- a terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), clear(1),
- tput(1), tset(1), and a termcap conversion tool captoinfo(1). Full
- manual pages are provided for the library and tools.
-
- The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the GNU
- distribution site [1]ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
- It is also available at [2]ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ .
-
- Release Notes
-
- This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0
- through 5.4; very few applications will require recompilation,
- depending on the platform. These are the highlights from the
- change-log since ncurses 5.4 release.
-
- Interface changes:
- * terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
- "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
- * terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
- still use ncurses 4.2).
- * modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing
- initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are
- still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old
- compilers.
- * modify parameter type in c++ binding for insch() and mvwinsch() to
- be consistent with underlying ncurses library (was char, is
- chtype).
- * change NCursesWindow::err_handler() to a virtual function.
- * form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data.
- Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the
- FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw,
- since that no longer points to an array of char. The
- set_field_buffer() and field_buffer() functions translate to/from
- the actual field data.
- * add symbol to curses.h which can be used to suppress include of
- stdbool.h, e.g.,
- #define NCURSES_ENABLE_STDBOOL_H 0
- #include <curses.h>
-
- * change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure
- that libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason
- for this is that the corresponding data which belongs to the
- upper-level ncurses library has a different size in each model.
- * winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
- wide-character configuration.
- * assume_default_colors() no longer requires that
- use_default_colors() be called first.
- * data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
- * slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
- multicolumn characters.
- * start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started.
- start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
- * pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if
- it corresponds to the default-color.
- * unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond to
- an unsigned char.
-
- New features and improvements:
- * library
- + environment variable NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS supports
- miscellaneous terminal emulators which ignore alternate
- character set escape sequences when in UTF-8 mode.
- + modify initialization of key lookup table so that if an
- extended capability (tic -x) string is defined, and its name
- begins with 'k', ncurses will automatically treat it as a
- key.
- + change GPM initialization, using dl library to load it
- dynamically at runtime.
- + form, menu and panel libraries support debug-tracing.
- * add NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html by Pradeep Padala (see
- http://tldp.org/HOWTO/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO/).
- * programs:
- * infocmp:
- + The -i option now matches 8-bit controls against its table
- entries, e.g., so it can analyze the xterm-8bit entry.
- + add "-x" option to infocmp like tic's "-x", for use in "-F"
- comparisons. This modifies infocmp to only report extended
- capabilities if the -x option is given, making this more
- consistent with tic. Some scripts may break, since infocmp
- previous gave this information without an option.
- * tic:
- + modify termcap-parsing to retain 2-character aliases at the
- beginning of an entry if the "-x" option is used in tic.
- + filter out long extended names when translating to termcap
- format. Only two characters are permissible for termcap
- capability names.
- + correct translation of "%%" in terminfo format to termcap,
- e.g., using "tic -C".
- + modify the "-c -v" options to ignore delays when comparing
- strings. Also modify it to ignore a canceled sgr string,
- e.g., for terminals which cannot properly combine attributes
- in one control sequence.
- + add a check for improperly ended strings, i.e., where a
- following line begins in column 1.
- + add a check in tic for terminfo entries having an sgr0 but no
- sgr string. This confuses Tru64 and HPUX curses when combined
- with color, e.g., making them leave line-drawing characters
- in odd places.
- + add check (with debug configuration) that provides about the
- runtime changes that would be made to sgr0 for termcap
- applications.
- * tset:
- + add -c and -w options to allow user to suppress ncurses'
- resizing of the terminal emulator window in the special case
- where it is not able to detect the true size.
-
- Major bug fixes:
- * improve logic in tgetent() which adjusts the termcap "me" string
- to work with ISO-2022 string used in xterm-new. This is a feature
- that was incompletely implemented in ncurses 5.3. ncurses attempts
- to provide termcap clients with the portion of the sgr0 (termcap
- "me") string that does not reset line-drawing.
- * cells in the WINDOW which are continuations of a multicolumn
- character are encoded differently, making repainting more
- reliable.
- * amend change to setupterm() in ncurses 5.4 (20030405) which would
- reuse the value of cur_term if the same output was selected. This
- now reuses it only when setupterm() is called from tgetent(),
- which has no notion of separate SCREENs. Note that tgetent() must
- be called after initscr() or newterm() to use this feature.
- * make setcchar() now works when its wchar_t* parameter is pointing
- to a string which contains more data than can be converted.
- * win_wchnstr() now works for more than one cell.
- * resizeterm() now processes all levels of window hierarchy.
- * disable GPM mouse support when $TERM happens to be prefixed with
- "xterm". Gpm_Open() would otherwise assert that it can deal with
- mouse events in this case.
- * add SP->_screen_acs_map[], used to ensure that mapping of missing
- line-drawing characters is handled properly. For example,
- ACS_DARROW is absent from xterm-new, and it was coincidentally
- displayed the same as ACS_BTEE.
-
- Portability:
- * configure script:
- + new options:
-
- --enable-largefile
- set compiler and linker flags to use largefile
- support.
-
- --enable-ext-colors
- Allow encoding of 256 foreground and background
- colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
- xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6
- because it changes the size of cchar_t.
-
- --enable-ext-mouse
- This defines NCURSES_MOUSE_VERSION 2, and modifies
- the encoding of mouse events to support wheel mice,
- which may transmit buttons 4 and 5. This works with
- xterm and similar terminal emulators. This requires
- ABI 6 because it changes the encoding of mouse
- events.
-
- --with-chtype
- overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of chtype
-
- --with-mmask-t
- overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of mmask_t
-
- --without-xterm-new
- Installs "xterm-old" as the "xterm" entry of the
- terminfo database.
-
- + The --with-termlib option now accepts a value which sets the
- name of the terminfo library. This would allow a packager to
- build libtinfow.so renamed to coincide with libtinfo.so
- + fixes/improvements for cross-compiling:
- o suppress $suffix in misc/run_tic.sh when
- cross-compiling. This allows cross-compiles to use the
- host's tic program to handle the "make install.data"
- step.
- o correct BUILD_CPPFLAGS substitution in
- ncurses/Makefile.in, to allow cross-compiling from a
- separate directory tree.
- * library:
- + add ifdef's for _LP64 in curses.h to avoid using wasteful
- 64-bits for chtype and mmask_t, but add configure option
- --disable-lp64 in case anyone used that configuration.
- + modify C++ binding to use some C internal functions to make
- it compile properly on Solaris (and other platforms).
- + remove check in newwin() that prevents allocating windows
- that extend beyond the screen (Solaris does this).
- + check for nl_langinfo(CODESET), use it if available. This
- replaces ad hoc tests of environment variables to check if
- the terminal is setup for UTF-8 encoding. Applications which
- do not call setlocale() should be corrected, to make them
- work properly with UTF-8 encoding.
- In particular, applications which assume (and do not call
- setlocale()) that Latin-1 codes are printable will no longer
- work in a UTF-8 locale since the ad hoc check of environment
- variables to see if the locale was UTF-8 is not used when
- nl_langinfo(CODESET) is available.
- + use setlocale() to query the program's current locale rather
- than using getenv(). This supports applications which rely
- upon legacy treatment of 8-bit characters when the locale is
- not initialized.
-
- Features of Ncurses
-
- The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4)
- curses:
- * All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are
- documented).
- * Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping,
- color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic
+ * captoinfo, a termcap conversion tool
+ * clear, utility for clearing the screen
+ * infocmp, the terminfo decompiler
+ * tabs, set tabs on a terminal
+ * tic, the terminfo compiler
+ * toe, list (table of) terminfo entries
+ * tput, utility for retrieving terminal capabilities in shell
+ scripts
+ * tset, to initialize the terminal
+
+ Full manual pages are provided for the library and tools.
+
+ The ncurses distribution is available at ncurses' homepage:
+
+ https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/ or
+ https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/ .
+
+ It is also available at the GNU distribution site
+
+ https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
+
+Release Notes
+
+ These notes are for ncurses 6.5, released April 27, 2024.
+
+ This release is designed to be source-compatible with ncurses 5.0
+ through 6.4; providing extensions to the application binary interface
+ (ABI). Although the source can still be configured to support the
+ ncurses 5 ABI, the reason for the release is to reflect improvements
+ to the ncurses 6 ABI and the supporting utility programs.
+
+ There are, of course, numerous other improvements, listed in this
+ announcement.
+
+ The most important bug-fixes/improvements dealt with robustness
+ issues. The release notes also mention some other bug-fixes, but are
+ focused on new features and improvements to existing features since
+ ncurses 6.4 release.
+
+ Library improvements
+
+ New features
+
+ These are new features:
+ * The low-level terminfo and termcap interfaces are used both by the
+ higher-level curses library, as well as by many applications.
+ The functions which convert parameterized terminal capability
+ strings for output to the terminal (tiparm and tparm) analyze the
+ capability string to determine which parameters are strings (i.e.,
+ addresses), versus numbers (not addresses).
+ The library's analysis of a capability string may differ from the
+ calling application's design if environment variables are used to
+ point to an invalid terminal database. This is a longstanding
+ problem with all implementations of terminfo, dating from the
+ early 1980s.
+ Two new functions address this problem: by providing a function
+ which allows the calling application to tell ncurses how many
+ string-parameters to expect:
+ + tiscan_s helps applications check formatting capabilities
+ that would be passed to tiparm_s.
+ + tiparm_s provides applications a way to tell ncurses what the
+ expected parameters are for a capability.
+ * The ncurses library supports a compile-time feature (enabled with
+ the configure --enable-check-size option) which simplifies
+ initialization with terminals which do not negotiate window
+ (screen) size. This is done in setupterm, by providing for using
+ ANSI cursor-position report (in user6/user7 terminfo capabilities)
+ to obtain the screen size if neither environment variables or
+ ioctl is used.
+ The ncurses test-program with options "-E -T" demonstrates this
+ feature.
+ * add functions to query tty-flags in SCREEN
+
+ This release drops compatibility with obsolete versions of tack, e.g.,
+ pre-1.08
+
+ Other improvements
+
+ These are improvements to existing features:
+ * In addition to the new, safer function tiparm_s, ncurses adds
+ checks to make the older tiparm, tparm and tgoto functions safer:
+ + the terminfo functions tiparm and tparm ensure that the
+ capability string comes from the terminal description which
+ ncurses loads, rather than from random data which the
+ application happens to have.
+ + the tgoto function disallows capabilities which its analysis
+ shows will attempt to use string parameters.
+ + ncurses uses internal functions which correspond to tiparm,
+ and tgoto which ensure that the capability strings which are
+ passed to these functions come from the loaded terminal
+ description.
+ * improve check in lib_tparm.c, ensuring that a char* fits into a
+ TPARM_ARG
+ * modify _nc_syserr_abort to use _nc_env_access, rather than only
+ checking root uid
+ * improve thread lock in lib_trace.c
+ * modify flushinp to use file descriptors in SCREEN, rather than
+ from TERMINAL, and check if they are for a terminal, like SVr4
+ * modify mcprint to use file descriptor in SCREEN, for consistency
+ * modify internal function _nc_read_file_entry to show relevant
+ filename in warnings
+ * improve checks in internal function convert_string for corrupt
+ terminfo entry
+ * review/improve handling of out-of-memory conditions
+ * limit delays to 30 seconds, i.e., padding delays in terminfo, as
+ well as napms and delay_output functions
+ * fix reallocation loop for vsnprintf in _nc_sprintf_string by
+ copying the va_list variable
+ * modify delscreen to limit the windows which it creates to just
+ those associated with the screen
+ * modify endwin to return an error if it is called again without an
+ intervening screen update
+ * modify wenclose to handle pads
+ * eliminate use of PATH_MAX in lib_trace.c
+ * provide for any CCHARW_MAX greater than 1
+
+ These are corrections to existing features:
+ * correct loop termination condition in waddnstr and waddnwstr
+ * improve parsing in internal function _nc_msec_cost, allowing a
+ single decimal point
+ * amend parameter check for entire string versus specific length in
+ winsnstr and wins_nwstr to match Solaris; make similar correction
+ to wins_nwstr
+ * correct internal function wadd_wch_literal when adding a
+ non-spacing character to a double-width character
+ * correct definition of Charable macro for non-wide ncurses library
+ .
+
+ Program improvements
+
+ Several improvements were made to the utility programs. Some were done
+ to make the infocmp option "-u" option help refactor the terminal
+ database.
+
+ infocmp
+
+ + add limit checks for processing extended capabilities with
+ the "-u" option
+ + correct initial alignment of extended capabilities, so that
+ the "-u" option can be used for more than two terminal types
+ + modify "-u" option to not report cancels for strings which
+ were already cancelled in a use'd chunk.
+ + correct an assignment "-u" for detecting if a boolean is
+ unset in a base entry and set in a use'd chunk, i.e., if it
+ was cancelled.
+
+ tic
+
+ + correct limit-check when dumping tc/use clause via "-I"
+ + check return value of _nc_save_str, in special case where
+ extended capabilities are processed but the terminal
+ description was not initialized
+ + modify check for multiply defined aliases to report problems
+ within the current runtime rather than for conflicts with
+ pre-existing terminal descriptions.
+ + disallow using $TERMINFO or $HOME/.terminfo when "-o" option
+ is used
+
+ tput and tset
+
+ + add "-v" option to tput, to show warnings
+ + modify reset command to avoid altering clocal if the terminal
+ uses a modem
+ + modify reset feature to avoid 1-second sleep if running in a
+ pseudo-terminal
+
+ Examples
+
+ Along with the library and utilities, improvements were made to the
+ ncurses-examples:
+ * modify test_tparm to account for extended capabilities
+ * corrected mouse mask in test/testcurs.c
+ * modify test/clip_printw.c to optionally test non-wrapped updates
+ * modify test/test_mouse.c to use curses api for raw/noraw
+ * modify test/clip_printw.c to optionally test non-wrapped updates
+
+ There is one new demo/test programs:
+
+ test/test_endwin.c
+ This program shows the return-status from endwin with different
+ combinations of endwin (repeated), initscr, newterm.
+
+ Terminal database
+
+ There are several new terminal descriptions:
+ * ansi+apparrows
+ * contour
+ * linux+kbs for terminals which imitate xterm's behavior with Linux
+ * rio, rio-direct
+ * mostlike
+ * ms-vt100-16color, winconsole
+ * vt100+noapp, vt100+noapp+pc, xterm+app+pc, xterm+decedit from
+ xterm #389
+ * putty+cursor to reflect amending of modified cursor-keys in 2021
+ * wezterm
+
+ There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some were
+ updates to several descriptions, using the infocmp "-u" option in a
+ script to determine which building-block entries could be used to
+ replace multiple capability settings (and trim redundant information).
+
+ Other changes include:
+ * document XF, kxIN and kxOUT
+ * add note on sun regarding wscons/cmdtool/shelltool
+ * remove DECCOLM+DECSCLM from foot
+ * add xterm+focus to foot+base
+ * add ecma+strikeout to putty
+ * use CSI 3J in vte-2017
+ * use oldxterm+sm+1006 in vte-2014
+ * modify xgterm to work around line-drawing bug
+ * add xterm focus mode 1004 to xterm+focus as fe/fd capabilities,
+ like vim.
+ * add xterm+focus to alacritty+common
+ * add XR/xr, to work with vim, and use RV/rv to denote DA2 and its
+ response
+ * add XF flag to xterm+focus so that termcap applications can be
+ aware of terminals which may support focus in/out
+ * use xterm+focus in xterm-p370 and tmux
+ * remove xterm+sm+1006 from tmux
+ * NetBSD-related fixes for x68k and wsvt25
+
+ Documentation
+
+ As usual, this release
+ * improves documentation by describing new features,
+ * attempts to improve the description of features which users have
+ found confusing
+ * fills in overlooked descriptions of features which were described
+ in the NEWS file but treated sketchily in manual pages.
+
+ In addition to providing background information to explain these
+ features and show how they evolved, there are corrections,
+ clarifications, etc.:
+ * Corrections:
+ + add assignment in CF_MAN_PAGES to fill in value for
+ TERMINFO_DIRS in ncurses, terminfo and tic manpages.
+ + clarify interaction of -R option versus -C, -I and -r in
+ infocmp manpage.
+ + correct manpage description of panel_hidden.
+ + improve manpage description for addch versus unctrl format
+ used for non-printable characters.
+ + improve manpages discussing file descriptors in low-level
+ functions.
+ + improve description of search rules for terminal descriptions
+ in terminfo manpage.
+ + modify dist.mk to avoid passing developer's comments in
+ manpages into the generated html documentation.
+ + modify test-package "ncurses6-doc" to use manpage-aliases,
+ which in turn required a change to the configure script to
+ factor in the extra-suffix option when deriving alias names.
+ * New/improved history and portability sections:
+ + add information about "ttycap", termcap's forerunner, to
+ tset.1
+ + document limitations of tparm, and error-returns in
+ curs_terminfo.3x
+ + document limitations of tgoto, and error-returns in
+ curs_termcap.3x
+ * Other improvements:
+ + This release has many changes to improve the formatting and
+ style of the manpages.
+ + Manpages now use consistent section-naming, page headers and
+ footers (including the modification date for each page).
+ + Table layout has been revised.
+
+ There are no new manual pages (all of the manual page updates are to
+ existing pages).
+
+ Interesting bug-fixes
+
+ The changes to tparm, tgoto which improve the design of the low-level
+ interfaces are interesting, but are not bug-fixes per se.
+
+ Configuration changes
+
+ Major changes
+
+ These are the major changes (aside from introducing tiparm_s):
+ * use wide-character (ncursesw) by default
+ * use opaque typedefs by default
+
+ However, most of the work on configure scripts was done to reduce
+ warnings within the configure script:
+ * intrusive warnings from GNU grep regarding fgrep and egrep
+ * fatal errors in compile-checks, arising from recent "Modern C"
+ efforts by some developers which caused longstanding configure
+ checks to fail.
+ After repairing the configure script, none of that activity
+ affected ncurses because stricter warnings are used routinely in
+ development.
+
+ Other improvements made to configure checks include
+ * use string-hacks in alloc_entry.c, alloc_type.c and hardscroll.c,
+ overlooked due to compiler changes in recent OpenBSD releases
+ * revise progs.priv.h to provide for NC_ISATTY reuse
+ * configure check for MB_LEN_MAX provides warning as needed
+ * trim a space after some "-R" options, fixing builds for
+ applications built using clang and ncurses on Solaris
+ * work around misconfiguration of MacPorts gcc13, which exposes
+ invalid definition of MB_LEN_MAX in gcc's fallback copy of
+ limits.h
+ * modified experimental Windows driver works with xterm mouse
+ protocol
+
+ Configuration options
+
+ There are a few new configure options:
+
+ --disable-setuid-environ
+ Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment
+ variables are not available when running via a setuid/setgid
+ application. These are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow
+ the search path for the terminfo or termcap entry to be
+ customized.
+
+ A setuid/setgid application inherits its environment variables
+ from the current user, in contrast to sudo which may limit the
+ environment variables that ncurses uses.
+
+ --enable-check-size
+ Compile-in feature to detect screensize for terminals which do
+ not advertise their screensize, e.g., serial terminals.
+
+ --with-abi-altered=NUM
+ Override the displayed (rather than compiled-in) ABI. Only
+ packagers who have created configurations where the ABI differs
+ from ncurses should be interested in this option.
+
+ --with-strip-program=XXX
+ When stripping executables during install, use the specified
+ program rather than "strip" overriding program chosen by the
+ install program for stripping executables.
+
+ These configure options are modified:
+
+ --with-pkg-config-libdir[=DIR]
+ The optional DIR parameter can now be "auto" to automatically
+ use pkg-config's library directory.
+
+ The default is $(libdir).
+
+ --with-xterm-kbs[=XXX]
+ The default is "auto" which tells the configure script to
+ choose BS or DEL according to platform defaults.
+
+ Portability
+
+ Many of the portability changes are implemented via the configure
+ script:
+ * add/use configure check for clock_gettime, to supersede
+ gettimeofday.
+ * modify configure script check for pkg-config library directory to
+ take into account an older version 0.15.0 which used
+ PKG_CONFIG_PATH but not PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR
+ * allow for MinGW32-/64-bit configurations to use _DEFAULT_SOURCE
+ * modify CF_XOPEN_SOURCE macro's amend default case to avoid
+ undefining _XOPEN_SOURCE if _POSIX_C_SOURCE is defined
+ * updated configure script macro CF_XOPEN_SOURCE, for uClibc-ng
+ * modify version-check for gcc/g++, now works for msys2
+ * build-fixes related to configure-options and/or platform:
+ + fix for --enable-fvisibility
+ + fix for unusual values of --with-rel-version
+ + fix for unusual values of --with-abi-version
+ + fix for --disable-tcap-names
+ + fix for termcap in nc_access.h
+ * other configure-script improvements:
+ + recent msys2 headers work with _DEFAULT_SOURCE; amend check
+ + use $ac_includes_default in most cases where stdlib.h should
+ work
+ + use #error consistently vs "make an error"
+ + add configure macro for gettimeofday vs inline check
+
+ Here are some of the other portability fixes:
+ * modify configure scripts/makefiles to omit KEY_RESIZE if the
+ corresponding SIGWINCH feature is disabled
+ * increase MB_CUR_MAX to 16, matching glibc's MB_LEN_MAX
+ * add BSD erase2 to characters handled by tset/reset
+ * use getauxval when available, to improve setuid/setgid checks
+ * set dwShareMode in calls to CreateConsoleScreenBuffer
+ * use CreateFile with "CONIN$", "CONOUT$" rather than GetStdHandle
+ to obtain a handle on the actual console, avoiding redirection in
+ the MinGW/Win32 configurations
+ * modify MinGW driver to return KEY_BACKSPACE when an unmodified
+ VK_BACK virtual key is entered
+ * modify MinGW configuration to provide for running in MSYS/MSYS2
+ shells, assuming ConPTY support
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+Features of ncurses
+
+ The ncurses package is fully upward-compatible with SVr4 (System V
+ Release 4) curses:
+ * All of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are documented).
+ * ncurses supports the features of SVr4 curses including keyboard
+ mapping, color, form drawing with ACS characters, and automatic