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The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at
the GNU distribution site
<A HREF="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses</A>.
-It is also available at
-<A HREF="ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/ncurses">ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/ncurses</A>.
+<br>It is also available at
+<A HREF="ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses">ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses</A>.
<H1>Release Notes</H1>
-We decided to release ncurses as a new whole number release (5.0) because it
-incorporates several interface changes, including some that would invalidate
-existing shared libraries. These are the highlights from the change-log
-since ncurses 4.2 release.
+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.
<p>
Interface changes:
<ul>
- <li>The principal source of changes to the interface comes from the
- release of X/Open Curses in 1997. Earlier versions of ncurses (4.0
- and before) were based on a draft version of the specification. The
- release version adds parameters to some functions to support the
- evolving internationalization of curses. These summarize the impact:
-<ul>
- <li>modified several prototypes to correspond with 1997 version of
- X/Open Curses (affects ABI since developers have used attr_get).
-
- <li>corrected prototypes for slk_* functions, using chtype rather than
- attr_t.
-
- <li>the slk_attr_{set,off,on} functions need an additional void*
- parameter according to XSI.
-
- <li>correct macros for wattr_set, wattr_get, separate wattrset macro from
- these to preserve behavior that allows attributes to be combined with
- color pair numbers.
-
- <li>reviewed/updated curses.h, term.h against X/Open Curses Issue 4
- Version 2. This includes making some parameters NCURSES_CONST
- rather than const, e.g., in termcap.h.
-
- <li>reviewed/corrected macros in curses.h as per XSI document.
-
- <li>add set_a_attributes and set_pglen_inch to terminfo structure, as per
- XSI and Solaris 2.5.
+ <li>change type of <code>ospeed</code> variable back to
+ <code>short</code> to match its use in legacy applications. It was
+ altered after ncurses 4.2 to <code>speed_t</code> to repair a type
+ mismatch which was introduced after 1.9.4 in 1995. The principal
+ users of termcap continued to use <code>short</code>, which is
+ not the same size.
+ <p>
+ <em>NOTE</em>: 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 <code>nm</code> or <code>strings</code>.
+
+ <li>remove a private function <code>_nc_can_clear_with()</code>, which
+ was built with the configure --enable-expanded option but not used.
+
+ <li>add several private functions (prefixed with "_nc_") for tracing
+ <code>chtype</code> values in the debug library, and for better
+ access and buffer limit checking.
</ul>
- <li>The newest version of the X/Open Curses is implemented on Solaris
- and other vendor's systems. It adds new features to the terminfo
- descriptions:
+New features and improvements:
<ul>
- <li>implement tparm %l format.
+ <li>rewrote <code>tgoto()</code> 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, <code>tgoto()</code>
+ will interpret it as termcap. Otherwise, as before, it will use
+ <code>tparm()</code>.
+
+ <li>to ensure that the <code>tgoto()</code> changes work properly,
+ added checks to <code>tic</code> which report capabilities that do
+ not reference the expected number of parameters.
+
+ <li>new configure script options:
+ <ul>
+ <li>option <code>--disable-root-environ</code> adds runtime checks
+ which tell ncurses to disregard $TERMINFO and similar environment
+ variables if the current user is root, or running setuid/setgid.
+
+ <li>option <code>--disable-assumed-color</code> allows you to use the
+ pre-5.1 convention of default colors used for color-pair 0 to be
+ configured (see assume_default_colors()).
+
+ <li>implement configure script options that transform installed
+ program names, e.g., <code>--program-prefix</code>, including the
+ manpage names and cross references.
+
+ <li>option <code>--with-database</code> allows you to specify a
+ different terminfo source-file to install. On OS/2 EMX, the
+ default is misc/emx.src, otherwise misc/terminfo.src
+
+ <li>option <code>--with-default-terminfo-dir</code> allows you to
+ specify the default terminfo database directory.
+
+ <li>option <code>--with-libtool</code> allows you to build with
+ <code>libtool</code>. <p> <em>NOTE</em>: <code>libtool</code>
+ uses a different notation for numbering shared library versions
+ from the existing ncurses configuration.
+
+ <li>option <code>--with-manpage-tbl</code> causes the manpages to be
+ preprocessed by tbl(1) prior to installation,
+
+ <li>option <code>--without-curses-h</code> causes the installation
+ process to install curses.h as ncurses.h and make appropriate
+ changes to headers and manpages.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>modified configure script options:
+ <ul>
+ <li>change symbol used by the <code>--install-prefix</code> configure
+ option from <code>INSTALL_PREFIX</code> to <code>DESTDIR</code>
+ (the latter has become common usage although the name is
+ misleading).
+
+ <li>modify <code>ld -rpath</code> options (e.g., Linux, and Solaris)
+ to use an absolute pathname for the build tree's lib directory,
+ avoiding confusion with directories relative to the current one
+ with the installed programs.
+
+ <li>modified <code>misc/run_tic.in</code> to use
+ <code>tic -o</code>, to eliminate dependency on
+ <code>$TERMINFO</code> variable for installs.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>terminfo database:
+ <ul>
+ <li>updated xterm terminfo entries to match XFree86 xterm patch #146.
+
+ <li>added amiga-vnc,
+ Matrix Orbital, and
+ QNX qansi to misc/terminfo.src.
+
+ <li>added os2 entry to misc/emx.src.
+
+ <li>add S0 and E0 extensions to <code>screen</code>'s terminfo entry
+ since otherwise the FreeBSD port makes it pass termcap equivalents
+ to <code>tgoto</code>, which would be misinterpreted by older
+ versions of ncurses.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>improvements to program usability:
+ <ul>
+ <li>modify programs to use <code>curses_version()</code> 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.
+
+ <li>modify <code>tput</code> program so it can be renamed or invoked via a link as
+ 'reset' or 'init', producing the same effect as <code>tput reset</code> or <code>tput init</code>.
+
+ <li>add error checking to infocmp's -v and -m options to ensure that
+ the option value is indeed a number.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>improved performance:
+ <ul>
+ <li>replace a lookup table in lib_vidattr.c used to decode
+ <code>no_color_video</code> with a logic expression which is faster.
+ </ul>
- <li>implement tparm printf-style width and precision for %s, %d, %x, %o
- as per XSI.
</ul>
- <li>We made additional changes to reduce impact by future interface
- changes:
+Major bug fixes:
<ul>
- <li>rename key_names[] array to _nc_key_names since it is not part of
- the curses interface.
-
- <li>move macro winch to a function, to hide details of struct ldat
-</ul>
- <li>modify configure script to embed ABI in shared libraries for HP-UX
- 10.x (detailed request by Tim Mooney).
-
- <li>modify configuration of shared libraries on Digital Unix so that
- versioning is embedded in the library, rather than implied by
- links (patch by Tim Mooney).
+ <li>correct <code>manlinks.sed</code> script introduced in ncurses 5.1
+ to avoid using ERE "\+", which is not understood by standard versions
+ of <code>sed</code>. This happens to work with GNU <code>sed</code>,
+ but is not portable, and was the initial motivation for this release.
+
+ <li>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.
+
+ <li>guard against corrupt terminfo data:
+ <ul>
+ <li>modify <code>tparm()</code> to disallow arithmetic on strings,
+ analyze the varargs list to read strings as strings and numbers as
+ numbers.
+
+ <li>modify <code>tparm()</code>'s internal function
+ <code>spop()</code> to treat a null pointer as an empty string.
+
+ <li>modify <code>parse_format()</code> in lib_tparm.c to ignore
+ precision if it is longer than 10000.
+
+ <li>rewrote limit checks in lib_mvcur.c using new functions
+ <code>_nc_safe_strcat()</code>, etc. Made other related changes to
+ check lengths used for <code>strcat()</code> and
+ <code>strcpy()</code>.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>corrections to screen optimization:
+ <ul>
+ <li>added special case in lib_vidattr.c to reset underline and
+ standout for devices that have no sgr0 defined.
+
+ <li>change handling of <code>non_dest_scroll_region</code> in
+ tty_update.c to clear text after it is shifted in rather than before
+ shifting out. Also correct row computation.
+
+ <li>modify <code>rs2</code> capability in xterm-r6 and similar entries
+ where cursor save/restore bracketed the sequence for resetting video
+ attributes. The cursor restore would undo that.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>UTF-8 support:
+ <ul>
+ <li>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.
+
+ <li>encode 0xFFFD in UTF-8 with 3 bytes, not 2.
+
+ <li>modify <code>_nc_utf8_outch()</code> to avoid sign-extension when
+ checking for out-of-range value.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>other library fixes:
+ <ul>
+ <li>added checks for an empty <code>$HOME</code> environment
+ variable, to avoid retrieving terminfo descriptions from
+ <code>./.terminfo</code> .
+
+ <li>change functions <code>_nc_parse_entry()</code> and
+ <code>postprocess_termcap()</code> to avoid using
+ <code>strtok()</code>, because it is non-reentrant.
+
+ <li>initialize <code>fds[]</code> array to 0's in
+ <code>_nc_timed_wait()</code>; apparently <code>poll()</code> only
+ sets the <code>revents</code> members of that array when there is
+ activity corresponding to the related file.
+
+ <li>add a check for null pointer in <code>Make_Enum_Type()</code>.
+
+ <li>fix a heap problem with the c++ binding.
+
+ <li>correct missing includes for <string.h> in several places,
+ including the C++ binding. This is not noted by gcc unless we use
+ the <code>-fno-builtin</code> option.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>several fixes for tic:
+ <ul>
+ <li>add a check for empty buffers returned by <code>fgets()</code> in
+ comp_scan.c <code>next_char()</code> function, in case
+ <code>tic</code> is run on a non-text file (fixes a core dump).
+
+ <li>modify <code>tic</code> to verify that its inputs are really files,
+ in case someone tries to read a directory (or
+ <code>/dev/zero</code>).
+
+ <li>correct an uninitialized parameter to <code>open_tempfile()</code>
+ in tic.c which made "tic -I" give an ambiguous error message about
+ <code>tmpnam</code>.
+
+ <li>correct logic in <code>adjust_cancels()</code>, which did not check
+ both alternatives when reclassifying an extended name between
+ boolean, number and string, causing an infinite loop in
+ <code>tic</code>.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>using new checks in <code>tic</code> for parameter counts in
+ capability strings, found/fixed several errors both in the
+ terminfo database and in the include/Caps file.
+ <ul>
+ <li>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".
+
+ <li>correct parameter counts in include/Caps for dclk as well as some
+ printer-specific capabilities: csnm, defc, scs, scsd, smgtp, smglp.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>various fixes for install scripts used to support configure
+ <code>--srcdir</code> and <code>--with-install-prefix</code>.
+
+ <li>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.
</ul>
-New features:
-<ul>
- <li>enable sigwinch handler by default.
-
- <li>turn on hashmap scrolling code by default
- <li>improved support for termcap applications
+Portability:
<ul>
- <li>modify tput to accept termcap names as an alternative to terminfo
- names.
+ <li>configure script:
+ <ul>
+ <li>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.
+
+ <li>make configure script checks on variables <code>$GCC</code> and
+ <code>$GXX</code> 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.
+
+ <li>change configure script to use AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM rather than
+ AC_CANONICAL_HOST, which means that <code>configure --target</code>
+ will set a default program-prefix.
+
+ <li>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).
+
+ <li>modify configure test for <code>tcgetattr()</code> to allow for
+ old implementations, e.g., on BeOS, which only defined it as a
+ macro.
+
+ <li>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.
+
+ <li>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".
+
+ <li>change most remaining unquoted parameters of <code>test</code> in
+ configure script to use quotes, for instance fixing a problem in the
+ <code>--disable-database</code> option.
+
+ <li>modify scripts so that "make install.data" works on OS/2 EMX.
+
+ <li>modify scripts and makefiles so the Ada95 directory builds on
+ OS/2 EMX.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>library:
+ <ul>
+ <li>replaced case-statement in <code>_nc_tracebits()</code> for CSIZE
+ with a table to simplify working around implementations that define
+ random combinations of the related macros to zero.
+
+ <li>improved OS/2 mouse support by retrying as a 2-button mouse if code
+ fails to set up a 3-button mouse.
+
+ <li>added private entrypoint <code>_nc_basename()</code>, used to
+ consolidate related code in progs, as well as accommodating OS/2 EMX
+ pathnames.
+
+ <li>alter definition of NCURSES_CONST to make it non-empty.
+
+ <li>redefine 'TEXT' in menu.h for AMIGA, since it is reported to have
+ an (unspecified) symbol conflict.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>programs:
+ <ul>
+ <li>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).
+ </ul>
- <li>provide support for termcap PC variable by copying it from terminfo
- data and using it as the padding character in tputs.
-
- <li>provide support for termcap ospeed variable by copying it from the
- internal cur_term member, and using ospeed as the baudrate
- reference for the delay_output and tputs functions.
-
- <li>change name-comparisons in lib_termcap to compare no more than 2
- characters.
-
- <li>add configure option --enable-tcap-names, which essentially
- allows users to define new capabilities as in termcap.
-</ul>
- <li>add mouse support to ncurses menus.
-
- <li>add mouse and dll support for OS/2 EMX
-
- <li>modify terminfo parsing to accept octal and hexadecimal constants
-
- <li>add configure option --enable-no-padding, to allow environment
- variable $NCURSES_NO_PADDING to eliminate non-mandatory padding,
- thereby making terminal emulators (e.g., for vt100) a little more
- efficient.
-
- <li>modify lib_color.c to eliminate dependency on orig_colors and
- orig_pair, since SVr4 curses does not require these either, but
- uses them when they are available.
-
- <li>add -f option to infocmp and tic, which formats the terminfo
- if/then/else/endif so that they are readable (with newlines and
- tabs).
-
- <li>modify tic to compile into %'char' form in preference to %{number},
- since that is a little more efficient.
-</ul>
-Major bug fixes:
-<ul>
- <li>modify lib_tstp.c to block SIGTTOU when handling SIGTSTP, fixes a
- problem where ncurses applications which were run via a shell script
- would hang when given a ^Z. Also, check if the terminal's process
- group is consistent, i.e., a shell has not taken ownership of it,
- before deciding to save the current terminal settings in the SIGTSTP
- handler.
-
- <li>suppress sc/rc capabilities from terminal description if they appear
- in smcup/rmcup. This affects only scrolling optimization, to fix a
- problem reported by several people with xterm's alternate screen,
- though the problem is more general.
-
- <li>modify relative_move and tputs to avoid an interaction with the
- BSD-style padding. The relative_move function could produce a string
- to replace on the screen which began with a numeric character, which
- was then interpreted by tputs as padding.
-
- <li>modify setupterm so that cancelled strings are treated the same as
- absent strings, cancelled and absent booleans false (does not affect
- tic, infocmp).
-
- <li>modify lib_vidattr.c to allow for terminal types (e.g., xterm-color)
- which may reset all attributes in the 'op' capability, so that colors
- are set before turning on bold and other attributes, but still after
- turning attributes off.
-
- <li>use 'access()' to check if ncurses library should be permitted to
- open or modify files with fopen/open/link/unlink/remove calls, in
- case the calling application is running in setuid mode.
-
- <li>correction to doupdate, for case where terminal does not support
- insert/delete character. The logic did not check that there was a
- difference in alignment of changes to old/new screens before
- repainting the whole non-blank portion of the line. Modified to fall
- through into logic that reduces by the portion which does not differ.
</ul>
<H1>Features of Ncurses</H1>
<DL>
<DT> cdk
<DD> Curses Development Kit
-<A HREF="http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html">Curses Development Kit</a>
-<A HREF="ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/cdk">ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/cdk</A>.
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html">http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html</a>
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/cdk/cdk.html">http://dickey.his.com/cdk</A>.
<DT> ded
<DD> directory-editor
-<A HREF="ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/ded">ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/ded</A>.
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/ded/ded.html">http://dickey.his.com/ded</A>.
<DT> dialog
<DD> the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the basis
for similar applications on GNU/Linux.
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/dialog/dialog.html">http://dickey.his.com/dialog</A>.
<DT> lynx
<DD> the character-screen WWW browser
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://lynx.isc.org/release/">http://lynx.isc.org/release</A>.
<DT> Midnight Commander 4.1
<DD> file manager
+<br>
+<A HREF="www.gnome.org/mc/">www.gnome.org/mc/</A>.
<DT> mutt
<DD> mail utility
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://www.mutt.org">http://www.mutt.org</A>.
<DT> ncftp
<DD> file-transfer utility
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://www.ncftp.com">http://www.ncftp.com</A>.
<DT> nvi
<DD> New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7 and later.
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://www.bostic.com/vi/">http://www.bostic.com/vi/</A>.
<DT> tin
<DD> newsreader, supporting color, MIME
-<A HREF="ftp://ftp.akk.uni-karlsruhe.de/pub/news/clients/tin-unoff">ftp://ftp.akk.uni-karlsruhe.de/pub/news/clients/tin-unoff</A>.
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://www.tin.org">http://www.tin.org</A>.
<DT> taper
<DD> tape archive utility
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/">http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/</A>.
<DT> vh-1.6
<DD> Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html">http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html</A>.
</DL>
as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
<DL>
<DT> minicom
<DD> terminal emulator
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html">http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html</A>.
<DT> vile
<DD> vi-like-emacs
-<A HREF="ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/vile">ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/vile</A>.
+<br>
+<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/vile/vile.html">http://dickey.his.com/vile</A>.
</DL>
<P>
HREF="mailto:zmbenhal@netcom.com">Zeyd Ben-Halim</A> and
<A HREF="http://www.ccil.org/~esr/home.html">Eric S. Raymond</A>.
Ongoing work is being done by
-<A HREF="mailto:dickey@clark.net">Thomas Dickey</A>
+<A HREF="mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com">Thomas Dickey</A>
and
<A HREF="mailto:juergen.pfeifer@gmx.net">Jürgen Pfeifer</A>.
-<A HREF="mailto:dickey@clark.net">Thomas Dickey</A>
+<A HREF="mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com">Thomas Dickey</A>
acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which holds the
copyright on ncurses.
Contact the current maintainers at
testing of this package.<P>
Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made available at
-<A HREF="ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/ncurses">ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/ncurses</A>.
+<A HREF="ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses">ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses</A>.
<H2>Future Plans</H2>
<UL>
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff