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<h1 class="no-header">Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</h1>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
- "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/">https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/</a>
or<br>
<a href=
"https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/</a> .</p>
</blockquote>
- <p>It is also available via anonymous FTP at the GNU distribution
- site</p>
+ <p>It is also available at the GNU distribution site</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
- "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/</a> .</p>
+ "https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/</a> .</p>
</blockquote>
<h2><a name="h2-release-notes" id="h2-release-notes">Release
Notes</a></h2>
<p>These notes are for <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
- @VERSION@, released <strong>February 12, 2020</strong>.</p>
+ @VERSION@, released <strong>December 31, 2022</strong>.</p>
<p>This release is designed to be source-compatible with
- <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 5.0 through 6.1; providing
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 5.0 through 6.3; providing
extensions to the application binary interface (ABI). Although
the source can still be configured to support the <span class=
"main-name">ncurses</span> 5 ABI, the reason for the release is
this announcement.</p>
<p>The most <a href="#h3-bug-fixes">important
- bug-fixes/improvements</a> dealt with user-defined capabilities
- in terminal descriptions. The release notes also mention some
- other bug-fixes, but are focused on new features and improvements
- to existing features since <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
- 6.1 release.</p>
+ bug-fixes/improvements</a> 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
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 6.3 release.</p>
<h3><a name="h3-library" id="h3-library">Library improvements</a></h3>
<h4><a name="h4-new-library" id="h4-new-library">New features</a></h4>
- <p>There are several new features:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/form_field_opts.3x.html">O_EDGE_INSERT_STAY</a>
- tells the form library to optionally delay cursor movement on
- a field edge/boundary</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/form_field_opts.3x.html">O_INPUT_FIELD</a>
- extension to form library allows a dynamic field to shrink if
- the new limit is smaller than the current field size.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>added <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_memleaks.3x.html">exit_curses</a> and
- <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_memleaks.3x.html">exit_terminfo</a> to
- replace internal symbols for leak-checking.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>added <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_trace.3x.html#h3-Functions">curses_trace</a>,
- to replace trace().</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
-
- <p>Additionally, to improve performance other changes (and
- extensions) are provided in this release:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>mouse decoding now handles shift/control/alt logic when
- decoding xterm's 1006 mode</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>ncurses now defines a limit for <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_getstr.3x.html">wgetnstr</a>, <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_get_wstr.3x.html">wgetn_wstr</a> when
- length is negative or “too large”.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>reordered loop-limit checks in <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_insstr.3x.html">winsnstr</a> in case the
- string has no terminating null and only the number of
- characters is used.</li>
-
- <li>
- <p>there is now no buffer-size limit when reading the
- <a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERMCAP"><tt>$TERMCAP</tt></a>
- variable.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>the <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERMCAP"><tt>$TERMCAP</tt></a>
- variable may be interpreted as a fallback to a terminfo
- entry</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Output-Functions"><tt>
- mvcur</tt></a> now decides whether to use hard-tabs, using
- <strong><tt>xt</tt></strong>, <strong><tt>tbc</tt></strong>
- and <strong><tt>hts</tt></strong> as clues.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>extended colors are improved by modifying an internal call
- to <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Output-Functions"><tt>
- vid_puts</tt></a> to pass extended color pairs e.g., from
- <tt>tty_update.c</tt> and <tt>lib_mvcur.c</tt></p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p id="getenv-fixes">the initialization functions now avoid
- relying upon persistent data for the result from <a href=
- "#getenv-check"><tt>getenv</tt></a></p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>scrolling is improved:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>a limit check in <tt>newline_forces_scroll</tt> handles
- the case where the row is inside scroll-margins, but not at
- the end.</li>
-
- <li>
- <p>improved loop limits in <tt>_nc_scroll_window</tt>
- handle a case where the scrolled data is a pad which is
- taller than the window.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
- </li>
- </ul>
+ <p>There are no new features in this release.</p>
<h4><a name="h4-fixes-library" id="h4-fixes-library">Other
improvements</a></h4>
- <p>These are revised features:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>used “<tt>const</tt>” in some prototypes
- rather than <tt>NCURSES_CONST</tt> where X/Open Curses was
- updated to do this, e.g., <tt>wscanw</tt>, <tt>newterm</tt>,
- the terminfo interface. Also use “<tt>const</tt>”
- for consistency in the termcap interface, which was withdrawn
- by X/Open Curses in Issue 5 (2007). As of Issue 7, X/Open
- Curses still lacks “<tt>const</tt>” for certain
- return values, e.g., <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-keyname_key_name">keyname</a>.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>modified <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_bkgd.3x.html#h3-bkgd"><tt>wbkgd</tt></a>
- and <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_bkgrnd.3x.html#h3-bkgrnd"><tt>wbkgrnd</tt></a>
- to improve compatibility with SVr4 curses, changing the way
- the window rendition is updated when the background character
- is modified</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>improved terminfo write/read by modifying the fourth item
- of the extended header to denote the number of valid strings
- in the extended string table (see <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/term.5.html#h3-EXTENDED-STORAGE-FORMAT">term(5)</a>).</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>modified the initialization checks for mouse so that the
- <a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_sm_1006"><tt>xterm+sm+1006</tt></a>
- block will work with terminal descriptions not mentioning
- <em>xterm</em>.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
-
- <p>These were done to limit or ultimately deprecate features:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>deprecated <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/NEWS.html#t970831">safe-sprintf</a>, since the
- <tt>vsnprintf</tt> function, which does what was needed, was
- standardized long ago.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>marked <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_printw.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY"><tt>vwprintw</tt></a>
- and <tt>vwscanw</tt> as deprecated; recommend using <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_printw.3x.html"><tt>vw_printw</tt></a>
- and <tt>vw_scanw</tt>, respectively.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>added deprecation warnings for internal functions called
- by older versions of <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/tack.html">tack</a>.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>removed unused <tt>_nc_import_termtype2</tt> function.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
-
<p>These are improvements to existing features:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>check parameter of <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_threads.3x.html">set_escdelay</a>,
- return ERR if negative.</p>
+ <p>modify <tt>delscreen</tt> to more effectively delete all
+ windows on the given screen.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>check parameter of <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_threads.3x.html">set_tabsize</a>, return
- ERR if not greater than zero</p>
+ <p>modify <tt>wnoutrefresh</tt> to call <tt>pnoutrefresh</tt>
+ 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</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>correct a status-check in _nc_read_tic_entry() so that if
- reading a hex/b64 <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERMINFO"><tt>$TERMINFO</tt></a>,
- and the <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERM"><tt>$TERM</tt></a>
- does not match, fall-through to the compiled-in search
- list.</p>
+ <p>modify curses_trace() to show the trace-mask as symbols,
+ e.g., <tt>TRACE_ORDINARY</tt>, <tt>DEBUG_LEVEL(3)</tt>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>amend check for <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Predefined-Capabilities"><tt>
- repeat_char</tt></a> to handle a case where setlocale() was
- called after <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_initscr.3x.html"><tt>initscr</tt></a></p>
+ <p>improve checks for valid mouse events when an intermediate
+ mouse state is not part of the mousemask specified by the
+ caller</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>move macro for <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_touch.3x.html"><tt>is_linetouched</tt></a>
- inside <strong><tt>NCURSES_NOMACROS</tt></strong>
- <em><tt>ifndef</tt></em>.</p>
+ <p>allow extended-color number in <em>opts</em> parameter of
+ <tt>wattr_on</tt>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>use <tt>_nc_copy_termtype2</tt> rather than direct
- assignment in <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Initialization">setupterm</a>,
- in case it is called repeatedly using fallback terminfo
- descriptions</p>
+ <p>improve <tt>_tracecchar_t2</tt> formatting of
+ base+combining character.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>improve workaround for Solaris wcwidth versus line-drawing
- characters</p>
+ <p>trim out some unwanted linker options from ncurses*config
+ and .pc files seen in Fedora 36+.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>add checks in <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/resizeterm.3x.html"><tt>repair_subwindows</tt></a>
- to keep the current position and scroll-margins inside the
- resized subwindow.</p>
+ <p>improve shell-scripts with <em>shellcheck</em></p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>correct a buffer-limit in <tt>write_entry.c</tt> for
- systems that use caseless filenames.</p>
+ <p>improve use of "trap" in shell scripts, using a
+ script.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>improved build-time utility <em>report_offsets</em>:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>add categories, e.g., "w" for wide-character, "t" for
- threads to make the report more readable. Reorganized the
- structures reported to make the categories more
- apparent.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>add <tt>NCURSES_GLOBALS</tt> and
- <tt>NCURSES_PRESCREEN</tt> to report to show how similar
- the different <em>libtinfo</em> configurations are.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>modified some header files to ensure that those include
- necessary files except for the previously-documented
- cases</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>added some traces in initialization to show whether a
- fallback entry is used.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>made minor optimization to reduce calls to
- _nc_reserve_pairs</p>
+ <p>modify <tt>make-tar.sh</tt> scripts to make timestamps
+ more predictable.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>fix a special case in <tt>PutAttrChar</tt> where a cell is
- marked as alternate-character set, but the terminal does not
- actually support the given graphic character. This would
- happen in an older terminal such as <em>vt52</em>, which
- lacks most line-drawing capability.</p>
+ <p>modify <tt>misc/gen-pkgconfig.in</tt> to allow for the
+ case where the library directory does not yet exist, since
+ this is processed before doing an install</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>corrected flag for "seq" method of db 1.8.5 interface,
- needed by toe on some of the BSDs.</p>
+ <p>set trailing null on string passed from <tt>winsnstr</tt>
+ to <tt>wins_nwstr</tt>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modify comparison in make_hash.c to correct a special case
- in collision handling for Caps-hpux11</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>add extended_slk_color{,_sp} symbols to the appropriate
- package/*.{map,sym} files</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>modify lib_setup to avoid calling pthread_self() without
- first verifying that the address is valid, i.e., for weak
- symbols</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>add a couple of broken-linker symbols to the list of
- versioned symbols to help with link-time optimization versus
- weak symbols.</p>
+ <p>modify <tt>waddch_literal</tt> to allow for double-width
+ base character when merging a combining character</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3><a name="h3-programs" id="h3-programs">Program
improvements</a></h3>
- <p id="h4-utilities">Several improvements were made to the utility programs:</p>
+ <p id="h4-utilities">Several improvements were made to the
+ utility programs:</p>
<dl>
- <dt><span class="part-name">clear</span>
- </dt>
-
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>improved logic for clearing with the <em>E3</em>
- extension, in case the terminal scrolls content onto its
- saved-lines before actually clearing the display, by
- clearing the saved-lines after clearing the display</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
-
- <dt><span class="part-name">infocmp</span>
- </dt>
-
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>omit filtering of “<tt>OTxx</tt>” names
- which are used for obsolete capabilities, when the output
- is sorted by long-names. This change helps when making a
- table of the short/long capability names.</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
-
- <dt><span class="part-name">tic</span>
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/infocmp.1m.html">infocmp</a></span>
</dt>
<dd>
<ul>
- <li>added check for consistent alternate character set
- capabilities.</li>
-
- <li>added check for paired <tt>indn</tt>/<tt>rin</tt>.</li>
+ <li>rewrite <tt>canonical_name</tt> function of
+ <tt>infocmp</tt> to ensure buffer size</li>
- <li>added check for terminals with <tt>parm_dch</tt> vs
- <tt>parm_ich</tt>.</li>
+ <li>improve readability of long parameterized expressions
+ with the infocmp “<tt>-f</tt>” option by
+ allowing split before a “<tt>%p</tt>”
+ marker.</li>
- <li>added check for the case where
- <tt>setf</tt>/<tt>setb</tt> are given using different
- strings, but provide identical results to
- <tt>setaf</tt>/<tt>setab</tt>.</li>
-
- <li>corrected check for <tt>ich1</tt>.</li>
-
- <li>changed a too-large terminal entry from a fatal error
- to a warning.</li>
+ <li>modify verbose-option of <tt>infocmp</tt>,
+ <tt>tic</tt>, <tt>toe</tt> to enable debug-tracing if that
+ is configured.</li>
</ul>
</dd>
- <dt><span class="part-name">toe</span>
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/tabs.1.html">tabs</a></span>
</dt>
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>ignores any hex/b64 <tt>$TERMINFO</tt> value in the
- list of terminfo databases.</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
+ <dd>limit tab-stop values to max-columns</dd>
- <dt><span class="part-name">tset</span>
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/tic.1m.html">tic</a></span>
</dt>
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>replace check in <span class="part-name">reset</span>
- command for obsolete “<tt>pt</tt>” capability
- using <tt>tbc</tt> and <tt>hts</tt> capabilities as
- clues</li>
-
- <li>modify <span class="part-name">reset</span> to allow
- for tabstops at intervals other than 8.</li>
-
- <li>change <span class="part-name">reset</span>'s behavior
- for margins to simply clear soft-margins if possible,
- rather than clearing and then setting them according to the
- terminal's width.</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
+ <dd>add consistency check in tic for u6/u7/u8/u9 and NQ
+ capabilities.</dd>
- <dt><span class="part-name">tput</span>
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/tput.1.html">tput</a></span>
</dt>
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>add “<tt>x</tt>” to <tt>getopt</tt> string
- so that “<tt>tput -x clear</tt>”
- works.</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
+ <dd>corrected use of original tty-modes in <em>init/reset</em>
+ subcommands</dd>
</dl>
- <p>Several changes were made to the generated ncurses*config
- scripts and the analogous “<tt>.pc</tt>” files to
- reduce differences between the configurations they report:</p>
+ <h4><a name="h4-examples" id="h4-examples">Examples</a></h4>
+
+ <p>Along with the library and utilities, improvements were made
+ to the <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>. Most of
+ this activity aimed at improving the test-packages:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>modified the ncurse*-config and pc-files to more closely
- match for the <tt>-I</tt> and <tt>-l</tt> options.</p>
+ <p>add minimal <tt>-h</tt> (usage) and <tt>-V</tt> (version)
+ getopt logic to all ncurses-examples programs.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>filtered out linker-specs from the <tt>--libs</tt>
- report.</p>
+ <p>fix an error in "@" command in <tt>test/ncurses.c</tt>
+ F-menu</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>amended the ncurses*-config and pc-files to take into
- account the rpath hack which differed between those
- files.</p>
+ <p>add curses_trace to ifdef's for <tt>START_TRACE</tt> in
+ <tt>test/test.priv.h</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified generated ncurses*config and ncurses.pc,
- ncursesw.pc, etc., to list helper libraries such as gpm for
- static linking.</p>
+ <p>improve pthread-configuration for test/worm.c</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <h4><a name="h4-examples" id="h4-examples">Examples</a></h4>
-
- <p>Along with the library and utilities, improvements were made
- to the <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>. Most of
- this activity aimed at improving the test-packages. A few changes
- are more generally useful, e.g., for the main ncurses
- test-program, and for analyzing traces using the
- <em>tracemunch</em> script:</p>
-
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>improve recovery from error when reading command-character
- in <tt>test/ncurses.c</tt>, showing the relevant error
- message and not exiting on EINTR.</p>
+ <p>add <tt>setlocale</tt> call to several test-programs.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>improve <em>tracemunch</em>, by keeping track of
- <tt>TERMINAL*</tt> values, and if tracing was first turned on
- after initialization, attempt to show distinct screen, window
- and terminal names anyway.</p>
+ <p>workaround in <tt>test/picsmap.c</tt> for use of floating
+ point for rgb values by ImageMagick 6.9.11, which appears to
+ use the wrong upper limit.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modify <em>tracemunch</em> to accept filename parameters
- in addition to use as a pipe/filter.</p>
+ <p>use static libraries for AdaCurses test-package for
+ Mageia, since no gprbuild package is available.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>update <em>tracemunch</em> to work with <em>perl
- 5.26.2</em>, which changed the rules for escaping regular
- expressions.</p>
+ <p>install Ada95 sample programs in libexecdir, adding a
+ wrapper script to invoke those.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>add some checks in <em>tracemunch</em> for undefined
- variables.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>modify <tt>TurnOn</tt>/<tt>TurnOff</tt> macros (in
- lib_vidattr.c and lib_vid_attr.c) to avoid expansion of
- “<tt>CUR</tt>” in trace.</p>
+ <p>install ncurses-examples programs in libexecdir, adding a
+ wrapper script to invoke those.</p>
</li>
</ul>
examples:</p>
<dl>
- <dt><span class="part-name">color_content</span>
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><em>test/combine</em></span>
</dt>
- <dd>Demonstrate the <tt>color_content</tt> and
- <tt>extended_color_content</tt> functions.</dd>
+ <dd>demonstrate combining characters</dd>
- <dt><span class="part-name">demo_tabs</span>
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><em>test/test_delwin</em></span>
</dt>
- <dd>A simple demo of tabs in curses.</dd>
+ <dd>demonstrate deleting a window</dd>
- <dt><span class="part-name">dump_window</span>
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><em>test/test_mouse</em></span>
</dt>
- <dd>A portable curses screen-dump, used to compare ncurses
- screen contents with Solaris.</dd>
+ <dd>observe mouse events in the raw terminal or parsed ncurses
+ modes</dd>
- <dt><span class="part-name">pair_content</span>
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><em>test/test_unget_wch</em></span>
</dt>
- <dd>Demonstrate the <tt>pair_content</tt> and
- <tt>extended_pair_content</tt> functions.</dd>
-
- <dt><span class="part-name">report_hashing</span>
- </dt>
-
- <dd>Check hash-tables used for terminfo and termcap names.</dd>
-
- <dt><span class="part-name">parse_rgb</span>
- </dt>
-
- <dd>Sample implementation of the ncurses RGB extension from
- <a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/user_caps.5.html">user_caps.5</a>, used
- in <em>picsmap</em> and <em>savescreen</em> programs.</dd>
+ <dd>demonstrate the unget_wch and unget functions</dd>
</dl>
- <p>A variety of improvements were made to existing programs, both
- new features as well as options added to make the set of programs
- more consistent.</p>
+ <h3><a name="h3-database" id="h3-database">Terminal database</a></h3>
+
+ <p>There are several new terminal descriptions:</p>
<ul>
- <li>
- <p>add “<tt>-l</tt>” option to test/background,
- to dump screen contents in a form that lets different curses
- implementations be compared.</p>
+ <li><tt><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-mosh">mosh</a></tt>
</li>
- <li>
- <p>add “<tt>@</tt>” command to test/ncurses
- F-test, to allow rapid jump to different character pages.</p>
+ <li><tt><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-mosh-256color">mosh-256color</a></tt>
</li>
- <li>
- <p>added enum, regex examples to test/demo_forms</p>
+ <li><tt><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-teken-16color">teken-16color</a></tt>
</li>
- <li>
- <p>amend Scaled256() macro in test/picsmap.c to cover the
- full range 0..1000</p>
+ <li><tt><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-teken-sc">teken-sc</a></tt>
</li>
- <li>
- <p>corrected pathname used in Ada95 sample programs for
- <tt>explain.txt</tt>, to work with test-packages, and used an
- awk script to split the resulting pathname when it would be
- too long for a single line.</p>
+ <li><tt><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-teken-vt">teken-vt</a></tt>
</li>
- <li>
- <p>ignore interrupted system-call in test/ncurses's
- command-line, e.g., if the terminal were resized.</p>
+ <li><tt><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-xgterm">xgterm</a></tt>
</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some
+ were updates to several descriptions:</p>
+ <ul>
<li>
- <p>improved ifdef's for <tt>TABSIZE</tt> variable, to help
- with AIX/HPUX ports.</p>
+ <p>make description-fields distinct</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <h3><a name="h3-database" id="h3-database">Terminal database</a></h3>
+ <li>
+ <p>fix errata in description fields</p>
+ </li>
- <p>There are several new terminal descriptions:</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>add/use several building-blocks:</p>
- <blockquote style="word-break:keep-all">
- <p><tt>alacritty</tt>, <tt>domterm</tt>, <tt>kitty</tt>,
- <tt>mintty</tt>, <tt>mintty-direct</tt>, <tt>ms-terminal</tt>,
- <tt>n7900</tt>, <tt>nsterm-build309</tt>,
- <tt>nsterm-direct</tt>, <tt>screen5</tt>, <tt>ti703</tt>,
- <tt>ti707</tt>, <tt>ti703-w</tt>, <tt>ti707-w</tt>
- <tt>vscode</tt>, <tt>vscode-direct</tt>, <tt>xterm-mono</tt>,
- <tt>xterm.js</tt></p>
- </blockquote>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-aixterm_sl"><tt>aixterm+sl</tt></a></li>
- <p>There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some
- were updates to several descriptions:</p>
+ <li><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-ansi_cpr"><tt>ansi+cpr</tt></a></li>
- <ul>
- <li>use <a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ansi_rep"><tt>ansi+rep</tt></a>
- in a dozen places</li>
+ <li><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-apollo_vt132"><tt>apollo+vt132</tt></a></li>
- <li>add rs1 to konsole, mlterm</li>
+ <li><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-decid_cpr"><tt>decid+cpr</tt></a></li>
- <li>improve several flash capabilities with trailing mandatory
- delays</li>
+ <li><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-ncr260vp_sl"><tt>ncr260vp+sl</tt></a></li>
- <li>drop <tt>ich1</tt> from <tt>rxvt-basic</tt>, <tt>Eterm</tt>
- and <tt>mlterm</tt> to improve compatibility with old
- non-curses programs</li>
+ <li><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-wyse_sl"><tt>wyse+sl</tt></a></li>
- <li>add/use <a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_keypad"><tt>xterm+keypad</tt></a>
- in <tt>xterm-new</tt></li>
+ <li><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-x10term_sl"><tt>x10term+sl</tt></a></li>
- <li>use <a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_sl-twm"><tt>xterm+sl-twm</tt></a>
- for consistency, nine places</li>
+ <li><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_acs"><tt>xterm+acs</tt></a></li>
-
<li>improve <em>xm</em> example in <a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_x11mouse">xterm+x11mouse</a>
- and <a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_sm_1006">xterm+sm_1006</a>.</li>
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_alt47"><tt>xterm+alt47</tt></a></li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
</ul>
<p>while others affected specific descriptions. These were
retested, to take into account changes by their developers:</p>
- <blockquote>
- <p><tt>terminator</tt>, <tt>st</tt></p>
- </blockquote>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p><tt><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-kitty">kitty</a></tt>
+ </p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p><tt><a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-teken">teken</a></tt>
+ </p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
<p>while these are specific fixes based on reviewing
documentation, user reports, or warnings from <span class=
<dl>
<dt><a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-adds200">adds200</a>:</dt>
-
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>fix typo</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
-
- <dt><a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-gnome-256color">gnome-256color</a>
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-att610_cvis0">att610+cvis0</a>
</dt>
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>base entry on "gnome", not "vte", for consistency</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
+ <dd>amended note as per documentation for att610, att620,
+ att730</dd>
- <dt><a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-interix">interix</a>
- </dt>
+ <dt><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-kon">kon</a>,
+ kon2, jfbterm</dt>
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>trim unnecessary setf/setb</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
+ <dd>revise to undo "linux2.6" change to smacs/rmacs/enacs</dd>
<dt><a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-linux-16color">linux-16color</a>
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-st-0_6">st-0.6</a>
</dt>
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>accommodate <a href=
- "https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses/2019-10/msg00061.html">
- Linux console driver</a> incompatibility introduced in
- early 2018</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
-
- <dt><a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-nsterm-256color">nsterm-256color</a>:</dt>
-
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>add nsterm-build309 to replace nsterm-256color,
- assigning the latter as an alias of nsterm, to make mouse
- work with nsterm-256color</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
-
- <dt><a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-regent40">regent40</a>:</dt>
-
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>renumber function-keys to match manual</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
-
- <dt><a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-regent60">regent60</a>:</dt>
-
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>add cd (clr_eos)</li>
-
- <li>corrected acsc</li>
-
- <li>add shifted function-keys</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
+ <dd>add dim, ecma+strikeout</dd>
<dt><a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-tvi950">tvi950</a>:</dt>
-
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>added function-key definitions to agree with Televideo
- 950 manual</li>
-
- <li>corrected acsc</li>
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-foot_base">foot+base</a>
+ </dt>
- <li>remove bogus kf0</li>
-
- <li>add bel</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
+ <dd>add xterm+sl-alt</dd>
<dt><a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-tvi955">tvi955</a>:</dt>
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-dec_sl">dec+sl</a>
+ </dt>
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>fix typo</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
+ <dd>correct dsl in dec+sl</dd>
<dt><a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vi200">vi200</a>:</dt>
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-mintty">mintty</a> and
+ tmux</dt>
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>add acsc string, including right/down-arrow</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
+ <dd>correct setal in mintty/tmux entries, add to vte-2018</dd>
<dt><a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-wy50">wy50</a>:</dt>
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-nsterm">nsterm</a>
+ </dt>
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>corrected acsc</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
+ <dd>modify nsterm to use xterm+alt1049</dd>
- <dt><a href="/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-wy50">wy50</a> and
- <a href="/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-wy60">wy60</a>:</dt>
+ <dt><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-putty">putty</a>
+ </dt>
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>add shifted function-keys as kF1 to kF16</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
+ <dd>modify putty to use xterm+alt1049</dd>
<dt><a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_x11hilite">xterm+x11hilite</a>:</dt>
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-vte-2018">vte-2018</a>
+ </dt>
- <dd>
- <ul>
- <li>eliminate unused <em>p5</em> parameter.</li>
- </ul>
- </dd>
+ <dd>add blink and setal</dd>
</dl>
<p>A few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal
capabilities):</p>
<ul>
- <li>use <a href=
- "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_sm_1006"><tt>xterm+sm+1006</tt></a>
- (aka “SGR 1006 mouse”) for konsole-base and
- putty</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>use <tt>ansi+enq</tt> and <tt>decid+cpr</tt> in cases
+ where the terminal probably supported the u6-u9 extension</p>
+ </li>
- <li>add <em><tt>Smol/Rmol</tt></em> user-defined capability to
- <tt>tmux</tt> and <tt>vte-2018</tt></li>
+ <li>
+ <p>remove u6-u9 from teken-2018</p>
+ </li>
- <li>add <em><tt>Smulx</tt></em> user-defined capability to
- <tt>tmux</tt>, <tt>vte-2018</tt></li>
+ <li>
+ <p>use <tt>NQ</tt> to flag entries where the terminal does
+ not support query and response</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add/use <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-bracketed_paste"><tt>bracketed+paste</tt></a>
+ to help identify terminals supporting this xterm feature</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify samples for xterm mouse 1002/1003 modes to use 1006
+ mode, and also provide for focus in/out responses</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>xterm patch #371 supports DEC-compatible status-line. add
+ <tt>dec+sl</tt> to xterm-new, per xterm #371, add <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-p371"><tt>xterm-p371</tt></a>,
+ add <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-p370"><tt>xterm-p370</tt></a>,
+ for use in older terminals, and set “xterm-new”
+ to “xterm-p370” (to ease adoption).</p>
+ </li>
</ul>
<h3><a name="h3-documentation" id=
<p>Corrections:</p>
<ul>
- <li>correct error-returns listed in manual pages for a few
- form functions</li>
-
- <li>corrected prototypes in several manpages using script
- to extract those in compilable form.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>remove a stray '/' from description of <tt>%g</tt> in
+ <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Parameterized-Strings">
+ terminfo(5)</a>.</p>
+ </li>
- <li>fix typo in <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/term.5.html#h3-EXTENDED-NUMBER-FORMAT">term.5</a>,
- improve explanation of format</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>correct/improve font-formatting in <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_getch.3x.html">curs_getch.3x</a>, as
+ well as other manual pages.</p>
+ </li>
</ul>
</li>
- <li>
- <p>Clarify in manual pages that <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_printw.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">vwprintw</a>
- and <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_scanw.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">vwscanw</a>
- are obsolete.<br>
- They have not been part of X/Open Curses since 2007.</p>
- </li>
-
<li>
<p>New/improved history and portability sections:</p>
<ul>
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_addch.3x.html#h3-ACS-Symbols">curs_addch.3x</a>
- gives some background for ACS symbols.</li>
-
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_getcchar.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">curs_getcchar.3x</a>
- explains a difference between ncurses and X/Open
- Curses.</li>
-
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_getstr.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">curs_getstr.3x</a>
- gives historical/portability background for the length
- parameter of <tt>wgetnstr</tt>.</li>
-
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_slk.3x.html">curs_slk.3x</a> lists a
- few differences between SVr4 curses and X/Open Curses for
- soft-keys.</li>
-
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo.3x</a>
- explains that the initial implementation of terminfo in
- SVr2 was mostly replaced by other developers in SVr3.</li>
-
- <li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/infocmp.1m.html">infocmp.1</a>
- explains that the initial version of terminfo had no tool
- for decompiling descriptions. That came later, with SVr3,
- with a different developer.</li>
-
- <li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/tabs.1.html">tabs.1</a> tells more
- than you wanted to know about the tool.</li>
-
- <li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/tic.1m.html">tic.1</a> explains
- that the initial version of terminfo had a rudimentary tool
- (based on termcap) for compiling entries. The tool used
- with Unix was developed by others for SVr3.</li>
-
- <li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/toe.1m.html">toe.1</a> explains
- the origin of this tool.</li>
- </ul>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>Improvements for <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/user_caps.5.html">user_caps.5</a>:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>mention <tt>meml</tt>, <tt>memu</tt> and
- <tt>box1</tt></li>
-
- <li>expanded description of <tt>XM</tt></li>
-
- <li>add a clarification regarding the <tt>RGB</tt>
- capability.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>add portability notes for <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">delscreen</a>
+ and <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_window.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">delwin</a>
+ in manual.</p>
+ </li>
- <li>mention user_caps.5 in the tic and infocmp manual
- pages.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_slk.3x.html#h2-EXTENSIONS">curs_slk.3x</a>
+ discussion of extensions and portability</p>
+ </li>
</ul>
</li>
<p>Other improvements:</p>
<ul>
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_add_wch.3x.html#h3-Line-Graphics">curs_add_wch.3x</a>
- adds note about Unicode terminology for the line-drawing
- characters.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_bkgd.3x.html">curs_bkgd.3x</a>,
+ explaining that <tt>bkgdset</tt> can affect results for
+ <tt>bkgd</tt></p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_color.3x.html#h2-RETURN-VALUE">curs_color.3x</a>
- improves discussion of error returns and extensions.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>add note on portable memory-leak checking in <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_memleaks.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">curs_memleaks.3x</a></p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_mouse.3x.html">curs_mouse.3x</a>
- explains how the <tt>kmous</tt> and <tt>XM</tt>
- capabilities are used for xterm-mouse input.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>expanded description in <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/resizeterm.3x.html">resizeterm.3x</a></p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_refresh.3x.html#h3-wnoutrefresh_doupdate">
- curs_refresh.3x</a> improves documentation regarding the
- virtual and physical screens.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>add section on releasing memory to <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_termcap.3x.html#h3-Releasing-Memory">
+ curs_termcap.3x</a> and <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Releasing-Memory">
+ curs_terminfo.3x</a> manpages.</p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_util.3x.html">curs_util.3x</a>
- mentions a difference between SVr4 and X/Open Curses for
- <tt>unctrl.h</tt></li>
+ <li>
+ <p>add clarification of the scope of dynamic variables in
+ <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</a>.</p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_variables.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">curs_variables.3x</a>
- improves description of the <em>init_tabs</em> capability
- and <tt>TABSIZE</tt> variable.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve formatting of <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses-intro.html">ncurses-intro.html</a>
+ and <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/hackguide.html">hackguide.html</a></p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/ncurses.3x.html#h2-ALTERNATE-CONFIGURATIONS">
- ncurses.3x</a> improves documentation regarding
- feature-test macros in curses.h</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_clear.3x.html">curs_clear.3x</a>
+ links to other pages</p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/resizeterm.3x.html#h3-resize_term">resizeterm.3x</a>
- about top-level windows which touch the screen's
- borders.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>update <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/howto/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html">ncurses-howto</a>,
+ making documentation fixes along with corrections to
+ example programs.</p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/man/tput.1.html#h3-Terminal-Size">tput.1</a>
- clarifies how <em>tput</em> determines the terminal
- size.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>use newer version 1.36 of gnathtml for generating Ada
+ html files.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>update external links in <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/Ada95.html">Ada95.html</a></p>
+ </li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>There are no new manual pages (all of the manual page updates
are to existing pages).</p>
- <p>Some of the improvements are more subtle, relating to the way
- the information is presented. For instance, the generated
- terminfo.5 file uses a different table layout, allowing it to use
- space on wide terminals more effectively.</p>
-
<h3><a name="h3-bug-fixes" id="h3-bug-fixes">Interesting
bug-fixes</a></h3>
<p>While there were many bugs fixed during development of ncurses
- 6.2, only a few (the reason for this release) were both important
+ 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.</p>
-
- <p>The interesting bugs were in tic/infocmp's handling of
- user-defined capabilities. These were not recent bugs. Initially
- it was a simple problem:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>The user-defined capabilities can be any type (boolean,
- number or string), but once given a type all uses of the name
- must conform to that type—unless some special support for
- a particular multi-typed name is built into ncurses.</li>
-
- <li>
- <p>One of simpleterm's contributors copied some definitions
- for using <em>tmux</em>'s user-defined capabilities in
- <a href=
- "https://git.suckless.org/st/commit/06f8cf8ca87a81db15816658c40b2afcd1ad5332.html">
- late in 2016</a>.</p>
-
- <blockquote>
- <pre class="demo-name">
-diff --git a/st.info b/st.info
-@@ -185,7 +185,10 @@ st| simpleterm,
- tsl=\E]0;,
- xenl,
- vpa=\E[%i%p1%dd,
--
-+# Tmux unofficial extensions, see TERMINFO EXTENSIONS in tmux(1)
-+ Se,
-+ Ss,
-+ Tc,
-
- st-256color| simpleterm with 256 colors,
- use=st,
-</pre>
- </blockquote>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>Later, in (referring to a version from <a href=
- "https://git.suckless.org/st/commit/c0882f2ed1d7a2dd0fa2efa52157e6fc6fde3652.html">
- mid-2017</a>), a user asked to have it updated in
- ncurses.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>However, it had an error from the change in late 2016. The
- terminal description made what <em>tmux</em> expected to be
- <strong>string</strong> actually a
- <strong>boolean</strong>.</p>
-
- <p>Over the years, there were problems with each of
- simpleterm's terminal descriptions. I repaired those, and
- usually dealt with the problem.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>The difference in this case was that when compiling the
- terminal database, <em>tic</em> may have in memory the
- definitions for more than one terminal description (so that
- it can resolve “<tt>use=</tt>” clauses). Seeing
- two different types for the same name, in certain situations
- it would incorrectly merge the symbol tables for the two
- terminal descriptions.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>On simpleterm's side, their bug was finally fixed in
- <a href=
- "https://git.suckless.org/st/commit/83866428de031300eab03fbb116bcf7d2b1d4f60.html">
- late 2019</a>, three years after the bug was created.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
+ are detailed in the <a href=
+ "@HOMEPAGE@/NEWS.html#t20221231">NEWS</a> file no elaboration is
+ needed here.</p>
- <p>For ncurses, the elapsed time to fix this bug was less than
- three years. Someone reported a problem with the terminal
- description a few weeks after releasing ncurses 6.1 (in <a href=
- "https://github.com/tmux/tmux/issues/1264">tmux #1264</a>), and
- the terminal description was updated that week (ncurses patch
- <a href="@HOMEPAGE@/NEWS.html#t20180224">20180224</a>):</p>
-
- <blockquote>
- <pre class="demo-name">
-20180224
- + modify _nc_resolve_uses2() to detect incompatible types when merging
- a "use=" clause of extended capabilities. The problem was seen in a
- defective terminfo integrated from simpleterm sources in 20171111,
- compounded by repair in 20180121.
- + correct Ss/Ms interchange in st-0.7 entry (tmux #1264) -TD
-</pre>
- </blockquote>
-
- <p>The larger part of that change added a check to prevent a
- simple merge of terminal descriptions where the same user-defined
- name was used with different types. But it raised some
- questions:</p>
+ <p>The interesting bugs were those dealing with memory leaks and
+ buffer overflows. Although the utilities are designed for
+ <em>text</em> files (which they do properly), some choose to test
+ them with <strong>non-</strong><em>text</em> files.</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>Was there a reliable way to manage terminal descriptions
- which used the same extended name in different ways?</p>
+ <p>Text files contain no embedded nulls. Also, they end with
+ a newline. Feeding <strong>tic</strong> 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.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>Should ncurses provide a registry of well-known extended
- names, with their types?</p>
+ <p>Fixing the limit-checks (first) found a problem with
+ <strong>tic</strong> managing the list of strings in a
+ terminal description. In merging two terminal descriptions
+ (i.e., the “use=” feature), <strong>tic</strong>
+ was not allocating a complete copy. A quick repair for that
+ introduced a memory leak.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <p>Since the correction to <a href=
- "@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses.html#download_database"><tt>terminfo.src</tt></a>
- could have been readily adopted by packagers, there was nothing
- more to be done from ncurses' standpoint on that part. But
- improving ncurses to prevent issues like that is the reason for
- making a release.</p>
-
- <p>Nothing more (constructive) was mentioned with regard to
- simpleterm. But a few problems were found in the handling of
- user-defined capabilities:</p>
-
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>Forward-references to user-defined capabilities in a
- “<tt>use=</tt>” clause did not allocate new data
- for each use. In <em>tic</em>, successive compilation of
- terminal entries could add user-defined capabilities to the
- wrong terminal entry.</p>
-
- <p>This was not noticed before, since xterm's terminal
- descriptions were the main users of the feature, and almost
- all of the uses of the building-blocks which contained
- user-defined capabilities were backward-references.</p>
+ <p>The checks for non-text files are improved (i.e., embedded
+ nulls in the input file will cause <strong>tic</strong> to
+ reject it rather than attempting to process it).</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>There is one (documented) case where ncurses 6.1 supports
- a user-defined capability that could be any type (i.e.,
- “RGB”). The check added in February 2018 to guard
- against mismatches did not handle all of the combinations
- needed.</p>
+ <p>The string allocations in <strong>tic</strong> are
+ likewise improved.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>Both of these issues dated from the original implementation of
- user-defined capabilities. Fixing them does not change the
- terminal database, but a older <em>tic</em> without the fixes
- will not be able to handle terminfo sources which rely upon those
- fixes. Starting in June 2019, the download link for the terminfo
- source file was capped at that date. The development sources have
- an up-to-date copy of the file, for people with a legitimate need
- for it.</p>
-
- <p>The “<tt>-c</tt>” (check) option of <em>tic</em>
- is not very useful if it cannot offer advice on parameters needed
- for user-defined capabilities. The various <em>Caps</em> files
- were reorganized to reduce redundancy, and in the common portion
- (<a href=
- "https://github.com/ThomasDickey/ncurses-snapshots/blob/master/include/Caps-ncurses">Caps-ncurses</a>),
- a registry of user-defined capabilities is provided for use by
- <em>tic</em>. While users can still define their own custom
- capabilities, <em>tic</em> will not offer any advice when their
- parameters do not match.</p>
-
- <p>In ncurses 6.2, <em>tic</em> makes a special check to allow
- any type for <em>RGB</em>, but its being able to do this relies
- upon fixes made in the ncurses library in mid-2019.</p>
-
<h3><a name="h3-config-config" id=
"h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a></h3>
<h4><a name="h4-config-major" id="h4-config-major">Major
changes</a></h4>
- <p>There are no major changes. Several new options were added to
- ease integration of packages with systems using different
- versions of <em>GNAT</em> and <em>ncurses</em>. Also,
+ <p>There are no major changes. No new options were added. Several
improvements were made to configure checks.</p>
<h4><a name="h4-config-options" id=
<p>There are a few new/modified configure options:</p>
<dl>
- <dt><tt>--with-config-suffix</tt>
+ <dt><tt>--with-abi-version</tt>
</dt>
<dd>
- <p>helps work around a filename conflict with Debian packages
- versus test-packages.</p>
+ <p>add ABI 7 defaults to configure script.</p>
</dd>
- <dt><tt>--with-ada-libname</tt>
+ <dt><tt>--with-caps</tt>
</dt>
<dd>
- <p>allows one to rename the “AdaCurses” library
- (at least one packager prefers a lowercase name).</p>
+ <p>add warning in configure script if file specified for
+ “<tt>--with-caps</tt>” does not exist.</p>
</dd>
- <dt><tt>--with-fallbacks</tt>
+ <dt><tt>--with-manpage-format</tt>
</dt>
<dd>
- <p>now ensures there is a value, and adds the fallback
- information to top-level Makefile summary.</p>
+ <p>bzip2 and xz compression are now supported</p>
</dd>
- <dt><tt>--with-pcre2</tt>
+ <dt><tt>--with-xterm-kbs</tt>
</dt>
<dd>
- <p>check for pcre-posix library to help with MinGW port.</p>
- </dd>
-
- <dt><tt>--with-tic-path</tt> and<br></dt>
-
- <dt><tt>--with-infocmp-path</tt>
- </dt>
-
- <dd>
- <p>help work around problems building fallback source using
- pre-6.0 tic/infocmp.</p>
- </dd>
-
- <dt><tt>--with-versioned-syms</tt>
- </dt>
-
- <dd>
- <p>option value can now be a relative pathname.</p>
+ <p>add check/warning in configure script if option
+ “<tt>--with-xterm-kbs</tt>” is missing or
+ inconsistent</p>
</dd>
</dl>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>ignore <a href=
- "/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERMINFO"><tt>$TERMINFO</tt></a>
- as a default value in configure script if it came from the
- <tt>infocmp</tt> <strong><tt>-Q</tt></strong> option.</p>
+ <p>amend configure option's auto-search to account for
+ systems where none of the directories known to
+ <em>pkg-config</em> exist</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>distinguish gcc from icc and clang when the
- <tt>--enable-warnings</tt> option is not used, to avoid
- unnecessary warnings about unrecognized inline options</p>
+ <p>corrected regex needed for older <em>pkg-config</em> used
+ in Solaris 10</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>consistently prepend new libraries as they are found
- during configuration, rather than relying upon the linker to
- resolve order dependencies of libraries.</p>
+ <p>improve handling of <tt>--with-pkg-config-libdir</tt>
+ option, allowing for the case where either
+ <tt>$PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR</tt> or the option value has a
+ colon-separated list of directories</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified configure scripts to reduce relinking/ranlib
- during library install :</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>use “<tt>install -p</tt>” when available,
- to avoid need for ranlib of static libraries.</li>
-
- <li>scripts which use
- “<tt>--disable-relink</tt>;” add a 1-second
- sleep to work around tools which use whole-second
- timestamps, e.g., in <tt>utime</tt> rather than the actual
- file system resolution.</li>
- </ul>
+ <p>if the <tt>--with-pkg-config-libdir</tt> option is not
+ given, use <tt>${libdir}/pkgconfig</tt> as a default</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p id="getenv-check">add configure check for <a href=
- "#getenv-fixes"><tt>getenv</tt></a> to work around
- implementation shown in Emscripten which overwrites the
- previous return value on each call.</p>
-
- <p>Use that to optionally suppress <tt>START_TRACE</tt>
- macro, whose call to <tt>getenv</tt> may not work
- properly</p>
+ <p>improve search-path check for <em>pkg-config</em>, e.g.,
+ for Debian testing which installs <em>pkg-config</em> with
+ architecture-prefixes.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>change target configure level for <tt>_XOPEN_SOURCE</tt>
- to 600 to address use of <tt>vsscanf</tt> and
- <tt>setenv</tt>.</p>
+ <p>build-fix for cross-compiling to MingW, conditionally add
+ <tt>-lssp</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>reduce use of <tt>_GNU_SOURCE</tt> for current glibc where
- <tt>_DEFAULT_SOURCE</tt> combines with
- <tt>_XOPEN_SOURCE</tt></p>
-
- <p>Allow for Cygwin's newlib when checking for the
- _DEFAULT_SOURCE symbol.</p>
-
- <p>MidnightBSD is now checked for the
- <tt>_XOPEN_SOURCE</tt>-related definitions.</p>
+ <p>improve configure check for <tt>getttynam</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>If the check for <tt>va_copy</tt> or <tt>__va_copy</tt>
- fails,</p>
+ <p>fixes to build with <em>dietlibc</em>:</p>
<ul>
- <li>configure now tries copying the pointers for
- <tt>va_list</tt>, or as an array.</li>
+ <li>add configure check for <tt>fpathconf</tt></li>
- <li>alternatively, it checks for
- <tt>__builtin_va_copy</tt>(), which could be used with AIX
- <tt>xlc</tt> in <em>c89</em> mode.</li>
+ <li>add configure check for math sine/cosine, needed in
+ test/tclock, and eliminate <tt>pow()</tt> from
+ test/hanoi</li>
+
+ <li>use <tt>wcsnlen</tt> as an alternative to
+ <tt>wmemchr</tt> if it is not found</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p>several changes to support a port to Ultrix 3.1:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>check if "b" binary feature of fopen works</li>
-
- <li>check for missing feature of locale.h</li>
-
- <li>add fallback for strstr() in test-programs</li>
-
- <li>add fallback for STDOUT_FILENO in test-programs</li>
- </ul>
+ <p>modify configure macro <tt>CF_BUILD_CC</tt> 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</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>The <em>test/configure</em> script (used for <a href=
- "/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html"><em>ncurses-examples</em></a>)
- is improved:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>work around non-ncurses termcap.h file, e.g., in
- Slackware.</li>
-
- <li>check for <a href=
- "/ncurses/man/curs_variables.3x.html#h3-TABSIZE"><tt>TABSIZE</tt></a>
- variable.</li>
-
- <li>checks for the X11/Intrinsic.h header, accommodate
- recent MacOS changes which largely emptied
- <tt>/usr/include</tt>.</li>
- </ul>
+ <p>modify configure/scripts to work around interference by
+ GNU grep 3.8</p>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>added dummy "check" rule in top-level and test-Makefile to
- simplify building test-packages for ArchLinux.</p>
+ <p>change <tt>man_db.renames</tt> to template, to handle
+ <em>ncurses*-config</em> script with the
+ <tt>--extra-suffix</tt> configure option.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>dropped library-dependency on psapi for MinGW port, since
- win_driver.c defines <tt>PSAPI_VERSION</tt> to 2, making it
- use <tt>GetProcessImageFileName</tt> from kernel32.dll</p>
+ <p>update <tt>CF_XOPEN_SOURCE</tt> macro, adding variants
+ “gnueabi" and “gnueabihf" to get
+ <tt>_DEFAULT_SOURCE</tt> special case, as well as adding GNU
+ libc suffixes for “abi64”, “abin32”,
+ “x32” to distinguish it from other libc
+ flavors.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>made build-fixes for configuration using --program-suffix
- with Ada95, noticed with MacOS but applicable to other
- platforms without libpanelw, etc.</p>
+ <p>work around <em>musl</em>'s nonstandard use of feature
+ test macros by adding a definition for
+ <tt>NCURSES_WIDECHAR</tt> to the generated “.pc”
+ and <em><tt>*-config</tt></em> files.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified ncurses/Makefile.in to fix a case where
- Debian/testing changes to the ld --as-needed configuration
- broke ncurses-examples test packages.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>used <tt>_WIN32</tt>/<tt>_WIN64</tt> in preference to
- <tt>__MINGW32__</tt>/<tt>__MINGW64__</tt> symbols to simplify
- building with Microsoft Visual C++, since the former are
- defined in both compiler configurations.</p>
+ <p>use “<tt>command -v</tt>” rather than
+ “<tt>type</tt>” in <tt>Ada95/gen/Makefile.in</tt>
+ to fix a portability issue.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 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.</p>
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> supports the features of
+ SVr4 curses including keyboard mapping, color, form drawing with
+ ACS characters, and automatic recognition of keypad and function
+ keys.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> provides these SVr4
- add-on libraries (not part of X/Open Curses):</p>
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> provides work-alike
+ replacements of SVr4 supplemental libraries based on curses, but
+ which were not specified by X/Open Curses:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>the panels library, supporting a stack of windows with
- backing store.</p>
+ <p>the panel library, supporting a stack of windows with
+ backing store</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the menus library, supporting a uniform but flexible
- interface for menu programming.</p>
+ <p>the menu library, supporting a uniform but flexible
+ interface for menu programming</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the form library, supporting data collection through
- on-screen forms.</p>
+ on-screen forms</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<ul>
<li>
<p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> supports
- user-defined capabilities which it can see, but which are
+ user-defined capabilities that it can see, but which are
hidden from SVr4 curses applications using the
<em>same</em> terminal database.</p>
</li>
<p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> utilities have
options to allow you to filter terminfo entries for use with
less capable <em>curses</em>/<em>terminfo</em> versions such
- as the HP/UX and AIX ports.</p>
+ as the HP-UX and AIX ports.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<li>
<p>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).</p>
+ implements all <em>BASE</em> level features, and most
+ <em>EXTENDED</em> 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).</p>
</li>
<li>
than one control sequence to map to a given key code.</p>
</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>Support for direct-color terminals, such as modern
+ xterm.</p>
+ </li>
+
<li>
<p>Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm.</p>
</li>
</li>
<li>
- <p>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 <code>#undef</code>.</p>
+ <p>The library meets the X/Open Curses requirement that every
+ function declared in a header file has a macro equivalent.
+ If the macro definition is disabled with <code>#undef</code>,
+ the function may be linked (and its calls will be checked
+ against the prototype).</p>
</li>
<li>
<dd>
<p>a replacement for <code>ssh</code>.</p>
- <p><a href=
- "https://mosh.mit.edu/">https://mosh.mit.edu/</a></p>
+ <p><a href="https://mosh.org/">https://mosh.org/</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">tack</span>
<p>Ongoing development work is done by <a href=
"mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net">Thomas E. Dickey</a>. Thomas
E. Dickey has acted as the maintainer for the Free Software
- Foundation, which h
olds a <a href=
+ Foundation, which h
eld a <a href=
"@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses-license.html">copyright on ncurses</a> 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
"mailto:bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org">bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org</a>
</blockquote>
containing the line:
-
<blockquote>
<p><code>subscribe</code>
<em><name>@<host.domain></em></p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
- "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/current/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/current/</a>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/current/">https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/current/</a>
and<br>
<a href=
"https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/</a> .</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
- "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/6.1/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/6.1/</a>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/6.3/">https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/6.3/</a>
and<br>
<a href=
- "https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.1/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.1/</a> .</p>
+ "https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.3/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.3/</a> .</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is an archive of the mailing list here:</p>
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span> versus <span class=
"main-name">slang</span> (S-Lang)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses-openbsd.html">Comments on
+ <span class="main-name">OpenBSD</span></a></li>
+
<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/tack.html">tack – terminfo action
checker</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#h2-release-notes">Release Notes</a>
-
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#h3-library">Library improvements</a>
-
<ul>
<li><a href="#h4-new-library">New features</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#h3-programs">Program improvements</a>
-
<ul>
<li><a href="#h4-utilities">Utilities</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a>
-
<ul>
<li><a href="#h4-config-major">Major changes</a></li>
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff