouse mask mmask_t's must be recompiled.
488 Use the 4.4BSD getcap code if available, or a bundled version of it to
489 fetch termcap entries. Entries read in this way cannot use (make
490 cross-references to) the terminfo tree, but it is faster than reading
493 If configured for one of the *BSD systems, this automatically uses
494 the hashed database system produced using cap_mkdb or similar tools.
495 In that case, there is no advantage in using the --enable-getcap-cache
498 See also the --with-hashed-db option.
500 --enable-getcap-cache
501 Cache translated termcaps under the directory $HOME/.terminfo
503 NOTE: this sounds good - it makes ncurses run faster the second time.
504 But look where the data comes from - an /etc/termcap containing lots of
505 entries that are not up to date. If you configure with this option and
506 forget to install the terminfo database before running an ncurses
507 application, you will end up with a hidden terminfo database that
508 generally does not support color and will miss some function keys.
511 Compile-in cursor-optimization code that uses hard-tabs. We would make
512 this a standard feature except for the concern that the terminfo entry
513 may not be accurate, or that your stty settings have disabled the use
517 Controls whether the filesystem on which the terminfo database resides
518 supports mixed-case filenames (normal for UNIX, but not on other
519 systems). If you do not specify this option, the configure script
520 checks the current filesystem.
523 Compile-in support for the $NCURSES_NO_PADDING environment variable,
524 which allows you to suppress the effect of non-mandatory padding in
525 terminfo entries. This is the default, unless you have disabled the
529 If pkg-config is found (see --with-pkg-config), generate ".pc" files
530 for each of the libraries, and install them in pkg-config's library
534 Compile experimental configuration which improves reentrant use of the
535 library by reducing global and static variables. This option is also
536 set if --with-pthread is used.
539 Use rpath option when generating shared libraries, and (with some
540 restrictions) when linking the corresponding programs. This originally
541 (in 1997) applied mainly to systems using the GNU linker (read the
544 More recently it is useful for systems that require special treatment
545 shared libraries in "unusual" locations. The "system" libraries reside
546 in directories which are on the loader's default search-path. While
547 you may be able to use workarounds such as the $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
548 environment variable, they do not work with setuid applications since
549 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable would be unset in that situation.
551 This option does not apply to --with-libtool, since libtool makes
552 extra assumptions about rpath.
554 --enable-safe-sprintf
555 Compile with experimental safe-sprintf code. You may consider using
556 this if you are building ncurses for a system that has neither
557 vsnprintf() or vsprintf(). It is slow, however.
560 Compile support for ncurses' SIGWINCH handler. If your application has
561 its own SIGWINCH handler, ncurses will not use its own. The ncurses
562 handler causes wgetch() to return KEY_RESIZE when the screen-size
563 changes. This option is the default, unless you have disabled the
567 The term.h header declares a Booleans[] array typed "char". But it
568 stores signed values there and "char" is not necessarily signed.
569 Some packagers choose to alter the type of Booleans[] though this
570 is not strictly compatible. This option allows one to implement this
571 alteration without patching the source code.
574 If your system supports symbolic links, make tic use symbolic links
575 rather than hard links to save diskspace when writing aliases in the
579 Compile-in support for user-definable terminal capabilities. Use the
580 -x option of tic and infocmp to treat unrecognized terminal
581 capabilities as user-defined strings. This option is the default,
582 unless you have disabled the extended functions.
585 Compile in support for reading terminal descriptions from termcap if no
586 match is found in the terminfo database. See also the --enable-getcap
587 and --enable-getcap-cache options.
590 Turn on GCC compiler warnings. There should be only a few.
592 --enable-weak-symbols
593 If the --with-pthread option is set, check if the compiler supports
594 weak-symbols. If it does, then name the thread-capable library without
595 the "t" (libncurses rather than libncursest), and provide for
596 dynamically loading the pthreads entrypoints at runtime. This allows
597 one to reduce the number of library files for ncurses.
599 --enable-wgetch-events
600 Compile with experimental wgetch-events code. See ncurses/README.IZ
603 Compile with wide-character code. This makes a different version of
604 the libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so), which stores characters as
607 NOTE: applications compiled with this configuration are not compatible
608 with those built for 8-bit characters. You cannot simply make a
609 symbolic link to equate libncurses.so with libncursesw.so
611 NOTE: the Ada95 binding may be built against either version of the the
612 ncurses library, but you must decide which: the binding installs the
613 same set of files for either version. Currently (2002/6/22) it does
614 not use the extended features from the wide-character code, so it is
615 probably better to not install the binding for that configuration.
618 Compile-in support experimental xmc (magic cookie) code.
620 --with-abi-version=NUM
621 Override the ABI version, which is used in shared library filenames.
622 Normally this is the same as the release version; some ports have
623 special requirements for compatibility.
625 This option does not affect linking with libtool, which uses the
626 release major/minor numbers.
628 --with-ada-compiler=CMD
629 Specify the Ada95 compiler command (default "gnatmake")
631 --with-ada-include=DIR
632 Tell where to install the Ada includes (default:
633 PREFIX/lib/ada/adainclude)
635 --with-ada-objects=DIR
636 Tell where to install the Ada objects (default: PREFIX/lib/ada/adalib)
639 If --without-cxx is specified, override the type used for the "bool"
640 declared in curses.h (normally the type is automatically chosen to
641 correspond with that in <stdbool.h>, or defaults to platform-specific
645 If cross-compiling, specify a host C compiler, which is needed to
646 compile a few utilities which generate source modules for ncurses.
647 If you do not give this option, the configure script checks if the
648 $BUILD_CC variable is set, and otherwise defaults to gcc or cc.
650 --with-build-cflags=XXX
651 If cross-compiling, specify the host C compiler-flags. You might need
652 to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse the
655 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_CFLAGS rather than
658 --with-build-cppflags=XXX
659 If cross-compiling, specify the host C preprocessor-flags. You might
660 need to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse
663 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_CPPFLAGS rather than
666 --with-build-ldflags=XXX
667 If cross-compiling, specify the host linker-flags. You might need to
668 do this if the target linker has unusual flags which confuse the host
671 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_LDFLAGS rather than
674 --with-build-libs=XXX
675 If cross-compiling, the host libraries. You might need to do this if
676 the target environment requires unusual libraries.
678 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_LIBS rather than
682 Specify an alternate terminfo capabilities file, which makes the
683 configure script look for "include/Caps.XXX". A few systems, e.g.,
684 AIX 4.x use the same overall file-format as ncurses for terminfo
685 data, but use different alignments within the tables to support
686 legacy applications. For those systems, you can configure ncurses
687 to use a terminfo database which is compatible with the native
690 --with-ccharw-max=XXX
691 Override the size of the wide-character array in cchar_t structures.
692 Changing this will alter the binary interface. This defaults to 5.
695 Override type of chtype, which stores the video attributes and (if
696 --enable-widec is not given) a character. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this
697 was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it may be unsigned.
698 Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility with 64-bit
702 Specify the terminfo source file to install. Usually you will wish
703 to install ncurses' default (misc/terminfo.src). Certain systems
704 have special requirements, e.g, OS/2 EMX has a customized terminfo
708 For testing, compile and link with Conor Cahill's dbmalloc library.
709 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
712 Generate debug-libraries (default). These are named by adding "_g"
713 to the root, e.g., libncurses_g.a
715 --with-default-terminfo-dir=XXX
716 Specify the default terminfo database directory. This is normally
717 DATADIR/terminfo, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo.
720 For testing, compile and link with Gray Watson's dmalloc library.
721 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
724 Specify a list of fallback terminal descriptions which will be
725 compiled into the ncurses library. See CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES.
728 use Alessandro Rubini's GPM library to provide mouse support on the
729 Linux console. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this introduced a dependency on
732 Currently ncurses uses the dlsym() function to bind to the library at
733 runtime, so it is only necessary that the library be present when
734 ncurses is built, to obtain the filename (or soname) used in the
735 corresponding dlopen() call. If you give a value for this option,
738 --with-gpm=$HOME/tmp/test-gpm.so
740 that overrides the configure check for the soname.
742 See also --without-dlsym
744 --with-hashed-db[=XXX]
745 Use a hashed database for storing terminfo data rather than storing
746 each compiled entry in a separate binary file within a directory
749 In particular, this uses the Berkeley database 1.8.5 interface, as
750 provided by that and its successors db 2, 3, and 4. The actual
751 interface is slightly different in the successor versions of the
752 Berkeley database. The database should have been configured using
753 "--enable-compat185".
755 If you use this option for configuring ncurses, tic will only be able
756 to write entries in the hashed database. infocmp can still read
757 entries from a directory tree as well as reading entries from the
758 hashed database. To do this, infocmp determines whether the $TERMINFO
759 variable points to a directory or a file, and reads the directory-tree
760 or hashed database respectively.
762 You cannot have a directory containing both hashed-database and
763 filesystem-based terminfo entries.
765 Use the parameter value to give the install-prefix used for the
767 --with-hashed-db=/usr/local/BigBase
768 to find the corresponding include- and lib-directories under the
771 See also the --enable-getcap option.
773 --with-install-prefix=XXX
774 Allows you to specify an alternate location for installing ncurses
775 after building it. The value you specify is prepended to the "real"
776 install location. This simplifies making binary packages. The
777 makefile variable DESTDIR is set by this option. It is also possible
779 make install DESTDIR=XXX
780 since the makefiles pass that variable to subordinate makes.
782 NOTE: a few systems build shared libraries with fixed pathnames; this
783 option probably will not work for those configurations.
786 Generate libraries with libtool. If this option is selected, then it
787 overrides all other library model specifications. Note that libtool
788 must already be installed, uses makefile rules dependent on GNU make,
789 and does not promise to follow the version numbering convention of
790 other shared libraries on your system. However, if the --with-shared
791 option does not succeed, you may get better results with this option.
793 If a parameter value is given, it must be the full pathname of the
794 particular version of libtool, e.g.,
795 /usr/bin/libtool-1.2.3
797 It is possible to rebuild the configure script to use the automake
798 macros for libtool, e.g., AC_PROG_LIBTOOL. See the comments in
799 aclocal.m4 for CF_PROG_LIBTOOL, and ensure that you build configure
800 using the appropriate patch for autoconf from
801 http://invisible-island.net/autoconf/
803 --with-manpage-aliases
804 Tell the configure script you wish to create entries in the
805 man-directory for aliases to manpages which list them, e.g., the
806 functions in the panel manpage. This is the default. You can disable
807 it if your man program does this. You can also disable
808 --with-manpage-symlinks to install files containing a ".so" command
809 rather than symbolic links.
811 --with-manpage-format=XXX
812 Tell the configure script how you would like to install man-pages. The
813 option value must be one of these: gzip, compress, BSDI, normal,
814 formatted. If you do not give this option, the configure script
815 attempts to determine which is the case.
817 --with-manpage-renames=XXX
818 Tell the configure script that you wish to rename the manpages while
819 installing. Currently the only distribution which does this is
820 the Linux Debian. The option value specifies the name of a file
821 that lists the renamed files, e.g., $srcdir/man/man_db.renames
823 --with-manpage-symlinks
824 Tell the configure script that you wish to make symbolic links in the
825 man-directory for aliases to the man-pages. This is the default, but
826 can be disabled for systems that provide this automatically. Doing
827 this on systems that do not support symbolic links will result in
828 copying the man-page for each alias.
831 Tell the configure script that you with to preprocess the manpages
832 by running them through tbl to generate tables understandable by
836 Override type of mmask_t, which stores the mouse mask. Prior to
837 ncurses 5.5, this was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it
838 may be unsigned. Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility
839 with 64-bit executables.
842 Generate normal (i.e., static) libraries (default).
844 Note: on Linux, the configure script will attempt to use the GPM
845 library via the dlsym() function call. Use --without-dlsym to disable
846 this feature, or --without-gpm, depending on whether you wish to use
850 Override type of ospeed variable, which is part of the termcap
851 compatibility interface. In termcap, this is a 'short', which works
852 for a wide range of baudrates because ospeed is not the actual speed
853 but the encoded value, e.g., B9600 would be a small number such as 13.
854 However the encoding scheme originally allowed for values "only" up to
855 38400bd. A newer set of definitions past 38400bd is not encoded as
856 compactly, and is not guaranteed to fit into a short (see the function
857 cfgetospeed(), which returns a speed_t for this reason). In practice,
858 applications that required knowledge of the ospeed variable, i.e.,
859 those using termcap, do not use the higher speeds. Your application
860 (or system, in general) may or may not.
862 --with-pkg-config=[DIR]
863 Check for pkg-config, optionally specifying its path.
866 Generate profile-libraries These are named by adding "_p" to the root,
870 Link with POSIX threads, set --enable-reentrant. The use_window() and
871 use_screen() functions will use mutex's, allowing rudimentary support
872 for multithreaded applications.
875 Compile-in RCS identifiers. Most of the C files have an identifier.
877 --with-rel-version=NUM
878 Override the release version, which may be used in shared library
879 filenames. This consists of a major and minor version number separated
880 by ".". Normally the major version number is the same as the ABI
881 version; some ports have special requirements for compatibility.
884 Generate shared-libraries. The names given depend on the system for
885 which you are building, typically using a ".so" suffix, along with
886 symbolic links that refer to the release version.
888 NOTE: Unless you override the configure script by setting the $CFLAGS
889 environment variable, these will not be built with the -g debugging
892 NOTE: For some configurations, e.g., installing a new version of
893 ncurses shared libraries on a machine which already has ncurses
894 shared libraries, you may encounter problems with the linker.
895 For example, it may prevent you from running the build tree's
896 copy of tic (for installing the terminfo database) because it
897 loads the system's copy of the ncurses shared libraries. In that
898 case, using the misc/shlib script may be helpful, since it sets
899 $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the build tree, e.g.,
900 ./misc/shlib make install
902 --with-shlib-version=XXX
903 Specify whether to use the release or ABI version for shared libraries.
904 This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of system
905 which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure script.
908 use FreeBSD sysmouse interface provide mouse support on the console.
910 --with-system-type=XXX
911 For testing, override the derived host system-type which is used to
912 decide things such as the linker commands used to build shared
913 libraries. This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of
914 system which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure
917 --with-terminfo-dirs=XXX
918 Specify a search-list of terminfo directories which will be compiled
919 into the ncurses library (default: DATADIR/terminfo)
922 When building the ncurses library, organize this as two parts: the
923 curses library (libncurses) and the low-level terminfo library
924 (libtinfo). This is done to accommodate applications that use only
925 the latter. The terminfo library is about half the size of the total.
927 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the terminfo
928 library. For instance, if the wide-character version is built, the
929 terminfo library would be named libtinfow. But the libtinfow interface
930 is upward compatible from libtinfo, so it would be possible to overlay
931 libtinfo.so with a "wide" version of libtinfow.so by renaming it with
935 Specify a search-list of termcap files which will be compiled into the
936 ncurses library (default: /etc/termcap:/usr/share/misc/termcap)
939 When building the ncurses library, build a separate library for
940 the modules that are used only by the utility programs. Normally
941 those would be bundled with the termlib or ncurses libraries.
943 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the tic
944 library. As in termlib, there is no ABI difference between the
945 "wide" libticw.so and libtic.so
947 NOTE: Overriding the name of the tic library may be useful if you are
948 also using the --with-termlib option to rename libtinfo. If you are
949 not doing that, renaming the tic library can result in conflicting
950 library dependencies for tic and other programs built with the tic
954 Configure the trace() function as part of the all models of the ncurses
955 library. Normally it is part of the debug (libncurses_g) library only.
958 For testing, compile with debug option.
959 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
961 --with-wrap-prefix=XXX
962 When using the --enable-reentrant option, ncurses redefines variables
963 that would be global in curses, e.g., LINES, as a macro that calls a
964 "wrapping" function which fetches the data from the current SCREEN
965 structure. Normally that function is named by prepending "_nc_" to the
966 variable's name. The function is technically private (since portable
967 applications would not refer directly to it). But according to one
968 line of reasoning, it is not the same type of "private" as functions
969 which applications should not call even via a macro. This configure
970 option lets you choose the prefix for these wrapped variables.
973 Suppress the configure script's check for Ada95, do not build the
974 Ada95 binding and related demo.
977 Don't install the ncurses header with the name "curses.h". Rather,
978 install as "ncurses.h" and modify the installed headers and manpages
982 XSI curses declares "bool" as part of the interface. C++ also declares
983 "bool". Neither specifies the size and type of booleans, but both
984 insist on the same name. We chose to accommodate this by making the
985 configure script check for the size and type (e.g., unsigned or signed)
986 that your C++ compiler uses for booleans. If you do not wish to use
987 ncurses with C++, use this option to tell the configure script to not
988 adjust ncurses bool to match C++.
990 --without-cxx-binding
991 Suppress the configure script's check for C++, do not build the
992 C++ binding and related demo.
995 Disable development options. This does not include those that change
996 the interface, such as --enable-widec.
999 Do not use dlsym() to load GPM dynamically.
1002 Tell the configure script to suppress the install of ncurses' manpages.
1005 Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' application
1006 programs (e.g., tic). The test applications will still be built if you
1007 type "make", though not if you simply do "make install".
1010 Tell the configure script to use "xterm-old" for the entry used in
1011 the terminfo database. This will work with variations such as
1012 X11R5 and X11R6 xterm.
1015 COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER VERSIONS OF NCURSES:
1016 --------------------------------------------
1018 Because ncurses implements the X/Open Curses Specification, its interface
1019 is fairly stable. That does not mean the interface does not change.
1020 Changes are made to the documented interfaces when we find differences
1021 between ncurses and X/Open or implementations which they certify (such as
1022 Solaris). We add extensions to those interfaces to solve problems not
1023 addressed by the original curses design, but those must not conflict with
1024 the X/Open documentation.
1026 Here are some of the major interface changes, and related problems which
1027 you may encounter when building a system with different versions of
1030 5.7 (November 2, 2008)
1033 + generate linkable stubs for some macros:
1036 + Add new library configuration for tic-library (the non-curses portion
1037 of the ncurses library used for the tic program as well as some
1038 others such as tack. There is no API change, but makefiles would be
1039 changed to use the tic-library built separately.
1041 tack, distributed separately from ncurses, uses some of the internal
1042 _nc_XXX functions, which are declared in the tic.h header file.
1044 The reason for providing this separate library is that none of the
1045 functions in it are suitable for threaded applications.
1047 + Add new library configuration (ncursest, ncurseswt) which provides
1048 rudimentary support for POSIX threads. This introduces opaque
1049 access functions to the WINDOW structure and adds a parameter to
1050 several internal functions.
1052 + move most internal variables (except tic-library) into data blocks
1053 _nc_globals and _nc_prescreen to simplify analysis. Those were
1054 globally accessible, but since they were not part of the documented
1055 API, there is no ABI change.
1057 + changed static tables of strings to be indices into long strings, to
1058 improve startup performance. This changes parameter lists for some
1059 of the internal functions.
1063 + add NCURSES_OPAQUE definition in curses.h to control whether internal
1064 details of the WINDOW structure are visible to an application. This
1065 is always defined when the threaded library is built, and is optional
1066 otherwise. New functions for this: is_cleared, is_idcok, is_idlok,
1067 is_immedok, is_keypad, is_leaveok, is_nodelay, is_notimeout,
1068 is_scrollok, is_syncok, wgetparent and wgetscrreg.
1070 + the threaded library (ncursest) also disallows direct updating of
1071 global curses-level variables, providing functions (via macros) for
1072 obtaining their value. A few of those variables can be modified by
1073 the application, using new functions: set_escdelay, set_tabsize
1075 + added functions use_window() and use_screen() which wrap a mutex
1076 (if threading is configured) around a call to a user-supplied
1079 Added internal functions:
1090 These are used for leak-testing, and are stubs for
1091 ABI compatibility when ncurses is not configured for that
1092 using the --disable-leaks configure script option:
1097 Removed internal functions:
1100 Modified internal functions:
1106 _nc_locale_breaks_acs
1108 _nc_update_screensize
1110 Use new typedef TRIES to replace "struct tries":
1118 5.6 (December 17, 2006)
1121 + generate linkable stubs for some macros:
1123 getbegx, getbegy, getcurx, getcury, getmaxx, getmaxy, getparx,
1126 and (for libncursesw)
1134 Added internal functions:
1148 Also (if using the hashed database configuration):
1163 Removed internal functions:
1166 Modified internal functions:
1173 5.5 (October 10, 2005)
1176 + terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
1177 "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
1179 + terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
1180 still use ncurses 4.2).
1182 + modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing
1183 initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are
1184 still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old
1187 + form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data.
1188 Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the
1189 FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw, since
1190 that no longer points to an array of char. The set_field_buffer()
1191 and field_buffer() functions translate to/from the actual field
1194 + change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure that
1195 libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason for this
1196 is that the corresponding data which belongs to the upper-level
1197 ncurses library has a different size in each model.
1199 + winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
1200 wide-character configuration.
1202 + assume_default_colors() no longer requires that use_default_colors()
1205 + data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
1207 + slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
1208 multicolumn characters.
1210 + start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started.
1211 start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
1213 + pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if it
1214 corresponds to the default-color.
1216 + unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond
1217 to an unsigned char.
1220 Experimental mouse version 2 supports wheel mice with buttons
1221 4 and 5. This requires ABI 6 because it modifies the encoding
1224 Experimental extended colors allows encoding of 256 foreground
1225 and background colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
1226 xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6 because
1227 it changes the size of cchar_t.
1229 Added internal functions:
1233 _nc_retrace_cvoid_ptr
1234 _nc_retrace_void_ptr
1237 Removed internal functions:
1240 Modified internal functions:
1245 5.4 (February 8, 2004)
1248 + add the remaining functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1249 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1250 --enable-widec option.
1254 + write getyx() and related 2-return macros in terms of getcury(),
1257 + simplify ifdef for bool declaration in curses.h
1259 + modify ifdef's in curses.h that disabled use of __attribute__() for
1260 g++, since recent versions implement the cases which ncurses uses.
1262 + change some interfaces to use const:
1274 Added internal functions:
1277 _nc_is_charable() wide
1278 _nc_locale_breaks_acs()
1281 _nc_to_widechar() wide
1283 _nc_trace_bufcat() debug
1284 _nc_unicode_locale()
1286 Removed internal functions:
1290 Modified internal functions:
1292 _nc_retrace_chtype()
1294 5.3 (October 12, 2002)
1297 + change type for bool used in headers to NCURSES_BOOL, which usually
1298 is the same as the compiler's definition for 'bool'.
1300 + add all but two functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1301 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1302 --enable-widec option. Missing functions are
1306 + add environment variable $NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS to modify the
1307 assume_default_colors() extension.
1313 Added internal functions:
1314 _nc_altcharset_name() debug
1316 _nc_retrace_bool() debug
1317 _nc_retrace_unsigned() debug
1319 _nc_trace_ttymode() debug
1324 Removed internal functions:
1327 Modified internal functions:
1330 5.2 (October 21, 2000)
1333 + revert termcap ospeed variable to 'short' (see discussion of the
1334 --with-ospeed configure option).
1339 + made the extended terminal capabilities
1340 (configure --enable-tcap-names) a standard feature. This should
1341 be transparent to applications that do not require it.
1343 + removed the trace() function and related trace support from the
1346 + modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict
1349 Added extensions: assume_default_colors().
1351 5.0 (October 23, 1999)
1354 + implemented the wcolor_set() and slk_color() functions.
1356 + move macro winch to a function, to hide details of struct ldat
1358 + corrected prototypes for slk_* functions, using chtype rather than
1361 + the slk_attr_{set,off,on} functions need an additional void*
1362 parameter according to XSI.
1364 + modified several prototypes to correspond with 1997 version of X/Open
1365 Curses: [w]attr_get(), [w]attr_set(), border_set() have different
1366 parameters. Some functions were renamed or misspelled:
1367 erase_wchar(), in_wchntr(), mvin_wchntr(). Some developers have used
1370 Added extensions: keybound(), curses_version().
1372 Terminfo database changes:
1374 + change translation for termcap 'rs' to terminfo 'rs2', which is
1375 the documented equivalent, rather than 'rs1'.
1377 The problems are subtler in recent releases.
1379 a) This release provides users with the ability to define their own
1380 terminal capability extensions, like termcap. To accomplish this,
1381 we redesigned the TERMTYPE struct (in term.h). Very few
1382 applications use this struct. They must be recompiled to work with
1385 a) If you use the extended terminfo names (i.e., you used configure
1386 --enable-tcap-names), the resulting terminfo database can have some
1387 entries which are not readable by older versions of ncurses. This
1388 is a bug in the older versions:
1390 + the terminfo database stores booleans, numbers and strings in
1391 arrays. The capabilities that are listed in the arrays are
1392 specified by X/Open. ncurses recognizes a number of obsolete and
1393 extended names which are stored past the end of the specified
1396 + a change to read_entry.c in 951001 made the library do an lseek()
1397 call incorrectly skipping data which is already read from the
1398 string array. This happens when the number of strings in the
1399 terminfo data file is greater than STRCOUNT, the number of
1400 specified and obsolete or extended strings.
1402 + as part of alignment with the X/Open final specification, in the
1403 990109 patch we added two new terminfo capabilities:
1404 set_a_attributes and set_pglen_inch). This makes the indices for
1405 the obsolete and extended capabilities shift up by 2.
1407 + the last two capabilities in the obsolete/extended list are memu
1408 and meml, which are found in most terminfo descriptions for xterm.
1410 When trying to read this terminfo entry, the spurious lseek()
1411 causes the library to attempt to read the final portion of the
1412 terminfo data (the text of the string capabilities) 4 characters
1413 past its starting point, and reads 4 characters too few. The
1414 library rejects the data, and applications are unable to
1415 initialize that terminal type.
1417 FIX: remove memu and meml from the xterm description. They are
1418 obsolete, not used by ncurses. (It appears that the feature was
1419 added to xterm to make it more like hpterm).
1421 This is not a problem if you do not use the -x option of tic to
1422 create a terminfo database with extended names. Note that the
1423 user-defined terminal capabilities are not affected by this bug,
1424 since they are stored in a table after the older terminfo data ends,
1425 and are invisible to the older libraries.
1427 c) Some developers did not wish to use the C++ binding, and used the
1428 configure --without-cxx option. This causes problems if someone
1429 uses the ncurses library from C++ because that configure test
1430 determines the type for C++'s bool and makes ncurses match it, since
1431 both C++ and curses are specified to declare bool. Calling ncurses
1432 functions with the incorrect type for bool will cause execution
1433 errors. In 5.0 we added a configure option "--without-cxx-binding"
1434 which controls whether the binding itself is built and installed.
1439 + correct prototype for termattrs() as per XPG4 version 2.
1441 + add placeholder prototypes for color_set(), erasewchar(),
1442 term_attrs(), wcolor_set() as per XPG4 version 2.
1444 + add macros getcur[xy] getbeg[xy] getpar[xy], which are defined in
1447 New extensions: keyok() and define_key().
1449 Terminfo database changes:
1451 + corrected definition in curses.h for ACS_LANTERN, which was 'I'
1456 We added these extensions: use_default_colors(). Also added
1457 configure option --enable-const, to support the use of const where
1458 X/Open should have, but did not, specify.
1460 The terminfo database content changed the representation of color for
1461 most entries that use ANSI colors. SVr4 curses treats the setaf/setab
1462 and setf/setb capabilities differently, interchanging the red/blue
1463 colors in the latter.
1465 4.0 (December 24, 1996)
1467 We bumped to version 4.0 because the newly released dynamic loader
1468 (ld.so.1.8.5) on Linux did not load shared libraries whose ABI and REL
1469 versions were inconsistent. At that point, ncurses ABI was 3.4 and the
1470 REL was 1.9.9g, so we made them consistent.
1472 1.9.9g (December 1, 1996)
1474 This fixed most of the problems with 1.9.9e, and made these interface
1477 + remove tparam(), which had been provided for compatibility with
1478 some termcap. tparm() is standard, and does not conflict with
1479 application's fallback for missing tparam().
1481 + turn off hardware echo in initscr(). This changes the sense of the
1482 echo() function, which was initialized to echoing rather than
1483 nonechoing (the latter is specified). There were several other
1484 corrections to the terminal I/O settings which cause applications to
1487 + implemented several functions (such as attr_on()) which were
1488 available only as macros.
1490 + corrected several typos in curses.h.in (i.e., the mvXXXX macros).
1492 + corrected prototypes for delay_output(),
1493 has_color, immedok() and idcok().
1495 + corrected misspelled getbkgd(). Some applications used the
1498 + added _yoffset to WINDOW. The size of WINDOW does not impact
1499 applications, since they use only pointers to WINDOW structs.
1501 These changes were made to the terminfo database:
1503 + removed boolean 'getm' which was available as an extended name.
1505 We added these extensions: wresize(), resizeterm(), has_key() and
1508 1.9.9e (March 24, 1996)
1510 not recommended (a last-minute/untested change left the forms and
1511 menus libraries unusable since they do not repaint the screen).
1512 Foreground/background colors are combined incorrectly, working properly
1513 only on a black background. When this was released, the X/Open
1514 specification was available only in draft form.
1516 Some applications (such as lxdialog) were "fixed" to work with the
1517 incorrect color scheme.
1520 IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR:
1521 ------------------------------
1523 Configuration and Installation:
1525 On platforms where ncurses is assumed to be installed in /usr/lib,
1526 the configure script uses "/usr" as a default:
1528 Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Cygwin
1530 For other platforms, the default is "/usr/local". See the discussion
1531 of the "--disable-overwrite" option.
1533 The location of the terminfo is set indirectly by the "--datadir"
1534 configure option, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo, given a datadir of
1535 /usr/share. You may want to override this if you are installing
1536 ncurses libraries in nonstandard locations, but wish to share the
1539 Normally the ncurses library is configured in a pure-terminfo mode;
1540 that is, with the --disable-termcap option. This makes the ncurses
1541 library smaller and faster. The ncurses library includes a termcap
1542 emulation that queries the terminfo database, so even applications that
1543 use raw termcap to query terminal characteristics will win (providing
1544 you recompile and relink them!).
1546 If you must configure with termcap fallback enabled, you may also wish
1547 to use the --enable-getcap option. This speeds up termcap-based
1548 startups, at the expense of not allowing personal termcap entries to
1549 reference the terminfo tree. See comments in
1550 ncurses/tinfo/read_termcap.c for further details.
1552 Note that if you have $TERMCAP set, ncurses will use that value
1553 to locate termcap data. In particular, running from xterm will
1554 set $TERMCAP to the contents of the xterm's termcap entry.
1555 If ncurses sees that, it will not examine /etc/termcap.
1559 The terminfo file assumes that Shift-Tab generates \E[Z (the ECMA-48
1560 reverse-tabulation sequence) rather than ^I. Here are the loadkeys -d
1561 mappings that will set this up:
1563 keycode 15 = Tab Tab
1564 alt keycode 15 = Meta_Tab
1565 shift keycode 15 = F26
1566 string F26 ="\033[Z"
1568 Naming the Console Terminal
1570 In various systems there has been a practice of designating the system
1571 console driver type as `console'. Please do not do this! It
1572 complicates peoples' lives, because it can mean that several different
1573 terminfo entries from different operating systems all logically want to
1574 be called `console'.
1576 Please pick a name unique to your console driver and set that up
1577 in the /etc/inittab table or local equivalent. Send the entry to the
1578 terminfo maintainer (listed in the misc/terminfo file) to be included
1579 in the terminfo file, if it's not already there. See the
1580 term(7) manual page included with this distribution for more on
1581 conventions for choosing type names.
1583 Here are some recommended primary console names:
1585 linux -- Linux console driver
1590 If you are responsible for integrating ncurses for one of these
1591 distribution, please either use the recommended name or get back
1592 to us explaining why you don't want to, so we can work out nomenclature
1593 that will make users' lives easier rather than harder.
1596 RECENT XTERM VERSIONS:
1597 ---------------------
1599 The terminfo database file included with this distribution assumes you
1600 are running a modern xterm based on XFree86 (i.e., xterm-new). The
1601 earlier X11R6 entry (xterm-r6) and X11R5 entry (xterm-r5) is provided
1602 as well. See the --without-xterm-new configure script option if you
1603 are unable to update your system.
1606 CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES:
1607 ----------------------------
1609 In order to support operation of ncurses programs before the terminfo
1610 tree is accessible (that is, in single-user mode or at OS installation
1611 time) the ncurses library can be compiled to include an array of
1612 pre-fetched fallback entries. This must be done on a machine which
1613 has ncurses' infocmp and terminfo database installed (as well as
1614 ncurses' tic and infocmp programs).
1616 These entries are checked by setupterm() only when the conventional
1617 fetches from the terminfo tree and the termcap fallback (if configured)
1618 have been tried and failed. Thus, the presence of a fallback will not
1619 shadow modifications to the on-disk entry for the same type, when that
1620 entry is accessible.
1622 By default, there are no entries on the fallback list. After you have
1623 built the ncurses suite for the first time, you can change the list
1624 (the process needs infocmp(1)). To do so, use the script
1625 ncurses/tinfo/MKfallback.sh. A configure script option
1626 --with-fallbacks does this (it accepts a comma-separated list of the
1627 names you wish, and does not require a rebuild).
1629 If you wanted (say) to have linux, vt100, and xterm fallbacks, you
1630 would use the commands
1633 tinfo/MKfallback.sh linux vt100 xterm >fallback.c
1635 Then just rebuild and reinstall the library as you would normally.
1636 You can restore the default empty fallback list with
1638 tinfo/MKfallback.sh >fallback.c
1640 The overhead for an empty fallback list is one trivial stub function.
1641 Any non-empty fallback list is const-ed and therefore lives in sharable
1642 text space. You can look at the comment trailing each initializer in
1643 the generated ncurses/fallback.c file to see the core cost of the
1644 fallbacks. A good rule of thumb for modern vt100-like entries is that
1645 each one will cost about 2.5K of text space.
1648 BSD CONVERSION NOTES:
1649 --------------------
1651 If you need to support really ancient BSD programs, you probably
1652 want to configure with the --enable-bsdpad option. What this does
1653 is enable code in tputs() that recognizes a numeric prefix on a
1654 capability as a request for that much trailing padding in milliseconds.
1655 There are old BSD programs that do things like tputs("50").
1657 (If you are distributing ncurses as a support-library component of
1658 an application you probably want to put the remainder of this section
1659 in the package README file.)
1661 The following note applies only if you have configured ncurses with
1664 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
1666 If you are installing this application privately (either because you
1667 have no root access or want to experiment with it before doing a root
1668 installation), there are a couple of details you need to be aware of.
1669 They have to do with the ncurses library, which uses terminfo rather
1670 than termcap for describing terminal characteristics.
1672 Though the ncurses library is terminfo-based, it will interpret your
1673 TERMCAP variable (if present), any local termcap files you reference
1674 through it, and the system termcap file. However, in order to avoid
1675 slowing down your application startup, it will only do this once per
1678 The first time you load a given terminal type from your termcap
1679 database, the library initialization code will automatically write it
1680 in terminfo format to a subdirectory under $HOME/.terminfo. After
1681 that, the initialization code will find it there and do a (much
1682 faster) terminfo fetch.
1684 Usually, all this means is that your home directory will silently grow
1685 an invisible .terminfo subdirectory which will get filled in with
1686 terminfo descriptions of terminal types as you invoke them. If anyone
1687 ever installs a global terminfo tree on your system, this will quietly
1688 stop happening and your $HOME/.terminfo will become redundant.
1690 The objective of all this logic is to make converting from BSD termcap
1691 as painless as possible without slowing down your application (termcap
1692 compilation is expensive).
1694 If you don't have a TERMCAP variable or custom personal termcap file,
1695 you can skip the rest of this dissertation.
1697 If you *do* have a TERMCAP variable and/or a custom personal termcap file
1698 that defines a terminal type, that definition will stop being visible
1699 to this application after the first time you run it, because it will
1700 instead see the terminfo entry that it wrote to $HOME/terminfo the
1703 Subsequently, editing the TERMCAP variable or personal TERMCAP file
1704 will have no effect unless you explicitly remove the terminfo entry
1705 under $HOME/terminfo. If you do that, the entry will be recompiled
1706 from your termcap resources the next time it is invoked.
1708 To avoid these complications, use infocmp(1) and tic(1) to edit the
1709 terminfo directory directly.
1711 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
1713 USING NCURSES WITH AFS:
1714 AFS treats each directory as a separate logical filesystem, you
1715 can't hard-link across them. The --enable-symlinks option copes
1716 with this by making tic use symbolic links.
1718 USING NCURSES WITH GPM:
1719 Ncurses 4.1 and up can be configured to use GPM (General Purpose
1720 Mouse) which is used on Linux console. Be aware that GPM is commonly
1721 installed as a shared library which contains a wrapper for the curses
1722 wgetch() function (libcurses.o). Some integrators have simplified
1723 linking applications by combining all or part of libcurses.so into the
1724 libgpm.so file, producing symbol conflicts with ncurses (specifically
1725 the wgetch function). This was originally the BSD curses, but
1726 generally whatever curses library exists on the system.
1728 You may be able to work around this problem by linking as follows:
1730 cc -o foo foo.o -lncurses -lgpm -lncurses
1732 but the linker may not cooperate, producing mysterious errors.
1733 See the FAQ, as well as the discussion under the --with-gpm option:
1735 http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#using_gpm_lib
1737 BUILDING NCURSES WITH A CROSS-COMPILER
1738 Ncurses can be built with a cross-compiler. Some parts must be built
1739 with the host's compiler since they are used for building programs
1740 (e.g., ncurses/make_hash and ncurses/make_keys) that generate tables
1741 that are compiled into the ncurses library. The essential thing to do
1742 is set the BUILD_CC environment variable to your host's compiler, and
1743 run the configure script configuring for the cross-compiler.
1745 The configure options --with-build-cc, etc., are provided to make this
1746 simpler. Since make_hash and make_keys use only ANSI C features, it
1747 is normally not necessary to provide the other options such as
1748 --with-build-libs, but they are provided for completeness.
1750 Note that all of the generated source-files which are part of ncurses
1751 will be made if you use
1755 This would be useful in porting to an environment which has little
1756 support for the tools used to generate the sources, e.g., sed, awk and
1759 When ncurses has been successfully cross-compiled, you may want to use
1760 "make install" (with a suitable target directory) to construct an
1761 install tree. Note that in this case (as with the --with-fallbacks
1762 option), ncurses uses the development platform's tic to do the
1763 "make install.data" portion.
1765 The system's tic program is used to install the terminal database,
1766 even for cross-compiles. For best results, the tic program should
1767 be from the most current version of ncurses.
1770 Send any feedback to the ncurses mailing list at
1771 bug-ncurses@gnu.org. To subscribe send mail to
1772 bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with body that reads:
1773 subscribe ncurses <your-email-address-here>
1775 The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines
1776 on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly.