-
- Announcing ncurses 5.2
-
- The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of
- curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format,
- supports pads and color and multiple highlights and forms characters
- and function-key mapping, and has all the other SYSV-curses
- enhancements over BSD curses.
-
- In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he
- considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and is encouraging the keepers of
- Unix releases such as BSD/OS, freeBSD and netBSD to switch over to
- ncurses.
-
- The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It should port easily
- to any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported to OS/2
- Warp!
+ Announcing ncurses 6.4
+
+Overview
+
+ The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of
+ curses in System V Release 4.0 (SVr4), and more. It uses terminfo
+ format, supports pads and color and multiple highlights and forms
+ characters and function-key mapping, and has all the other SVr4-curses
+ enhancements over BSD curses. SVr4 curses became the basis of X/Open
+ Curses.
+
+ In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he
+ considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the keepers of unix
+ releases such as BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to ncurses.
+
+ Since 1995, ncurses has been ported to many systems:
+ * It is used in almost every system based on the Linux kernel (aside
+ from some embedded applications).
+ * It is used as the system curses library on OpenBSD, FreeBSD and
+ MacOS.
+ * It is used in environments such as Cygwin and MinGW. The first of
+ these was EMX on OS/2 Warp.
+ * It is used (though usually not as the system curses) on all of the
+ vendor unix systems, e.g., AIX, HP-UX, IRIX64, SCO, Solaris,
+ Tru64.
+ * It should work readily on any ANSI/POSIX-conforming unix.
The distribution includes the library and support utilities, including
- a terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), clear(1),
- tput(1), tset(1), and a termcap conversion tool captoinfo(1). Full
- manual pages are provided for the library and tools.
-
- The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the GNU
- distribution site [1]ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses.
- It is also available at [2]ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses.
-
- Release Notes
-
- This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 and
- 5.1; very few applications will require recompilation, depending on
- the platform. These are the highlights from the change-log since
- ncurses 5.1 release.
-
- Interface changes:
- * change type of ospeed variable back to short to match its use in
- legacy applications. It was altered after ncurses 4.2 to speed_t
- to repair a type mismatch which was introduced after 1.9.4 in
- 1995. The principal users of termcap continued to use short, which
- is not the same size.
- NOTE: A few applications will have to be recompiled (about 1% of
- the programs in a typical Linux distribution, 10% of the programs
- that use ncurses). These are easy to identify with nm or strings.
- * remove a private function _nc_can_clear_with(), which was built
- with the configure --enable-expanded option but not used.
- * add several private functions (prefixed with "_nc_") for tracing
- chtype values in the debug library, and for better access and
- buffer limit checking.
-
- New features and improvements:
- * rewrote tgoto() to make it better support existing termcap
- applications which use hardcoded strings rather than obtain all of
- their information from the termcap file. If the string does not
- appear to be a terminfo string (i.e., does not refer to a "%p"
- parameter, or terminfo-style padding), and termcap support is
- configured, tgoto() will interpret it as termcap. Otherwise, as
- before, it will use tparm().
- * to ensure that the tgoto() changes work properly, added checks to
- tic which report capabilities that do not reference the expected
- number of parameters.
- * new configure script options:
- + option --disable-root-environ adds runtime checks which tell
- ncurses to disregard $TERMINFO and similar environment
- variables if the current user is root, or running
- setuid/setgid.
- + option --disable-assumed-color allows you to use the pre-5.1
- convention of default colors used for color-pair 0 to be
- configured (see assume_default_colors()).
- + implement configure script options that transform installed
- program names, e.g., --program-prefix, including the manpage
- names and cross references.
- + option --with-database allows you to specify a different
- terminfo source-file to install. On OS/2 EMX, the default is
- misc/emx.src, otherwise misc/terminfo.src
- + option --with-default-terminfo-dir allows you to specify the
- default terminfo database directory.
- + option --with-libtool allows you to build with libtool.
- NOTE: libtool uses a different notation for numbering shared
- library versions from the existing ncurses configuration.
- + option --with-manpage-tbl causes the manpages to be
- preprocessed by tbl(1) prior to installation,
- + option --without-curses-h causes the installation process to
- install curses.h as ncurses.h and make appropriate changes to
- headers and manpages.
- * modified configure script options:
- + change symbol used by the --install-prefix configure option
- from INSTALL_PREFIX to DESTDIR (the latter has become common
- usage although the name is misleading).
- + modify ld -rpath options (e.g., Linux, and Solaris) to use an
- absolute pathname for the build tree's lib directory,
- avoiding confusion with directories relative to the current
- one with the installed programs.
- + modified misc/run_tic.in to use tic -o, to eliminate
- dependency on $TERMINFO variable for installs.
- * terminfo database:
- + updated xterm terminfo entries to match XFree86 xterm patch
- #146.
- + added amiga-vnc, Matrix Orbital, and QNX qansi to
- misc/terminfo.src.
- + added os2 entry to misc/emx.src.
- + add S0 and E0 extensions to screen's terminfo entry since
- otherwise the FreeBSD port makes it pass termcap equivalents
- to tgoto, which would be misinterpreted by older versions of
- ncurses.
- * improvements to program usability:
- + modify programs to use curses_version() string to report the
- version of ncurses with which they are compiled rather than
- the NCURSES_VERSION string. The function returns the patch
- level in addition to the major and minor version numbers.
- + modify tput program so it can be renamed or invoked via a
- link as 'reset' or 'init', producing the same effect as
- tput reset or tput init.
- + add error checking to infocmp's -v and -m options to ensure
- that the option value is indeed a number.
- * improved performance:
- + replace a lookup table in lib_vidattr.c used to decode
- no_color_video with a logic expression which is faster.
-
- Major bug fixes:
- * correct manlinks.sed script introduced in ncurses 5.1 to avoid
- using ERE "\+", which is not understood by standard versions of
- sed. This happens to work with GNU sed, but is not portable, and
- was the initial motivation for this release.
- * remove "hpux10.*" case from CF_SHARED_OPTS configure script macro.
- This differed from the "hpux*" case by using reversed symbolic
- links, which made the 5.1 version not match the configuration of
- 5.0 shared libraries.
- * guard against corrupt terminfo data:
- + modify tparm() to disallow arithmetic on strings, analyze the
- varargs list to read strings as strings and numbers as
- numbers.
- + modify tparm()'s internal function spop() to treat a null
- pointer as an empty string.
- + modify parse_format() in lib_tparm.c to ignore precision if
- it is longer than 10000.
- + rewrote limit checks in lib_mvcur.c using new functions
- _nc_safe_strcat(), etc. Made other related changes to check
- lengths used for strcat() and strcpy().
- * corrections to screen optimization:
- + added special case in lib_vidattr.c to reset underline and
- standout for devices that have no sgr0 defined.
- + change handling of non_dest_scroll_region in tty_update.c to
- clear text after it is shifted in rather than before shifting
- out. Also correct row computation.
- + modify rs2 capability in xterm-r6 and similar entries where
- cursor save/restore bracketed the sequence for resetting
- video attributes. The cursor restore would undo that.
- * UTF-8 support:
- + when checking LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment
- variables for UTF-8 locale, ignore those which are set to an
- empty value, as per SUSV2.
- + encode 0xFFFD in UTF-8 with 3 bytes, not 2.
- + modify _nc_utf8_outch() to avoid sign-extension when checking
- for out-of-range value.
- * other library fixes:
- + added checks for an empty $HOME environment variable, to
- avoid retrieving terminfo descriptions from ./.terminfo .
- + change functions _nc_parse_entry() and postprocess_termcap()
- to avoid using strtok(), because it is non-reentrant.
- + initialize fds[] array to 0's in _nc_timed_wait(); apparently
- poll() only sets the revents members of that array when there
- is activity corresponding to the related file.
- + add a check for null pointer in Make_Enum_Type().
- + fix a heap problem with the c++ binding.
- + correct missing includes for <string.h> in several places,
- including the C++ binding. This is not noted by gcc unless we
- use the -fno-builtin option.
- * several fixes for tic:
- + add a check for empty buffers returned by fgets() in
- comp_scan.c next_char() function, in case tic is run on a
- non-text file (fixes a core dump).
- + modify tic to verify that its inputs are really files, in
- case someone tries to read a directory (or /dev/zero).
- + correct an uninitialized parameter to open_tempfile() in
- tic.c which made "tic -I" give an ambiguous error message
- about tmpnam.
- + correct logic in adjust_cancels(), which did not check both
- alternatives when reclassifying an extended name between
- boolean, number and string, causing an infinite loop in tic.
- * using new checks in tic for parameter counts in capability
- strings, found/fixed several errors both in the terminfo database
- and in the include/Caps file.
- + modified several terminfo capability strings, including the
- definitions for setaf, setab, in include/Caps to indicate
- that the entries are parameterized. This information is used
- to tell which strings are translated when converting to
- termcap. This fixes a problem where the generated termcap
- would contain a spurious "%p1" for the terminfo "%p1%d".
- + correct parameter counts in include/Caps for dclk as well as
- some printer-specific capabilities: csnm, defc, scs, scsd,
- smgtp, smglp.
- * various fixes for install scripts used to support configure
- --srcdir and --with-install-prefix.
- * correct several mismatches between manpage filename and ".TH"
- directives, renaming dft_fgbg.3x to default_colors.3x and
- menu_attribs.3x to menu_attributes.3x.
-
- Portability:
- * configure script:
- + newer config.guess, config.sub, including changes to support
- OS/2 EMX. The configure script for OS/2 EMX still relies on a
- patch since there is no (working) support for that platform
- in the main autoconf distribution.
- + make configure script checks on variables $GCC and $GXX
- consistently compare against 'yes' rather than test if they
- are nonnull, since either may be set to the corresponding
- name of the C or C++ compiler.
- + change configure script to use AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM rather
- than AC_CANONICAL_HOST, which means that configure --target
- will set a default program-prefix.
- + modify the check for big-core to force a couple of memory
- accesses, which may work as needed for older/less-capable
- machines (if not, there's still the explicit configure
- option).
- + modify configure test for tcgetattr() to allow for old
- implementations, e.g., on BeOS, which only defined it as a
- macro.
- + add configure check for filesystems (such as OS/2 EMX) which
- do not distinguish between upper/lowercase filenames, use
- this to fix tags rules in makefiles.
- + add MKncurses_def.sh to generate fallback definitions for
- ncurses_cfg.h, to quiet gcc -Wundef warnings, modified
- ifdef's in code to consistently use "#if" rather than
- "#ifdef".
- + change most remaining unquoted parameters of test in
- configure script to use quotes, for instance fixing a problem
- in the --disable-database option.
- + modify scripts so that "make install.data" works on OS/2 EMX.
- + modify scripts and makefiles so the Ada95 directory builds on
- OS/2 EMX.
- * library:
- + replaced case-statement in _nc_tracebits() for CSIZE with a
- table to simplify working around implementations that define
- random combinations of the related macros to zero.
- + improved OS/2 mouse support by retrying as a 2-button mouse
- if code fails to set up a 3-button mouse.
- + added private entrypoint _nc_basename(), used to consolidate
- related code in progs, as well as accommodating OS/2 EMX
- pathnames.
- + alter definition of NCURSES_CONST to make it non-empty.
- + redefine 'TEXT' in menu.h for AMIGA, since it is reported to
- have an (unspecified) symbol conflict.
- * programs:
- + modified progs/tset.c and tack/sysdep.c to build with sgttyb
- interface if neither termio or termios is available. Tested
- this with FreeBSD 2.1.5 (which does have termios - but the
- sgttyb does work).
-
- Features of Ncurses
-
- The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4)
- curses:
- * All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are
- documented).
- * Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping,
- color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic
- recognition of keypad and function keys.
- * An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting a stack of
- windows with backing store, is included.
- * An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting a uniform but
- flexible interface for menu programming, is included.
- * An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting data collection
- through on-screen forms, is included.
- * Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1)
- implementation are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format
- SVr4 curses uses.
- * The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo entries
- for use with less capable curses/terminfo versions such as the
- HP/UX and AIX ports.
+ * 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 6.4, released December 31, 2022.
+
+ This release is designed to be source-compatible with ncurses 5.0
+ through 6.3; 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 6.3 release.
+
+ Library improvements
+
+ New features
+
+ There are no new features in this release.
+
+ Other improvements
+
+ These are improvements to existing features:
+ * modify delscreen to more effectively delete all windows on the
+ given screen.
+ * modify wnoutrefresh to call pnoutrefresh if its parameter is a
+ pad, rather than treating it as an error, and modify new_panel to
+ permit its window-parameter to be a pad
+ * modify curses_trace() to show the trace-mask as symbols, e.g.,
+ TRACE_ORDINARY, DEBUG_LEVEL(3).
+ * improve checks for valid mouse events when an intermediate mouse
+ state is not part of the mousemask specified by the caller
+ * allow extended-color number in opts parameter of wattr_on.
+ * improve _tracecchar_t2 formatting of base+combining character.
+ * trim out some unwanted linker options from ncurses*config and .pc
+ files seen in Fedora 36+.
+ * improve shell-scripts with shellcheck
+ * improve use of "trap" in shell scripts, using a script.
+ * modify make-tar.sh scripts to make timestamps more predictable.
+
+ These are corrections to existing features:
+ * modify misc/gen-pkgconfig.in to allow for the case where the
+ library directory does not yet exist, since this is processed
+ before doing an install
+ * set trailing null on string passed from winsnstr to wins_nwstr.
+ * modify waddch_literal to allow for double-width base character
+ when merging a combining character
+
+ Program improvements
+
+ Several improvements were made to the utility programs:
+
+ infocmp
+
+ + rewrite canonical_name function of infocmp to ensure buffer
+ size
+ + improve readability of long parameterized expressions with
+ the infocmp "-f" option by allowing split before a "%p"
+ marker.
+ + modify verbose-option of infocmp, tic, toe to enable
+ debug-tracing if that is configured.
+
+ tabs
+ limit tab-stop values to max-columns
+
+ tic
+ add consistency check in tic for u6/u7/u8/u9 and NQ
+ capabilities.
+
+ tput
+ corrected use of original tty-modes in init/reset subcommands
+
+ Examples
+
+ Along with the library and utilities, improvements were made to the
+ ncurses-examples. Most of this activity aimed at improving the
+ test-packages:
+ * add minimal -h (usage) and -V (version) getopt logic to all
+ ncurses-examples programs.
+ * fix an error in "@" command in test/ncurses.c F-menu
+ * add curses_trace to ifdef's for START_TRACE in test/test.priv.h
+ * improve pthread-configuration for test/worm.c
+ * add setlocale call to several test-programs.
+ * workaround in test/picsmap.c for use of floating point for rgb
+ values by ImageMagick 6.9.11, which appears to use the wrong upper
+ limit.
+ * use static libraries for AdaCurses test-package for Mageia, since
+ no gprbuild package is available.
+ * install Ada95 sample programs in libexecdir, adding a wrapper
+ script to invoke those.
+ * install ncurses-examples programs in libexecdir, adding a wrapper
+ script to invoke those.
+
+ There are other new demo/test programs and reusable examples:
+
+ test/combine
+ demonstrate combining characters
+
+ test/test_delwin
+ demonstrate deleting a window
+
+ test/test_mouse
+ observe mouse events in the raw terminal or parsed ncurses
+ modes
+
+ test/test_unget_wch
+ demonstrate the unget_wch and unget functions
+
+ Terminal database
+
+ There are several new terminal descriptions:
+ * mosh
+ * mosh-256color
+ * teken-16color
+ * teken-sc
+ * teken-vt
+ * xgterm
+
+ There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some were
+ updates to several descriptions:
+ * make description-fields distinct
+ * fix errata in description fields
+ * add/use several building-blocks:
+ + aixterm+sl
+ + ansi+cpr
+ + apollo+vt132
+ + decid+cpr
+ + ncr260vp+sl
+ + wyse+sl
+ + x10term+sl
+ + xterm+acs
+ + xterm+alt47
+
+ while others affected specific descriptions. These were retested, to
+ take into account changes by their developers:
+ * kitty
+ * teken
+
+ while these are specific fixes based on reviewing documentation, user
+ reports, or warnings from tic:
+
+ att610+cvis0
+ amended note as per documentation for att610, att620, att730
+
+ kon, kon2, jfbterm
+ revise to undo "linux2.6" change to smacs/rmacs/enacs
+
+ st-0.6
+ add dim, ecma+strikeout
+
+ foot+base
+ add xterm+sl-alt
+
+ dec+sl
+ correct dsl in dec+sl
+
+ mintty and tmux
+ correct setal in mintty/tmux entries, add to vte-2018
+
+ nsterm
+ modify nsterm to use xterm+alt1049
+
+ putty
+ modify putty to use xterm+alt1049
+
+ vte-2018
+ add blink and setal
+
+ A few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal capabilities):
+ * use ansi+enq and decid+cpr in cases where the terminal probably
+ supported the u6-u9 extension
+ * remove u6-u9 from teken-2018
+ * use NQ to flag entries where the terminal does not support query
+ and response
+ * add/use bracketed+paste to help identify terminals supporting this
+ xterm feature
+ * modify samples for xterm mouse 1002/1003 modes to use 1006 mode,
+ and also provide for focus in/out responses
+ * xterm patch #371 supports DEC-compatible status-line. add dec+sl
+ to xterm-new, per xterm #371, add xterm-p371, add xterm-p370, for
+ use in older terminals, and set "xterm-new" to "xterm-p370" (to
+ ease adoption).
+
+ 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:
+ + remove a stray '/' from description of %g in terminfo(5).
+ + correct/improve font-formatting in curs_getch.3x, as well as
+ other manual pages.
+ * New/improved history and portability sections:
+ + add portability notes for delscreen and delwin in manual.
+ + improve curs_slk.3x discussion of extensions and portability
+ * Other improvements:
+ + improve curs_bkgd.3x, explaining that bkgdset can affect
+ results for bkgd
+ + add note on portable memory-leak checking in curs_memleaks.3x
+ + expanded description in resizeterm.3x
+ + add section on releasing memory to curs_termcap.3x and
+ curs_terminfo.3x manpages.
+ + add clarification of the scope of dynamic variables in
+ terminfo(5).
+ + improve formatting of ncurses-intro.html and hackguide.html
+ + improve curs_clear.3x links to other pages
+ + update ncurses-howto, making documentation fixes along with
+ corrections to example programs.
+ + use newer version 1.36 of gnathtml for generating Ada html
+ files.
+ + update external links in Ada95.html
+
+ There are no new manual pages (all of the manual page updates are to
+ existing pages).
+
+ Interesting bug-fixes
+
+ While there were many bugs fixed during development of ncurses 6.4,
+ only a few (the reason for this release) were both important and
+ interesting. Most of the bug-fixes were for local issues which did not
+ affect compatibility across releases. Since those are detailed in the
+ NEWS file no elaboration is needed here.
+
+ The interesting bugs were those dealing with memory leaks and buffer
+ overflows. Although the utilities are designed for text files (which
+ they do properly), some choose to test them with non-text files.
+ * Text files contain no embedded nulls. Also, they end with a
+ newline. Feeding tic non-text files exposed a few cases where the
+ program did not check for those issues. As a result, further
+ processing of the input found limit-checks whose assumptions were
+ invalid.
+ * Fixing the limit-checks (first) found a problem with tic managing
+ the list of strings in a terminal description. In merging two
+ terminal descriptions (i.e., the "use=" feature), tic was not
+ allocating a complete copy. A quick repair for that introduced a
+ memory leak.
+ * The checks for non-text files are improved (i.e., embedded nulls
+ in the input file will cause tic to reject it rather than
+ attempting to process it).
+ * The string allocations in tic are likewise improved.
+
+ Configuration changes
+
+ Major changes
+
+ There are no major changes. No new options were added. Several
+ improvements were made to configure checks.
+
+ Configuration options
+
+ There are a few new/modified configure options:
+
+ --with-abi-version
+ add ABI 7 defaults to configure script.
+
+ --with-caps
+ add warning in configure script if file specified for
+ "--with-caps" does not exist.
+
+ --with-manpage-format
+ bzip2 and xz compression are now supported
+
+ --with-xterm-kbs
+ add check/warning in configure script if option
+ "--with-xterm-kbs" is missing or inconsistent
+
+ Portability
+
+ Many of the portability changes are implemented via the configure
+ script:
+ * amend configure option's auto-search to account for systems where
+ none of the directories known to pkg-config exist
+ * corrected regex needed for older pkg-config used in Solaris 10
+ * improve handling of --with-pkg-config-libdir option, allowing for
+ the case where either $PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR or the option value has a
+ colon-separated list of directories
+ * if the --with-pkg-config-libdir option is not given, use
+ ${libdir}/pkgconfig as a default
+ * improve search-path check for pkg-config, e.g., for Debian testing
+ which installs pkg-config with architecture-prefixes.
+ * build-fix for cross-compiling to MingW, conditionally add -lssp
+ * improve configure check for getttynam
+ * fixes to build with dietlibc:
+ + add configure check for fpathconf
+ + add configure check for math sine/cosine, needed in
+ test/tclock, and eliminate pow() from test/hanoi
+ + use wcsnlen as an alternative to wmemchr if it is not found
+ * modify configure macro CF_BUILD_CC to check if the build-compiler
+ works, rather than that it is different from the cross-compiler,
+ e.g., to accommodate a compiler which can be used for either
+ purpose with different flags
+ * modify configure/scripts to work around interference by GNU grep
+ 3.8
+
+ Here are some of the other portability fixes:
+ * change man_db.renames to template, to handle ncurses*-config
+ script with the --extra-suffix configure option.
+ * update CF_XOPEN_SOURCE macro, adding variants "gnueabi" and
+ "gnueabihf" to get _DEFAULT_SOURCE special case, as well as adding
+ GNU libc suffixes for "abi64", "abin32", "x32" to distinguish it
+ from other libc flavors.
+ * work around musl's nonstandard use of feature test macros by
+ adding a definition for NCURSES_WIDECHAR to the generated ".pc"
+ and *-config files.
+ * use "command -v" rather than "type" in Ada95/gen/Makefile.in to
+ fix a portability issue.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+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 all of the for SVr4 curses features including
+ keyboard mapping, color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and
+ automatic recognition of keypad and function keys.
+ * ncurses provides these SVr4 add-on libraries (not part of X/Open
+ Curses):
+ + the panels library, supporting a stack of windows with
+ backing store.
+ + the menus library, supporting a uniform but flexible
+ interface for menu programming.
+ + the form library, supporting data collection through
+ on-screen forms.
+ * ncurses's terminal database is fully compatible with that used by
+ SVr4 curses.
+ + ncurses supports user-defined capabilities which it can see,
+ but which are hidden from SVr4 curses applications using the
+ same terminal database.
+ + It can be optionally configured to match the format used in
+ related systems such as AIX and Tru64.
+ + Alternatively, ncurses can be configured to use hashed
+ databases rather than the directory of files used by SVr4
+ curses.
+ * The ncurses utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo
+ entries for use with less capable curses/terminfo versions such as
+ the HP-UX and AIX ports.
The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4:
- * The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN
- curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE
- level features, but not all EXTENDED features). Most
- EXTENDED-level features not directly concerned with wide-character
- support are implemented, including many function calls not
- supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of all calls is
- documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only).
- * Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost
- corner of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character
+ * The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN
+ curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE
+ level features, and most EXTENDED features). It includes many
+ function calls not supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of
+ all calls is documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only).
+ * Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost
+ corner of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character
capability.
* Ada95 and C++ bindings.
- * Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and OS/2
- console windows.
+ * Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and FreeBSD
+ and OS/2 console windows.
* Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package.
- * The function wresize() allows you to resize windows, preserving
+ * The function wresize allows you to resize windows, preserving
their data.
- * The function use_default_colors() allows you to use the terminal's
+ * The function use_default_colors allows you to use the terminal's
default colors for the default color pair, achieving the effect of
transparent colors.
- * The functions keyok() and define_key() allow you to better control
- the use of function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE,
- or by defining more than one control sequence to map to a given
- key code.
- * Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 xterm.
- * Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a
+ * The functions keyok and define_key allow you to better control the
+ use of function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, or by
+ defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key
+ code.
+ * Support for direct-color terminals, such as modern xterm.
+ * Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm.
+ * Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and modern xterm.
+ * Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a
cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's
or System V's.
- * Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code
- incorporates a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables it
- to make optimal use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion, and
- line-deletion for screen-line movements. This algorithm is more
- powerful than the 4.4BSD curses quickch() routine.
- * Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch. The
- screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if the
- magic- cookie unattributed spaces required just before the
- beginning and after the end would step on a non-space character.
- It will automatically shift highlight boundaries when doing so
- would make it possible to draw the highlight without changing the
+ * Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code
+ incorporates a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables it
+ to make optimal use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion, and
+ line-deletion for screen-line movements. This algorithm is more
+ powerful than the 4.4BSD curses quickch routine.
+ * Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch. The
+ screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if the
+ magic- cookie unattributed spaces required just before the
+ beginning and after the end would step on a non-space character.
+ It will automatically shift highlight boundaries when doing so
+ would make it possible to draw the highlight without changing the
visual appearance of the screen.
- * It is possible to generate the library with a list of pre-loaded
- fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve those terminal
- types even when no terminfo tree or termcap file is accessible
- (this may be useful for support of screen-oriented programs that
+ * It is possible to generate the library with a list of pre-loaded
+ fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve those terminal
+ types even when no terminfo tree or termcap file is accessible
+ (this may be useful for support of screen-oriented programs that
must run in single-user mode).
- * The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the ability
- to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and AT&T extension
+ * The tic/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the ability to
+ translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and AT&T extension
sets.
- * A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided.
+ * A BSD-like tset utility is provided.
* The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read terminfo
- entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that
- directory if it exists and the user has no write access to the
- system directory. This feature makes it easier for users to have
- personal terminfo entries without giving up access to the system
+ entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that
+ directory if it exists and the user has no write access to the
+ system directory. This feature makes it easier for users to have
+ personal terminfo entries without giving up access to the system
terminfo directory.
- * You may specify a path of directories to search for compiled
- descriptions with the environment variable TERMINFO_DIRS (this
- generalizes the feature provided by TERMINFO under stock System
+ * You may specify a path of directories to search for compiled
+ descriptions with the environment variable TERMINFO_DIRS (this
+ generalizes the feature provided by TERMINFO under stock System
V.)
- * In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not just to
+ * In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not just to
other entries in the same source file (as in System V) but also to
- compiled entries in either the system terminfo directory or the
+ compiled entries in either the system terminfo directory or the
user's $HOME/.terminfo directory.
- * A script (capconvert) is provided to help BSD users transition
- from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the information in a TERMCAP
- environment variable and/or a ~/.termcap local entries file and
- converts it to an equivalent local terminfo tree under
- $HOME/.terminfo.
- * Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled in
- when it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This feature is
- neither fast nor cheap, you don't want to use it unless you have
- to, but it's there.
- * The table-of-entries utility toe makes it easy for users to see
+ * The table-of-entries utility toe makes it easy for users to see
exactly what terminal types are available on the system.
* The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro entry point
- have a corresponding function which may be linked (and will be
- prototype-checked) if the macro definition is disabled with
+ has a corresponding function which may be linked (and will be
+ prototype-checked) if the macro definition is disabled with
#undef.
- * An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document
- provides a narrative introduction to the curses programming
- interface.
+ * Extensive documentation is provided (see the Additional Reading
+ section of the ncurses FAQ for online documentation).
+
+Applications using ncurses
- State of the Package
+ The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs
+ (including a few games). These are available separately as
+ ncurses-examples
- Numerous bugs present in earlier versions have been fixed; the library
- is far more reliable than it used to be. Bounds checking in many
- `dangerous' entry points has been improved. The code is now type-safe
- according to gcc -Wall. The library has been checked for malloc leaks
- and arena corruption by the Purify memory-allocation tester.
+ The ncurses library has been tested with a wide variety of
+ applications including:
- The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of applications
- including (versions starting with those noted):
+ aptitude
+ FrontEnd to Apt, the debian package manager
+
+ https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude
cdk
Curses Development Kit
- [3]http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html
- [4]http://dickey.his.com/cdk.
+
+ https://invisible-island.net/cdk/
ded
directory-editor
- [5]http://dickey.his.com/ded.
+
+ https://invisible-island.net/ded/
dialog
- the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the
- basis for similar applications on GNU/Linux.
- [6]http://dickey.his.com/dialog.
+ the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the
+ basis for similar install/configure applications on many
+ systems.
+
+ https://invisible-island.net/dialog/
lynx
- the character-screen WWW browser
- [7]http://lynx.isc.org/release.
+ the text WWW browser
- Midnight Commander 4.1
- file manager
- [8]www.gnome.org/mc/.
+ https://lynx.invisible-island.net/
mutt
mail utility
- [9]http://www.mutt.org.
+
+ http://www.mutt.org/
ncftp
file-transfer utility
- [10]http://www.ncftp.com.
+
+ https://www.ncftp.com/
nvi
- New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7 and
- later.
- [11]http://www.bostic.com/vi/.
+ New vi uses ncurses.
+
+ https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi
+
+ ranger
+ A console file manager with VI key bindings in Python.
+
+ https://ranger.github.io/
tin
newsreader, supporting color, MIME
- [12]http://www.tin.org.
- taper
- tape archive utility
- [13]http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/.
+ http://www.tin.org/
+
+ vifm
+ File manager with vi like keybindings
- vh-1.6
- Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File
- [14]http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html.
+ https://vifm.info/
as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
minicom
- terminal emulator
- [15]http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html.
+ terminal emulator for serial modem connections
+
+ https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/
+
+ mosh
+ a replacement for ssh.
+
+ https://mosh.org/
+
+ tack
+ terminfo action checker
+
+ https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html
+
+ tmux
+ terminal multiplexor
+
+ https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki
vile
- vi-like-emacs
- [16]http://dickey.his.com/vile.
+ vi-like-emacs may be built to use the terminfo, termcap or
+ curses interfaces.
+
+ https://invisible-island.net/vile/
+
+ and finally, those which use only the termcap interface:
+
+ emacs
+ text editor
+
+ https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
+
+ less
+ The most commonly used pager (a program that displays text
+ files).
+
+ http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/
- The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs
- (including a few games).
+ screen
+ terminal multiplexor
-Who's Who and What's What
+ https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/
- The original developers of ncurses are [17]Zeyd Ben-Halim and [18]Eric
- S. Raymond. Ongoing work is being done by [19]Thomas Dickey and
- [20]Jürgen Pfeifer. [21]Thomas Dickey acts as the maintainer for the
- Free Software Foundation, which holds the copyright on ncurses.
- Contact the current maintainers at [22]bug-ncurses@gnu.org.
+ vim
+ text editor
+
+ https://www.vim.org/
+
+Development activities
+
+ Zeyd Ben-Halim started ncurses from a previous package pcurses,
+ written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S. Raymond continued development.
+ Juergen Pfeifer wrote most of the form and menu libraries.
+
+ Ongoing development work is done by Thomas E. Dickey. Thomas E. Dickey
+ has acted as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which
+ held a copyright on ncurses for releases 4.2 through 6.1. Following
+ the release of ncurses 6.1, effective as of release 6.2, copyright for
+ ncurses reverted to Thomas E. Dickey (see the ncurses FAQ for
+ additional information).
+
+ Contact the current maintainers at
+
+ bug-ncurses@gnu.org
To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
- bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org containing the line:
- subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
+
+ bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org
+
+ containing the line:
+
+ subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development
and testing of this package.
- Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made
- available at [23]ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses.
-
-Future Plans
-
- * Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization
- support.
- * Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows.
-
- We need people to help with these projects. If you are interested in
- working on them, please join the ncurses list.
-
-Other Related Resources
-
- The distribution includes and uses a version of the terminfo-format
- terminal description file maintained by Eric Raymond.
- [24]http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo.
-
- You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not
- covered in the terminfo file at [25]Richard Shuford's archive.
-
-References
-
- 1. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses
- 2. ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses
- 3. http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html
- 4. http://dickey.his.com/cdk/cdk.html
- 5. http://dickey.his.com/ded/ded.html
- 6. http://dickey.his.com/dialog/dialog.html
- 7. http://lynx.isc.org/release/
- 8. file://localhost/usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-5.2-20001021/doc/html/www.gnome.org/mc/
- 9. http://www.mutt.org/
- 10. http://www.ncftp.com/
- 11. http://www.bostic.com/vi/
- 12. http://www.tin.org/
- 13. http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/
- 14. http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html
- 15. http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html
- 16. http://dickey.his.com/vile/vile.html
- 17. mailto:zmbenhal@netcom.com
- 18. http://www.ccil.org/~esr/home.html
- 19. mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com
- 20. mailto:juergen.pfeifer@gmx.net
- 21. mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com
- 22. mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org
- 23. ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses
- 24. http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo
- 25. http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html
+ Beta versions of ncurses are made available at
+
+ https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/current/ and
+ https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/ .
+
+ Patches to the current release are made available at
+
+ https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/6.3/ and
+ https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.3/ .
+
+ There is an archive of the mailing list here:
+
+ http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses (also https)
+
+Related resources
+
+ The release notes make scattered references to these pages, which may
+ be interesting by themselves:
+ * ncurses licensing
+ * Symbol versioning in ncurses
+ * Comments on ncurses versus slang (S-Lang)
+ * Comments on OpenBSD
+ * tack - terminfo action checker
+ * tctest - termcap library checker
+ * Terminal Database
+
+Other resources
+
+ The distribution provides a newer version of the terminfo-format
+ terminal description file once maintained by Eric Raymond . Unlike the
+ older version, the termcap and terminfo data are provided in the same
+ file, which also provides several user-definable extensions beyond the
+ X/Open specification.
+
+ You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not
+ covered in the terminfo file at Richard Shuford's archive . The
+ collection of computer manuals at bitsavers.org has also been useful.
+
+ * Overview
+ * Release Notes
+ + Library improvements
+ o New features
+ o Other improvements
+ + Program improvements
+ o Utilities
+ o Examples
+ + Terminal database
+ + Documentation
+ + Interesting bug-fixes
+ + Configuration changes
+ o Major changes
+ o Configuration options
+ + Portability
+ * Features of ncurses
+ * Applications using ncurses
+ * Development activities
+ * Related resources
+ * Other resources
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff