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- <title>Announcing ncurses 6.0</title>
- <link rev="made" href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">
+ <title>Announcing ncurses 6.2</title>
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- <h1 class="no-header">Announcing ncurses 6.0</h1>
+ <h1 class="no-header">Announcing ncurses 6.2</h1>
<h2><a name="h2-overview" id="h2-overview">Overview</a></h2>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> (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
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> (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 is better known today
- as X/Open Curses.</p>
+ enhancements over BSD curses. SVr4 curses became the basis of
+ X/Open Curses.</p>
<p>In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared
that he considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the
- keepers of <em class="small-caps">unix</em> releases such as
- BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em>.</p>
+ keepers of <span class="main-name">unix</span> releases such as
+ BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span>.</p>
- <p>Since 1995, <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> has been
+ <p>Since 1995, <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> has been
ported to many systems:</p>
<ul>
(aside from some embedded applications).</li>
<li>It is used as the system curses library on OpenBSD, FreeBSD
- and OSX.</li>
+ and MacOS.</li>
<li>It is used in environments such as Cygwin and MinGW. The
first of these was EMX on OS/2 Warp.</li>
<li>It is used (though usually not as the <em>system</em>
- curses) on all of the vendor <em class="small-caps">unix</em>
- systems, e.g., AIX, HP-UX, IRIX64, SCO, Solaris, Tru64.</li>
+ curses) on all of the vendor <span class=
+ "main-name">unix</span> systems, e.g., AIX, HP-UX, IRIX64, SCO,
+ Solaris, Tru64.</li>
<li>It should work readily on any ANSI/POSIX-conforming
- <em class="small-caps">unix</em>.</li>
+ <span class="main-name">unix</span>.</li>
</ul>
<p>The distribution includes the library and support utilities,
<ul>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo</a>,
- a termcap conversion tool</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ captoinfo</span></a>, a termcap conversion tool</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html">clear</a>,
- utility for clearing the screen</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html"><span class="part-name">
+ clear</span></a>, utility for clearing the screen</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/infocmp.1m.html">infocmp</a>,
- the terminfo decompiler</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/infocmp.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ infocmp</span></a>, the terminfo decompiler</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tabs.1.html">tabs</a>,
- set tabs on a terminal</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tabs.1.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tabs</span></a>, set tabs on a terminal</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html">tic</a>,
- the terminfo compiler</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tic</span></a>, the terminfo compiler</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html">toe</a>,
- list (table of) terminfo entries</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ toe</span></a>, list (table of) terminfo entries</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html">tput</a>,
- utility for retrieving terminal capabilities in shell
- scripts</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tput</span></a>, utility for retrieving terminal capabilities
+ in shell scripts</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html">tset</a>,
- to initialize the terminal</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tset</span></a>, to initialize the terminal</li>
</ul>
<p>Full manual pages are provided for the library and tools.</p>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> distribution is
- available via anonymous FTP at the GNU distribution site</p>
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> distribution is
+ available at <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>' <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">homepage</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
- "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/</a> .</p>
- </blockquote>It is also available at
+ "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/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>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
- "ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a> .</p>
+ "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">ftp://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 <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>
- 6.0, released <strong>August 8, 2015</strong>.</p>
+ <p>These notes are for <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
+ 6.2, released <strong>February 12, 2020</strong>.</p>
<p>This release is designed to be source-compatible with
- <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> 5.0 through 5.9; providing a
- new application binary interface (ABI). Although the source can
- still be configured to support the <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> 5 ABI, the intent of the release is to
- provide extensions which are generally useful, but
- binary-incompatible with <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>
- 5:</p>
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 5.0 through 6.1; 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
+ to reflect improvements to the <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> 6 ABI and the supporting utility
+ programs.</p>
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>Extend the <code>cchar_t</code> structure to allow more
- than 16 colors to be encoded.</p>
- </li>
+ <p>There are, of course, numerous other improvements, listed in
+ this announcement.</p>
- <li>
- <p>Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th
- mouse button. That allows one to use <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> with a wheel mouse with xterm or
- similar X terminal emulators.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
+ <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>
- <p>There are, of course, numerous other improvements,
- including</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>fixes made based on the Clang and Coverity static
- analyzers.</p>
- </li>
+ <h3><a name="h3-library" id="h3-library">Library improvements</a></h3>
- <li>
- <p>memory leak fixes using Valgrind</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
+ <h4><a name="h4-new-library" id="h4-new-library">New features</a></h4>
- <p>The release notes mention some bug-fixes, but are focused on
- new features and improvements to existing features log since
- <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> 5.9 release.</p>
-
- <p>While the intent of the release is to provide a new stable
- ABI, there are other development activities which are summarized
- below.</p>
+ <p>There are several new features:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>The original release plan, e.g., for "5.10" was to improve
- the MinGW port. Ultimately that was completed (wide-character
- support, mouse, etc), but was deferred to focus on termcap
- support and performance issues. Also, pinpointing the
- problems with <code>Console2</code> took a while.</p>
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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 review of termcap compatibility in 2011 led to several
- minor fixes in the library and improvements to utilities. To
- do this properly, a review of the various extent termcap
- implementations was needed.</p>
-
- <p>The <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html">termcap
- library checker (tctest)</a> (not part of <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em>) was one result. A followup review
- of performance using <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>
- in 2014 led to additional improvements.</p>
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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>Output buffering provided a further, but worthwhile
- distraction. A bug report in 2012 regarding the use of signal
- handlers in <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>) pointed out
- <a href=
- "http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses/2012-07/msg00029.html">
- a problem</a> with the use of unsafe functions for handling
- <code>SIGTSTP</code>. Other signals could be addressed with
- workarounds; repairing <code>SIGTSTP</code> required a
- different approach. The solution required changing internal
- behavior of the library: how it handles output buffering.</p>
-
- <p>Now <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> buffers its own
- output, independently of the standard output. A few
- applications relied upon the library's direct reuse of the
- standard output buffering; however that is
- <em>unspecified</em> behavior and has never been a
- recommended practice. Identifying these applications as well
- as refining the change to permit low-level applications to
- work consistently took time.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>Since the introduction of the experimental support for 256
- colors early in <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20050101">2005</a>
- (released in <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/announce-5.5.html">ncurses
- 5.5</a>), there has been increased user interest. Almost all
- packagers continue providing the ncurses ABI 5 which cannot
- support 256 colors.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>Symbol versioning, or the lack of it in ncurses, is the
- main reason why packagers would be reluctant to add a new
- ncurses ABI.</p>
-
- <p>This release provides the new ABI along with
- script-generated lists of versioned symbols which can be used
- for both ABI 5 and 6 (with distinct names to keep the two
- separate). This took time to development, as reported in
- <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html">Symbol
- versioning in <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em></a>.</p>
+ <p>added <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_memleaks.3x.html">
+ exit_curses</a> and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_memleaks.3x.html">
+ exit_terminfo</a> to replace internal symbols for
+ leak-checking.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <h3><a name="h3-library" id="h3-library">Library
- improvements</a></h3>
-
- <h3><a name="h3-lib-setbuf" id="h3-lib-setbuf">Output
- buffering</a></h3>
-
- <p>X/Open curses provides more than one initialization
- function:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-initscr">
- initscr</a> (the simplest) accepts no parameters.</li>
-
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-newterm">
- newterm</a> accepts parameters for the stream input and
- output</li>
-
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Initialization">
- setupterm</a> (the low-level function) accepts a parameter for
- the <em>file descriptor</em> of the output.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>added <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_trace.3x.html#h3-Functions">
+ curses_trace</a>, to replace trace().</p>
+ </li>
</ul>
- <p>They are documented in X/Open <em>as if</em>
- <code>initscr</code> calls <code>newterm</code> using
- <code>stdout</code> for output stream, and in turn
- <code>newterm</code> calls <code>setupterm</code> using
- <code>fileno(stdout)</code> for the file descriptor. As long as
- an implementation acts <em>as if</em> it does this, it conforms.
- In practice, implementations do what is implied. This creates a
- problem: the low-level <code>setupterm</code> function's file
- descriptor is unbuffered, while <code>newterm</code> implies
- buffered output. X/Open Curses says that all output is done
- through the file descriptor, and does not say how the output
- stream is actually used.</p>
-
- <p>Initially, <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> used the file
- descriptor (obtained from the output stream passed to
- <code>newterm</code>) for changing the terminal modes, and relied
- upon the output parameter of <code>newterm</code> for buffered
- output. Later (to avoid using unsafe buffered I/O in signal
- handlers), <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> was modified to
- use the file descriptor (unbuffered output) when cleaning up on
- receipt of a signal. Otherwise (when not handling a signal), it
- continued to use the buffered output.</p>
-
- <p>That approach worked reasonably well and as a side effect,
- using the same buffered output as an application might use for
- <code>printf</code> meant that no flushing was needed when
- switching between normal- and screen-modes.</p>
-
- <p>There were a couple of problems:</p>
+ <p>Additionally, to improve performance other changes (and
+ extensions) are provided in this release:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>to get good performance, curses (not only <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em>, but SVr4 curses in general) set an
- output buffer using <code>setbuf</code> or similar function.
- There is no standard (or portable) way to turn that output
- buffer off, and revert to line-buffering. The <code><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-NCURSES_NO_SETBUF">
- NCURSES_NO_SETBUF</a></code> environment variable did make it
- optional.</p>
+ <p>mouse decoding now handles shift/control/alt logic when
+ decoding xterm's 1006 mode</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>to handle <code>SIGTSTP</code> (the “stop”
- signal), <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> relied upon
- unsafe functions. That is, due to the complexity of the
- feature, it relied upon reusing existing functions which
- should not have been called via the signal handler.</p>
+ <p>ncurses now defines a limit for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_getstr.3x.html">
+ wgetnstr</a>, <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_get_wstr.3x.html">
+ wgetn_wstr</a> when length is negative or “too
+ large”.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
-
- <p>Conveniently, solving the second problem (by making <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> do its <em>own</em> output buffering)
- also fixed the first one. But there were special cases to
- resolve: <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html"><em>
- low-level</em></a> functions such as mvcur, putp, vidattr
- explicitly use the standard output. Those functions were reused
- internally, and required modification to distinguish whether they
- were used by the high-level or low-level interfaces.</p>
-
- <p>Finally, there may still be a few programs which should be
- modified to improve their portability, e.g., adding an</p>
- <blockquote>
- <pre class="code-block">
-fflush(stdout);
-</pre>
- </blockquote>
-
- <p>when switching from “<a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_kernel.3x.html#h3-reset_prog_mode_-reset_shell_mode">shell</a>”
- mode to “<a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_kernel.3x.html#h3-reset_prog_mode_-reset_shell_mode">program</a>”
- (curses) mode. Those are fairly rare because most programmers
- have learned not to mix <code>printf</code> and <code><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_printw.3x.html">printw</a></code>.</p>
-
- <h3><a name="h3-lib-versioning" id="h3-lib-versioning">Symbol
- versioning</a></h3>
-
- <p>This release introduces symbol-versioning to <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> because without it, the change of ABI
- would be less successful. A lengthy discussion will be presented
- in <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html">Symbol
- versioning in <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em></a>. These
- notes summarize what has changed, and what can be done with the
- new release.</p>
-
- <p>Symbol-versioning allows the developers of a library to mark
- each public symbol (both data and functions) with an identifier
- denoting the library name and the version for which it was built.
- By doing this, users of the library have a way to help ensure
- that applications do not accidentally load an incompatible
- library. In addition, private symbols can be hidden entirely.</p>
-
- <p>This release provides sample files for the four principal
- configurations of <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> libraries:
- <code>ncurses</code>, <code>ncursesw</code>,
- <code>ncursest</code> and <code>ncursestw</code>. Each sample is
- given in two forms:</p>
-
- <blockquote>
- <dl>
- <dt>“<code>.map</code>”</dt>
-
- <dd>These list all public symbols, together with version
- names.</dd>
-
- <dt>“<code>.sym</code>”</dt>
-
- <dd>These list all public symbols, without version
- names.</dd>
- </dl>
- </blockquote>
-
- <p>The sample files are <em>generated</em> by scripts which take
- into account a few special cases such as <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">tack</a> to omit
- many of the <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> private symbols
- (beginning with “<code>_nc_</code>”). Here are
- counts of globals versus locals:</p>
-
- <blockquote>
- <table border="1" summary="Total global and local symbols">
- <tr>
- <th>Config</th>
-
- <th>Symbols</th>
-
- <th>Globals</th>
-
- <th>Locals</th>
-
- <th>"_nc_"</th>
- </tr>
-
- <tr>
- <td>ncurses</td>
-
- <td align="right">976</td>
+ <li>reordered loop-limit checks in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_insstr.3x.html">winsnstr</a>
+ in case the string has no terminating null and only the number
+ of characters is used.</li>
- <td align="right">796</td>
-
- <td align="right">180</td>
-
- <td align="right">332</td>
- </tr>
-
- <tr>
- <td>ncursesw</td>
-
- <td align="right">1089</td>
-
- <td align="right">905</td>
-
- <td align="right">184</td>
-
- <td align="right">343</td>
- </tr>
-
- <tr>
- <td>ncursest</td>
-
- <td align="right">979</td>
-
- <td align="right">804</td>
-
- <td align="right">175</td>
-
- <td align="right">358</td>
- </tr>
-
- <tr>
- <td>ncursestw</td>
-
- <td align="right">1098</td>
-
- <td align="right">914</td>
-
- <td align="right">184</td>
-
- <td align="right">372</td>
- </tr>
- </table>
- </blockquote>
-
- <p>Although only four sample configurations are presented, each
- is formed by merging symbols from several combinations of
- configure-script options, taking into account advice from
- downstream packagers. Because they are formed by merging, the
- sample files may list a symbol which is not in a given package.
- That is expected. The samples have been tested and are working
- with systems (such as Fedora, FreeBSD and Debian) which fully
- support this feature. There are other systems which do
- <em>not</em> support the feature, and a few (such as Solaris)
- which provide incomplete support.</p>
-
- <p>The version-naming convention used allows these sample files
- to build distinct libraries for ABI 5 and 6. Version names
- consist of</p>
-
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>configuration name, e.g.,
- “<code>NCURSESW</code>” for the wide-character
- libraries</p>
+ <p>there is now no buffer-size limit when reading the
+ <a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERMCAP">
+ <tt>$TERMCAP</tt></a> variable.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>ABI version (if not 5)</p>
+ <p>the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERMCAP">
+ <tt>$TERMCAP</tt></a> variable may be interpreted as a
+ fallback to a terminfo entry</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>library name for two special cases which have the same
- interface across configurations:
- “<code>TINFO</code>” and
- “<code>TIC</code>”</p>
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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>release version</p>
+ <p>extended colors are improved by modifying an internal call
+ to <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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>patch date (for the release version)</p>
+ <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>
- </ul>
- <p>For example, running <code>nm -D</code> on the libraries in
- the ncurses6 test package shows these symbol-versions:</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>scrolling is improved:</p>
- <blockquote>
- <pre class="code-block">
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TIC_5.0.19991023
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TIC_5.1.20000708
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TIC_5.5.20051010
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TIC_5.7.20081102
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TIC_5.9.20150530
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.0.19991023
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.1.20000708
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.2.20001021
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.3.20021019
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.4.20040208
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.5.20051010
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.6.20061217
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.7.20081102
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.8.20110226
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.9.20150530
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.1.20000708
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.3.20021019
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.4.20040208
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.5.20051010
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.6.20061217
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.7.20081102
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.8.20110226
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.9.20150530
-</pre>
- </blockquote>
+ <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>
- <p>As a special case, this release (which makes the final change
- for ABI 5) is marked with release version 5.9 and patch date
- 20150530.</p>
+ <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>
- <h3><a name="h3-lib-other" id=
- "h3-lib-other">Miscellaneous</a></h3>
+ <h4><a name="h4-fixes-library" id="h4-fixes-library">Other
+ improvements</a></h4>
- <p>The new release has several improvements for performance and
- building. For instance:</p>
+ <p>These are revised features:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>several files in ncurses- and progs-directories were
- modified to allow <code>const</code> data used in internal
- tables to be put by the linker into the readonly text
- segment.</p>
+ <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=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-keyname_key_name">
+ keyname</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>various improvements were made to building the Ada95
- binding, both in simplifying the generated files as well as
- improving the way it uses <code>gnatmake</code></p>
+ <p>modified <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_bkgd.3x.html#h3-bkgd">
+ <tt>wbkgd</tt></a> and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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>
- </ul>
-
- <p>There are also new features in the libraries:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>added <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-use_tioctl">
- use_tioctl</a> function</li>
<li>
- <p>added <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_opaque.3x.html">
- wgetdelay</a> to retrieve _delay member of WINDOW if it
- happens to be opaque, e.g., in the pthread configuration.</p>
+ <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=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/term.5.html#h3-EXTENDED-STORAGE-FORMAT">
+ term(5)</a>).</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
- A_ITALIC</a> extension.</p>
+ <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>added form library extension <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_field_opts.3x.html">
- O_DYNAMIC_JUSTIFY</a> option which can be used to override
- the different treatment of justification for static versus
- dynamic fields .</p>
+ <p>deprecated <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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>rewrote <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-putwin_getwin">
- putwin</a> and <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-putwin_getwin">
- getwin</a>, making an extended version which is capable of
- reading screen-dumps between the wide/normal <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> configurations. These are text
- files, except for a <em>magic</em> code at the beginning:</p>
-
- <blockquote>
- <pre class="code-block">
-0 string \210\210 Screen-dump (ncurses)
-</pre>
- </blockquote>
+ <p>marked <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_printw.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
+ <tt>vwprintw</tt></a> and <tt>vwscanw</tt> as deprecated;
+ recommend using <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_printw.3x.html">
+ <tt>vw_printw</tt></a> and <tt>vw_scanw</tt>,
+ respectively.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>several changes to mouse support include:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>added decoder for xterm SGR 1006 mouse mode.</li>
-
- <li>added experimental support for
- “<code>%u</code>” format to terminfo.</li>
+ <p>added deprecation warnings for internal functions called
+ by older versions of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">tack</a>.</p>
+ </li>
- <li>improved behavior of wheel-mice for xterm protocol:
- noting that there are only button-presses for buttons
- “4” and “5”, so there is no need to
- wait to combine events into double-clicks .</li>
- </ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>removed unused <tt>_nc_import_termtype2</tt> function.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>There are a few new configure options dealing with library
- customization:</p>
+ <p>These are improvements to existing features:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>add “<code>--enable-ext-putwin</code>”
- configure option to turn on the extended putwin/getwin. By
- default, this is enabled for ABI 6 and disabled with ABI
- 5.</p>
+ <p>check parameter of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_threads.3x.html">
+ set_escdelay</a>, return ERR if negative.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>add “<code>--enable-string-hacks</code>”
- option to control whether strlcat and strlcpy may be used.
- Because <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> already does the
- requisite buffer-limit checks, this feature is mainly of
- interest to quiet compiler-warnings on a few systems.</p>
+ <p>check parameter of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_threads.3x.html">
+ set_tabsize</a>, return ERR if not greater than zero</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>add configure option
- “<code>--with-tparm-arg</code>” to allow <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Formatting-Output">
- tparm</a>'s parameters to be something more likely to be the
- same size as a pointer, e.g., <code>intptr_t</code> (again,
- the default is set for ABI 6).</p>
+ <p>correct a status-check in _nc_read_tic_entry() so that if
+ reading a hex/b64 <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERMINFO">
+ <tt>$TERMINFO</tt></a>, and the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERM">
+ <tt>$TERM</tt></a> does not match, fall-through to the
+ compiled-in search list.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <h3><a name="h3-programs" id="h3-programs">Program
- improvements</a></h3>
+ <li>
+ <p>amend check for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Predefined-Capabilities">
+ <tt>repeat_char</tt></a> to handle a case where setlocale()
+ was called after <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html">
+ <tt>initscr</tt></a></p>
+ </li>
- <h4><a name="h4-utilities" id="h4-utilities">Utilities</a></h4>
-
- <p>Most of the termcap-related changes based on development of
- <a href="http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html">tctest
- (termcap library checker)</a> are implemented in the tic and
- infocmp programs rather than affecting the library. As noted in
- the <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html#my-better-translation">
- discussion</a> of <code>tctest</code>, <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em>'s ability to translate between terminfo
- and termcap formats has been improved at different times, but
- subject to feedback from "real" termcap users. There are very few
- of those. Nowadays, virtually all <em>termcap</em> users are
- using <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> (or NetBSD, with its
- own terminfo library) and their programs are actually using
- terminfo rather than termcap data.</p>
-
- <p>Still, there are a few. A comment about the translation of the
- ASCII <code>NUL</code> character prompted a review:</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>move macro for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_touch.3x.html">
+ <tt>is_linetouched</tt></a> inside
+ <strong><tt>NCURSES_NOMACROS</tt></strong>
+ <em><tt>ifndef</tt></em>.</p>
+ </li>
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>Both terminfo and termcap store string capabilities as
- <code>NUL</code>-terminated strings.</p>
+ <p>use <tt>_nc_copy_termtype2</tt> rather than direct
+ assignment in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Initialization">
+ setupterm</a>, in case it is called repeatedly using fallback
+ terminfo descriptions</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>In terminfo, a <code>\0</code> in a terminal description
- is stored as <code>\200</code>.</p>
+ <p>improve workaround for Solaris wcwidth versus line-drawing
+ characters</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>There are no (known) terminals which would behave
- differently when sent <code>\0</code> or
- <code>\200</code>.</p>
+ <p>add checks in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/resizeterm.3x.html">
+ <tt>repair_subwindows</tt></a> to keep the current position
+ and scroll-margins inside the resized subwindow.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>When translating to terminfo format (or displaying a
- printable version of an entry using infocmp), <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> shows <code>\200</code> as
- <code>\0</code>.</p>
+ <p>correct a buffer-limit in <tt>write_entry.c</tt> for
+ systems that use caseless filenames.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>It has done this since 1998 (quoting from the NEWS
- file):</p>
+ <p>improved build-time utility <em>report_offsets</em>:</p>
- <blockquote>
- <pre class="code-block">
-<a href=
-"http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t980103">980103</a>
-...
- + modify _nc_tic_expand() to generate \0 rather than \200.
-...
- + correct translation of terminfo "^@", to \200, like \0.
-</pre>
- </blockquote>
+ <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>However, the <code>_nc_tic_expand</code> function (which
- optionally produces terminfo or termcap format) did not
- address this special case for termcap. Even the later 4.4BSD
- <a href=
- "https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/lib/libc/gen/getcap.c?revision=244092&view=markup#l784">
- cgetstr</a> interprets a <code>\0</code> literally, ending
- <em>that</em> string (rather than using the terminfo
- improvement).</p>
+ <p>modified some header files to ensure that those include
+ necessary files except for the previously-documented
+ cases</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <p>As a result of the review, several improvements were made to
- <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> translation to/from termcap
- format — and improving the checks made in tic for
- consistency of entries. Most of these are not of general
- interest, except for two new command-line options for tic and
- infocmp:</p>
-
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>the “<code>-0</code>” option generates
- termcap/terminfo source on a single line.</p>
+ <p>added some traces in initialization to show whether a
+ fallback entry is used.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the “<code>-K</code>” option provides stricter
- BSD-compatibility for termcap output.</p>
+ <p>made minor optimization to reduce calls to
+ _nc_reserve_pairs</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>Other user-visible improvements and new features include:</p>
+ <p>These are corrections to existing features:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>added “<code>-D</code>” option to tic and
- infocmp, to show the database locations that it could
- use.</p>
+ <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>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added “<code>-s</code>” option to toe, to sort
- its output.</p>
+ <p>corrected flag for "seq" method of db 1.8.5 interface,
+ needed by toe on some of the BSDs.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>extended “<code>-c</code>” and
- “<code>-n</code>” options of infocmp to allow
- comparing more than two entries.</p>
+ <p>modify comparison in make_hash.c to correct a special case
+ in collision handling for Caps-hpux11</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified toe's report when “<code>-a</code>”
- and “<code>-s</code>” options are combined, to
- add a column showing which entries belong to a given
- database.</p>
+ <p>add extended_slk_color{,_sp} symbols to the appropriate
+ package/*.{map,sym} files</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified the clear program to take into account the
- “<code>E3</code>” extended capability to clear
- the terminal's scrollback buffer.</p>
+ <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>
</li>
</ul>
- <h4><a name="h4-examples" id="h4-examples">Examples</a></h4>
+ <h3><a name="h3-programs" id="h3-programs">Program
+ improvements</a></h3>
- <p>Along with the library and utilities, many improvements were
- made to the <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>.
- Some were made to allow building (and comparison-testing) against
- NetBSD curses and PDCurses. Both lack some of the X/Open Curses
- features, necessitating customization. But this activity was
- useful because it showed some remaining performance issues (which
- have been resolved in this release).</p>
+ <p id="h4-utilities">Several improvements were made to the
+ utility programs:</p>
- <p>These changes were made to verify compatibility or compare
- performance of <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>:</p>
+ <dl>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">clear</span>
+ </dt>
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>made workarounds for compiling test-programs with NetBSD
- curses, though it lacks some common functions such as
- <a href="http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-use_env">
- use_env</a>.</p>
- </li>
+ <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>
- <li>
- <p>added dots_termcap test-program</p>
- </li>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">infocmp</span>
+ </dt>
- <li>
- <p>added dots_curses test-program, for comparison with the
- low-level examples.</p>
- </li>
+ <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>
- <li>
- <p>added test_setupterm test-proram to demonstrate
- normal/error returns from the setupterm and restartterm
- functions.</p>
- </li>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">tic</span>
+ </dt>
- <li>
- <p>added “<code>-d</code>”,
- “<code>-e</code>” and
- “<code>-q</code>” options to the demo_terminfo
- and demo_termcap test-programs.</p>
- </li>
+ <dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>added check for consistent alternate character set
+ capabilities.</li>
- <li>
- <p>added “<code>-y</code>” option to demo_termcap
- and test/demo_terminfo test-programs to demonstrate behavior
- with/without extended capabilities.</p>
- </li>
+ <li>added check for paired <tt>indn</tt>/<tt>rin</tt>.</li>
- <li>
- <p>modified demo_termcap and demo_terminfo test-programs to
- make their options more directly comparable, and add
- “<code>-i</code>” option to specify a terminal
- description filename to parse for names to lookup.</p>
- </li>
+ <li>added check for terminals with <tt>parm_dch</tt> vs
+ <tt>parm_ich</tt>.</li>
- <li>
- <p>rewrote the tests for <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_window.3x.html#h3-derwin">
- mvderwin</a> and test for recursive <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_window.3x.html#h3-mvwin">
- mvwin</a> in the movewindow test-program.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
+ <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>
- <p>These changes were made to help with the MinGW port:</p>
+ <li>corrected check for <tt>ich1</tt>.</li>
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>added test-screens to the ncurses test-program to show
- 256-characters at a time, to help with MinGW port.</p>
- </li>
+ <li>changed a too-large terminal entry from a fatal error
+ to a warning.</li>
+ </ul>
+ </dd>
- <li>
- <p>modified the view test-program to load UTF-8 when built
- with MinGW by using regular win32 API because the MinGW
- functions mblen and mbtowc do not work.</p>
- </li>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">toe</span>
+ </dt>
- <li>
- <p>added “<code>-s</code>” option to the view
- test-program to allow it to start in single-step mode,
- reducing size of trace files when it is used for debugging
- MinGW changes.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
+ <dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>ignores any hex/b64 <tt>$TERMINFO</tt> value in the
+ list of terminfo databases.</li>
+ </ul>
+ </dd>
- <p>These changes were made to verify new extensions in <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em>:</p>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">tset</span>
+ </dt>
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>added <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_driver.3x.html#h3-form_driver_w">
- form_driver_w</a> entrypoint to wide-character forms library,
- as well as form_driver_w test-program.</p>
- </li>
+ <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>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">tput</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>
+ </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>
+
+ <ul>
<li>
- <p>modified ncurses test-program's b/B tests to display lines
- only for the attributes which a given terminal supports, to
- make room for an italics test.</p>
+ <p>modified the ncurse*-config and pc-files to more closely
+ match for the <tt>-I</tt> and <tt>-l</tt> options.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified ncurses test-program, adding
- “<code>-E</code>” and
- “<code>-T</code>” options to demonstrate use_env
- versus use_tioctl.</p>
+ <p>filtered out linker-specs from the <tt>--libs</tt>
+ report.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified ncurses test-program's c/C tests to cycle through
- subsets of the total number of colors, to better illustrate
- 8/16/88/256-colors by providing directly comparable
- screens.</p>
+ <p>amended the ncurses*-config and pc-files to take into
+ account the rpath hack which differed between those
+ files.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified the ncurses test-program to also show position
- reports in 'a' test.</p>
+ <p>modified generated ncurses*config and ncurses.pc,
+ ncursesw.pc, etc., to list helper libraries such as gpm for
+ static linking.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>These changes were made to make the examples more useful:</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=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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>added scripts for building dpkg and rpm test-packages</p>
+ <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>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified the hanoi test-program to show the minimum number
- of moves possible for the given number of tiles.</p>
+ <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>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified the knight test-program to show the number of
- choices possible for each position in automove option, e.g.,
- to allow user to follow Warnsdorff's rule to solve the
- puzzle.</p>
+ <p>modify <em>tracemunch</em> to accept filename parameters
+ in addition to use as a pipe/filter.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
-
- <h3><a name="h3-database" id="h3-database">Terminal
- database</a></h3>
- <p>This release provides improvements to tic's
- “<code>-c</code>” checking option, which was used for
- example to</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>update <em>tracemunch</em> to work with <em>perl
+ 5.26.2</em>, which changed the rules for escaping regular
+ expressions.</p>
+ </li>
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>make <code>sgr</code> in several entries agree with other
- caps.</p>
+ <p>add some checks in <em>tracemunch</em> for undefined
+ variables.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>correct padding in some entries where earlier versions had
- miscounted the number of octal digits.</p>
+ <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>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>There are several new terminal descriptions:</p>
+ <p>There are other new demo/test programs and reusable
+ examples:</p>
- <ul>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_M_L_T_E_R_M">
- mlterm</a> is now aliased to mlterm3</li>
+ <dl>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">color_content</span>
+ </dt>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-nsterm">
- nsterm</a> is now derived from nsterm-256color</li>
+ <dd>Demonstrate the <tt>color_content</tt> and
+ <tt>extended_color_content</tt> functions.</dd>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-putty-sco">
- putty-sco</a></li>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">demo_tabs</span>
+ </dt>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-teken">
- teken</a> is FreeBSD's "xterm" console.</li>
+ <dd>A simple demo of tabs in curses.</dd>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_T_E_R_M_I_N_A_T_O_R">
- terminator</a></li>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">dump_window</span>
+ </dt>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_T_E_R_M_I_N_O_L_O_G_Y">
- terminology</a></li>
+ <dd>A portable curses screen-dump, used to compare ncurses
+ screen contents with Solaris.</dd>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-tmux">
- tmux</a> is derived from screen.</li>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">pair_content</span>
+ </dt>
- <li>several screen.XXX entries support the respective
- variations for 256 colors.</li>
+ <dd>Demonstrate the <tt>pair_content</tt> and
+ <tt>extended_pair_content</tt> functions.</dd>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_S_I_M_P_L_E_T_E_R_M">
- simpleterm</a> is now 0.5</li>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">report_hashing</span>
+ </dt>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vte">
- vte</a> is aliased to vte-2012</li>
+ <dd>Check hash-tables used for terminfo and termcap names.</dd>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt520ansi">
- vt520ansi</a></li>
- </ul>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">parse_rgb</span>
+ </dt>
- <p>A few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal
- capabilities):</p>
+ <dd>Sample implementation of the ncurses RGB extension from
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/user_caps.5.html">user_caps.5</a>,
+ used in <em>picsmap</em> and <em>savescreen</em> programs.</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>
<ul>
<li>
- <p><code>E3</code>, used in linux, putty and xterm-basic is
- tested in the <a href=
- "http://aerie.jexium-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html">clear</a>
- program to erase a terminal's scrollback.</p>
+ <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>
<li>
- <p><code>TS</code> is used in the <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_sl">
- xterm+sl</a> building block to help deprecate the misuse of
- <code>tsl</code> for xterm's title-string.</p>
+ <p>add “<tt>@</tt>” command to test/ncurses
+ F-test, to allow rapid jump to different character pages.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p><code>XT</code> is used in some terminfo entries to
- improve usefulness for other applications than screen, which
- would like to pretend that xterm's title is a
- status-line.</p>
+ <p>added enum, regex examples to test/demo_forms</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p><code>xm</code> is used in examples <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-1005">
- xterm-1005</a> and <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-1006">
- xterm-1006</a> to illustrate a way to make mouse handling
- more general</p>
+ <p>amend Scaled256() macro in test/picsmap.c to cover the
+ full range 0..1000</p>
</li>
- </ul>
-
- <p>A few terminals support italics and/or dim capabilities. In
- particular, screen does not. Documented that, and accommodated
- the terminals where this feature works with the
- <code>A_ITALIC</code> extension.</p>
- <ul>
- <li>konsole, mlterm3 (italics)</li>
-
- <li>nsterm (dim)</li>
-
- <li>screen (dim)</li>
-
- <li>vte (dim, italics)</li>
-
- <li>xterm (dim, italics)</li>
- </ul>
-
- <h3><a name="h3-documentation" id=
- "h3-documentation">Documentation</a></h3>
-
- <p>As usual, this release</p>
-
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>improves documentation by describing new features,</p>
+ <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>
<li>
- <p>attempts to improve the description of features which
- users have found confusing</p>
+ <p>ignore interrupted system-call in test/ncurses's
+ command-line, e.g., if the terminal were resized.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>fills in overlooked descriptions of features which were
- described in the <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html">NEWS</a> file
- but treated sketchily in manual pages.</p>
+ <p>improved ifdef's for <tt>TABSIZE</tt> variable, to help
+ with AIX/HPUX ports.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>In addition, the mechanism for producing HTML versions of the
- documentation has been improved:</p>
+ <h3><a name="h3-database" id="h3-database">Terminal database</a></h3>
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>use an improved version of <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/scripts/man2html.html">man2html</a>
- to generate html manpages.</p>
- </li>
+ <p>There are several new terminal descriptions:</p>
- <li>
- <p>regenerated <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html">
- NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html</a> to fix some of the broken
- html emitted by docbook.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
+ <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>
- <h3><a name="h3-bug-fixes" id="h3-bug-fixes">Interesting
- bug-fixes</a></h3>
+ <p>There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some
+ were updates to several descriptions:</p>
<ul>
- <li>
- <p>Ada95 binding:</p>
+ <li>use <a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ansi_rep"><tt>ansi+rep</tt></a>
+ in a dozen places</li>
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>modify makefile rules to ensure that the PIC option is
- not used when building a static library</p>
- </li>
+ <li>add rs1 to konsole, mlterm</li>
- <li>
- <p>make Ada95 build-fix for big-endian architectures such
- as sparc. This undoes one of the fixes from <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20110319">
- 20110319</a>, which added an
- “<code>Unused</code>” member to
- representation clauses, replacing that with pragmas to
- suppress warnings about unused bits.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
- </li>
+ <li>improve several flash capabilities with trailing mandatory
+ delays</li>
- <li>
- <p>Color and attributes:</p>
+ <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>
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>parenthesize parameter of <code>COLOR_PAIR</code> and
- <code>PAIR_NUMBER</code> in curses.h in case it happens
- to be a comma-expression.</p>
- </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>
- <p>improve <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20021221">
- 20021221</a> workaround for broken acs, handling a case
- where that ACS_<em>xxx</em> character is not in the
- <code>acsc</code> string but there is a known
- wide-character which can be used.</p>
- </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>
- <p>modify <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_color.3x.html#h3-Routine-Descriptions">
- init_pair</a> to accept -1's for color value after
- <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/default_colors.3x.html">
- assume_default_colors</a> has been called.</p>
- </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>
+ </ul>
- <li>
- <p>add a check in <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_color.3x.html#h3-Routine-Descriptions">
- start_color</a> to limit color-pairs to 256 when extended
- colors are not supported.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
- </li>
+ <p>while others affected specific descriptions. These were
+ retested, to take into account changes by their developers:</p>
- <li>
- <p>Resizing the screen:</p>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p><tt>terminator</tt>, <tt>st</tt></p>
+ </blockquote>
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>propagate error-returns from wresize, i.e., the
- internal increase_size and decrease_size functions
- through <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/resizeterm.3x.html">
- resize_term</a>.</p>
- </li>
+ <p>while these are specific fixes based on reviewing
+ documentation, user reports, or warnings from <span class=
+ "part-name">tic</span>:</p>
- <li>
- <p>add check for zero/negative dimensions for
- <code>resizeterm</code> and <code>resize_term</code>.</p>
- </li>
+ <dl>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-adds200">adds200</a>:</dt>
- <li>
- <p>modify <code>resizeterm</code> to always push a
- <code>KEY_RESIZE</code> onto the fifo, even if screensize
- is unchanged. Modify library to push a
- <code>KEY_RESIZE</code> if there was a SIGWINCH, even if
- it does not call <code>resizeterm</code>). These changes
- eliminate the case where a SIGWINCH is received, but ERR
- is returned from <code>wgetch</code> or
- <code>wgetnstr</code> because the screen dimensions did
- not change.</p>
- </li>
+ <dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>fix typo</li>
</ul>
- </li>
+ </dd>
- <li>
- <p>Low-level interfaces</p>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-gnome-256color">gnome-256color</a>
+ </dt>
+ <dd>
<ul>
- <li>
- <p>fix an old bug in the termcap emulation;
- “<code>%i</code>” was ignored in
- <code>tparm</code> because the parameters to be
- incremented were already on the internal stack.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>change “<code>%l</code>” behavior in tparm
- to push the string length onto the stack rather than
- saving the formatted length into the output buffer.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>modify name-comparison for tgetstr, etc., to
- accommodate legacy applications as well as to improve
- compatbility with BSD 4.2 termcap implementations (see
- note for <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t980725">980725</a>).</p>
- </li>
+ <li>base entry on "gnome", not "vte", for consistency</li>
</ul>
- </li>
+ </dd>
- <li>High-level interfaces
+ <dt><a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-interix">interix</a>
+ </dt>
+ <dd>
<ul>
- <li>
- <p>modify internal recursion in <code>wgetch</code> which
- handles cooked mode to check if the call to
- <code>wgetnstr</code> returned an error. This can happen
- when both <code>nocbreak</code> and <code>nodelay</code>
- are set, for instance (see note for <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t960418">960418</a>).</p>
- </li>
+ <li>trim unnecessary setf/setb</li>
+ </ul>
+ </dd>
- <li>
- <p>add a check in internal function
- <code>waddch_nosync</code> to ensure that tab characters
- are treated as control characters; some broken locales
- claim they are printable.</p>
- </li>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-linux-16color">linux-16color</a>
+ </dt>
- <li>
- <p>modify menu library to ensure that a menu's top-row is
- adjusted as needed to ensure that the current item is on
- the screen</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>fix special case where double-width character
- overwrites a single- width character in the first
- column.</p>
- </li>
+ <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>
- </li>
- </ul>
-
- <h3><a name="h3-config-config" id=
- "h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a></h3>
+ </dd>
- <h4><a name="h4-config-major" id="h4-config-major">Major
- changes</a></h4>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-nsterm-256color">nsterm-256color</a>:</dt>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> 6.0 configure script
- makes changes to the <em>default</em> value of several configure
- options, depending on the <code>--with-abi-version</code> option
- (i.e., whether its value is “5” or
- “6”):</p>
+ <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>
- <dl>
- <dt><code>--enable-const</code></dt>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-regent40">regent40</a>:</dt>
<dd>
- <p>Feature introduced in <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t970405">970405</a>
- supports the use of <code>const</code> where X/Open Curses
- should have, but did not. NetBSD curses does something
- similar with <code>const</code>.</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>renumber function-keys to match manual</li>
+ </ul>
</dd>
- <dt><code>--enable-ext-colors</code></dt>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-regent60">regent60</a>:</dt>
<dd>
- <p>Extends the <code>cchar_t</code> structure to allow more
- than 16 colors to be encoded. This applies only to the
- wide-character (<code>--enable-widec</code>)
- configuration.</p>
- </dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>add cd (clr_eos)</li>
- <dt><code>--enable-ext-mouse</code></dt>
+ <li>corrected acsc</li>
- <dd>
- <p>Modifies the encoding of mouse state to make room for a
- 5th mouse button. That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel
- mouse with xterm or similar X terminal emulators.</p>
+ <li>add shifted function-keys</li>
+ </ul>
</dd>
- <dt><code>--enable-ext-putwin</code></dt>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-tvi950">tvi950</a>:</dt>
<dd>
- <p>Modifies the file-format written by <code>putwin</code> to
- use printable text rather than binary files, allowing
- <code>getwin</code> to read screen dumps written by
- differently-configured ncurses libraries. The extended
- <code>getwin</code> can still read binary screen dumps from
- the <em>same</em> configuration of ncurses. This does not
- change the ABI (the binary interface seen by calling
- applications).</p>
- </dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>added function-key definitions to agree with Televideo
+ 950 manual</li>
- <dt><code>--enable-interop</code></dt>
+ <li>corrected acsc</li>
- <dd>
- <p>Modifies the <code>FIELDTYPE</code> structure used for the
- form library to make it more generic.</p>
+ <li>remove bogus kf0</li>
+
+ <li>add bel</li>
+ </ul>
</dd>
- <dt><code>--enable-lp64</code></dt>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-tvi955">tvi955</a>:</dt>
<dd>
- <p>Allows an application to define <code>_LP64</code> to
- declare <code>chtype</code> and <code>mmask_t</code> as
- simply “<code>unsigned</code>” rather than the
- configured types using the <code>--with-chtype</code> and
- <code>--with-mmask_t</code> options.</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>fix typo</li>
+ </ul>
</dd>
- <dt><code>--enable-sp-funcs</code></dt>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vi200">vi200</a>:</dt>
<dd>
- <p>Compile-in support for extended functions which accept a
- SCREEN pointer, reducing the need for juggling the global SP
- value with <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-set_term">
- set_term</a> and <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-delscreen">
- delscreen</a>.</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>add acsc string, including right/down-arrow</li>
+ </ul>
</dd>
- <dt><code>--with-chtype=uint32_t</code></dt>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-wy50">wy50</a>:</dt>
<dd>
- <p>Makes <code>chtype</code> explicitly a 32-bit unsigned
- value.</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>corrected acsc</li>
+ </ul>
</dd>
- <dt><code>--with-mmask_t=uint32_t</code></dt>
+ <dt><a href="/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-wy50">wy50</a> and
+ <a href="/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-wy60">wy60</a>:</dt>
<dd>
- <p>Makes <code>mmask_t</code> explicitly a 32-bit unsigned
- value.</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>add shifted function-keys as kF1 to kF16</li>
+ </ul>
</dd>
- <dt><code>--with-tparm-arg=intptr_t</code></dt>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_x11hilite">xterm+x11hilite</a>:</dt>
<dd>
- <p>X/Open Curses declares <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Formatting-Output">
- tparm</a> using <code>long</code> for each of the parameters
- aside from the formatting string, presuming that
- <code>long</code> and <code>char*</code> are the same size.
- This configure option uses <code>intptr_t</code> which
- provides a better guarantee of the sizes.</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>eliminate unused <em>p5</em> parameter.</li>
+ </ul>
</dd>
</dl>
- <p>The configure script no longer checks for antique compilers;
- <code>c89</code> is assumed as a minimum. There are a few
- features from later revisions which are used when available. The
- configure script makes checks to turn on useful warnings from
- clang, gcc and icc. You should be able to build <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> 6.0 with any of the current (or not so
- current) C compilers available in 2015.</p>
-
- <p>The configure script, by the way, makes changes which do not
- work with systems whose <code>/bin/sh</code> is non-POSIX. This
- mainly affects Solaris (the other vendor <em class=
- "small-caps">unix</em> systems have followed the POSIX guidelines
- for the past twenty years). If you must build on Solaris, its
- <a href=
- "http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/html/817-0552/fhkpy.html">xpg4</a>
- binaries suffice, e.g.,</p>
-
- <blockquote class="code-block">
- <!--{{atr2html-->
-
- <p style="font-family: monospace; font-size: 10pt;">
- <font color="#800000">#!/bin/sh</font><br>
- <font color="#008080">WHAT</font>=<strong><em><font color=
- "#800000">`</font></em></strong>hostname|sed -e <font color="#800080">'s/\..*//'</font><strong><em><font color="#800000">`</font></em></strong><br>
-
- <font color="#008080">OUT</font>=configure.out<br>
- <strong><font color=
- "#000080">cat</font></strong> >><font color=
- "#008080">$OUT</font> <font color=
- "#800080"><<EOF/</font><font color="#800080"><br>
- ** </font><strong><em><font color=
- "#800000">`</font></em></strong>date<strong><em><font color=
- "#800000">`</font></em></strong><font color="#800080"><br>
- ** node: </font><font color=
- "#008080">$WHAT</font><font color="#800080"><br>
- ** user: </font><strong><em><font color=
- "#800000">`</font></em></strong>id<strong><em><font color=
- "#800000">`</font></em></strong><font color="#800080"><br>
- ** conf: $*<br>
- EOF/</font><br>
- <br>
- <font color="#008080">SHELL</font>=/bin/sh<br>
- <strong><font color=
- "#000080">if</font></strong> <strong><font color=
- "#000080">test</font></strong> -f /usr/xpg4/bin/sh<br>
-
- <strong><font color="#000080">then</font></strong><br>
- <font color=
- "#008080">CONFIG_SHELL</font>=/usr/xpg4/bin/sh<br>
- <strong><font color="#000080">export</font></strong> CONFIG_SHELL<br>
-
- <font color=
- "#008080">SHELL</font>=<font color=
- "#008080">$CONFIG_SHELL</font><br>
- <strong><font color="#000080">fi</font></strong><br>
- <br>
- rm -f config.status config.cache<br>
- <font color="#008080">TOP</font>=<font color=
- "#008080">$HOME</font>/<font color="#008080">$WHAT</font><br>
- <font color=
- "#008080">$SHELL</font> ./configure --verbose \<br>
-
- --disable-echo \<br>
-
- --disable-overwrite \<br>
-
- --enable-warnings \<br>
-
- --with-warnings \<br>
-
- --prefix=<font color="#008080">$TOP</font> <font color="#008080">$*</font> <strong><font color="#008080">2</font></strong>>&<strong><font color="#008080">1</font></strong> | tee -a <font color="#008080">$OUT</font><br>
-
- <!--atr2html}}--></p>
- </blockquote>
-
- <p>Other major changes to the configure script include:</p>
+ <p>A few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal
+ capabilities):</p>
<ul>
- <li>
- <p>ABI 6 is now the default, intending that the existing ABI
- 5 should build as before using the
- “<code>--with-abi-version=5</code>” option.</p>
- </li>
+ <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>added <code>--with-extra-suffix</code> option to help with
- installing nonconflicting ncurses6 packages, e.g., avoiding
- header- and library-conflicts.</p>
+ <li>add <em><tt>Smol/Rmol</tt></em> user-defined capability to
+ <tt>tmux</tt> and <tt>vte-2018</tt></li>
- <p><strong>NOTE:</strong> as a side-effect, this renames</p>
+ <li>add <em><tt>Smulx</tt></em> user-defined capability to
+ <tt>tmux</tt>, <tt>vte-2018</tt></li>
+ </ul>
- <blockquote>
- <p><code>adacurses-config</code> to
- <code>adacurses5-config</code> and<br>
- <code>adacursesw-config</code> to
- <code>adacursesw5-config</code></p>
- </blockquote>
+ <h3><a name="h3-documentation" id=
+ "h3-documentation">Documentation</a></h3>
+
+ <p>As usual, this release</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>improves documentation by describing new features,</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the configure script looks for gnatgcc if the Ada95
- binding is built, in preference to the default gcc/cc. The
- script also ensures that the Ada95 binding is built with the
- level of optimization as the C libraries.</p>
+ <p>attempts to improve the description of features which
+ users have found confusing</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the configure script captures define's related to
- -D_XOPEN_SOURCE from the configure check and adds those to
- the *-config and *.pc files, to simplify use for the
- wide-character libraries.</p>
+ <p>fills in overlooked descriptions of features which were
+ described in the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html">NEWS</a>
+ file but treated sketchily in manual pages.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <h4><a name="h4-config-options" id=
- "h4-config-options">Configuration options</a></h4>
+ <p>In addition to providing background information to explain
+ these features and show how they evolved, there are corrections,
+ clarifications, etc.:</p>
- <p>There are several new (or extended) configure options:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>Corrections:</p>
- <dl>
- <dt><code>--disable-db-install</code></dt>
+ <ul>
+ <li>correct error-returns listed in manual pages for a few
+ form functions</li>
- <dd>
- <p>Do not install the terminal database. This is used to omit
- features for packages, as done with
- <code>--without-progs</code>. The option simplifies building
- cross-compile support packages.</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>corrected prototypes in several manpages using script
+ to extract those in compilable form.</li>
- <dt><code>--disable-gnat-projects</code></dt>
+ <li>fix typo in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/term.5.html#h3-EXTENDED-NUMBER-FORMAT">
+ term.5</a>, improve explanation of format</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
- <dd>
- <p>This option is used for regression testing</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>Clarify in manual pages that <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_printw.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
+ vwprintw</a> and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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>
- <dt><code>--disable-lib-suffixes</code></dt>
+ <li>
+ <p>New/improved history and portability sections:</p>
- <dd>
- <p>Suppress the “w”, “t” or
- “tw” suffixes which normally would be added to
- the library names for the <code>--enable-widec</code> and
- <code>--with-pthread</code> options.</p>
- </dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_addch.3x.html#h3-ACS-Symbols">
+ curs_addch.3x</a> gives some background for ACS
+ symbols.</li>
+
+ <li><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_getcchar.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
+ curs_getcchar.3x</a> explains a difference between ncurses
+ and X/Open Curses.</li>
+
+ <li><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tabs.1.html">tabs.1</a>
+ tells more than you wanted to know about the tool.</li>
+
+ <li><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html">toe.1</a>
+ explains the origin of this tool.</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
- <dt><code>--with-cxx-shared</code></dt>
+ <li>
+ <p>Improvements for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/user_caps.5.html">user_caps.5</a>:</p>
- <dd>
- <p>When <code>--with-shared</code> is set, build libncurses++
- as a shared library. This implicitly relies upon building
- with gcc/g++, since other compiler suites may have
- differences in the way shared libraries are built. libtool by
- the way has similar limitations.</p>
- </dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>mention <tt>meml</tt>, <tt>memu</tt> and
+ <tt>box1</tt></li>
- <dt><code>--with-hashed-db</code></dt>
+ <li>expanded description of <tt>XM</tt></li>
- <dd>
- <p>Extended this configure option to simplify building with
- different versions of Berkeley database using FreeBSD
- ports.</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>add a clarification regarding the <tt>RGB</tt>
+ capability.</li>
- <dt><code>--with-pc-suffix</code></dt>
+ <li>mention user_caps.5 in the tic and infocmp manual
+ pages.</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
- <dd>
- <p>If ".pc" files are installed, optionally add a suffix to
- the files and corresponding package names to separate unusual
- configurations. If no option value is given (or if it is
- "none"), no suffix is added. This option is used in the test
- package for ncurses6.</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>Other improvements:</p>
- <dt><code>--with-xterm-kbs</code></dt>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_color.3x.html#h2-RETURN-VALUE">
+ curs_color.3x</a> improves discussion of error returns and
+ extensions.</li>
+
+ <li><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_refresh.3x.html#h3-wnoutrefresh_doupdate">
+ curs_refresh.3x</a> improves documentation regarding the
+ virtual and physical screens.</li>
+
+ <li><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h2-ALTERNATE-CONFIGURATIONS">
+ ncurses.3x</a> improves documentation regarding
+ feature-test macros in curses.h</li>
+
+ <li><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/resizeterm.3x.html#h3-resize_term">
+ resizeterm.3x</a> about top-level windows which touch the
+ screen's borders.</li>
+
+ <li><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html#h3-Terminal-Size">
+ tput.1</a> clarifies how <em>tput</em> determines the
+ terminal size.</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
- <dd>
- <p>Configure xterm's terminfo entries to use either BS
- (<code>^H</code>, i.e., ASCII backspace) or DEL
- (<code>^?</code>, or 127).</p>
- </dd>
- </dl>
+ <p>There are no new manual pages (all of the manual page updates
+ are to existing pages).</p>
- <h3><a name="h3-portability" id=
- "h3-portability">Portability</a></h3>
+ <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>
- <h4><a name="h4-port-mingw" id="h4-port-mingw">MinGW</a></h4>
+ <h3><a name="h3-bug-fixes" id="h3-bug-fixes">Interesting
+ bug-fixes</a></h3>
- <p>Most of the portability-related work since <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/announce-5.9.html"><em class="small-caps">
- ncurses</em> 5.9</a> extended and improved the MinGW port
- introduced in <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/announce-5.8.html"><em class="small-caps">
- ncurses</em> 5.8</a>.</p>
+ <p>While there were many bugs fixed during development of ncurses
+ 6.2, 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 MinGW port can be readily cross-compiled:</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>
- <p>modified configure script to allow creating dll's for
- MinGW when cross-compiling.</p>
- </li>
+ <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>enforced Windows-style path-separator if
- cross-compiling,</p>
- </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>
- <li>
- <p>added scripts for test-builds of cross-compiled packages
- for ncurses6 to MinGW.</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>added pc-files to the MinGW cross-compiling
- test-packages.</p>
+ <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>added script for building test-packages of binaries
- cross-compiled to MinGW using NSIS.</p>
+ <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>added <code>nc_mingw.h</code> to installed headers for
- MinGW port; this is needed for cross-compiling <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>.</p>
+ <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>added test-packages for cross-compiling ncurses-examples
- using the MinGW test-packages.</p>
+ <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>
- <p>The MinGW-specific Windows driver accounts for several
- changes:</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=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>wide-character display is made usable by replacing MinGW's
- non-working <code>wcrtomb</code> and <code>wctomb</code>
- functions.</p>
+ <p>Was there a reliable way to manage terminal descriptions
+ which used the same extended name in different ways?</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>implemented some display features: <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_beep.3x.html">beep</a>,
- <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_beep.3x.html">flash</a>,
- <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_kernel.3x.html#h3-curs_set">
- curs_set</a>.</p>
+ <p>Should ncurses provide a registry of well-known extended
+ names, with their types?</p>
</li>
+ </ul>
- <li>
- <p>the driver handles repainting on endwin/refresh
- combination.</p>
- </li>
+ <p>Since the correction to <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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>
- <li>
- <p>modified treatment of <code>TERM</code> variable for MinGW
- port to allow explicit use of the Windows console driver by
- checking if <code>$TERM</code> is set to
- “<code>#win32console</code>” or an abbreviation
- of that.</p>
- </li>
+ <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>the Windows driver also matches the special
- <code>TERM</code> value “unknown”</p>
- </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>
- <li>
- <p>the driver now returns characters for special keys, (like
- <code>ansi.sys</code> does), when keypad mode is off, rather
- than returning nothing at all.</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>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the driver checks a new environment variable <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-NCURSES_CONSOLE2">
- NCURSES_CONSOLE2</a> to optionally work around a deficiency
- in <code>Console2</code> (and its descendent
- <code>ConsoleZ</code>) which hang when an application creates
- a console buffer.</p>
+ <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>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>Finally, there are other improvements:</p>
+ <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>
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>MinGW is one of the configurations where <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> installs by default into /usr</p>
- </li>
+ <h3><a name="h3-config-config" id=
+ "h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a></h3>
- <li>configuration for cross-compiling uses AC_CHECK_TOOLS in
- preference to AC_PATH_PROGS when searching for ncurses*-config,
- e.g., in Ada95/configure and test/configure.</li>
+ <h4><a name="h4-config-major" id="h4-config-major">Major
+ changes</a></h4>
- <li>
- <p>extend Windows support to work with MSYS2;</p>
+ <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,
+ improvements were made to configure checks.</p>
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>this works with a scenario where there is an
- ANSI-escape handler such as <code>ansicon</code> running
- in the console window.</p>
- </li>
+ <h4><a name="h4-config-options" id=
+ "h4-config-options">Configuration options</a></h4>
- <li>wrap <code>isatty</code> calls with a macro, provide a
- corresponding set of support routines to address
- differences between MinGW and MSYS2.</li>
- </ul>
- </li>
+ <p>There are a few new/modified configure options:</p>
- <li>
- <p>ensure <code>WINVER</code> is defined in makefiles rather
- than using headers.</p>
- </li>
+ <dl>
+ <dt><tt>--with-config-suffix</tt>
+ </dt>
- <li>
- <p>add check for the <code>gnatprep</code>
- “<code>-T</code>” option.</p>
- </li>
+ <dd>
+ <p>helps work around a filename conflict with Debian packages
+ versus test-packages.</p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><tt>--with-ada-libname</tt>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>allows one to rename the “AdaCurses” library
+ (at least one packager prefers a lowercase name).</p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><tt>--with-fallbacks</tt>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>now ensures there is a value, and adds the fallback
+ information to top-level Makefile summary.</p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><tt>--with-pcre2</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>
+ </dd>
+ </dl>
+
+ <h3><a name="h3-portability" id="h3-portability">Portability</a></h3>
+
+ <p>Many of the portability changes are implemented via the
+ configure script:</p>
+
+ <ul>
<li>
- <p>work around a bug introduced by <a href=
- "http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20877689/gcc-4-8-1-minggw-d-option-does-not-work-as-usual">
- gcc 4.8.1</a> in MinGW which breaks "trace" feature.</p>
+ <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>
</li>
<li>
- <p>add a driver-name method to each of the drivers.</p>
+ <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>
</li>
- </ul>
-
- <h4><a name="h4-port-systems" id="h4-port-systems">Other
- ports</a></h4>
- <p>These changes affect certain platforms (ports):</p>
-
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>the configure script knows how to build shared libraries
- with DragonFlyBSD and Interix.</p>
+ <p>consistently prepend new libraries as they are found
+ during configuration, rather than relying upon the linker to
+ resolve order dependencies of libraries.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>support for AIX shared libraries is improved, tested with
- AIX 5.3, 6.1 and 7.1 with both gcc 4.2.4 and cc:</p>
+ <p>modified configure scripts to reduce relinking/ranlib
+ during library install :</p>
<ul>
- <li>
- <p>the shared-library suffix for AIX 5 and 6 is now
- ".so"</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>the <code>-brtl</code> option is used with AIX 5-7; it
- is needed to link with the shared libraries.</p>
- </li>
+ <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>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the configure <code>--enable-pc-files</code> option takes
- into account the <a href=
- "http://linux.die.net/man/1/pkg-config"><code>PKG_CONFIG_PATH</code></a>
- variable.</p>
- </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>
- <li>
- <p>the configure option <code>--with-pkg-config-libdir</code>
- provides control over the actual directory into which
- pc-files are installed.</p>
+ <p>Use that to optionally suppress <tt>START_TRACE</tt>
+ macro, whose call to <tt>getenv</tt> may not work
+ properly</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the build scripts add explicit -ltinfo, etc., to the
- generated ".pc" file when <code>ld</code> option
- “<code>--as-needed</code>” is used, or when
- ncurses and tinfo are installed without using rpath.</p>
+ <p>change target configure level for <tt>_XOPEN_SOURCE</tt>
+ to 600 to address use of <tt>vsscanf</tt> and
+ <tt>setenv</tt>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the configure script disallows conflicting options
- “<code>--with-termlib</code>” and
- “<code>--enable-term-driver</code>”.</p>
+ <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>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the check for missing c++ compiler to work when no error
- is reported, and no variables set is improved (see note for
- <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20021206">20021206</a>).</p>
+ <p>If the check for <tt>va_copy</tt> or <tt>__va_copy</tt>
+ fails,</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>configure now tries copying the pointers for
+ <tt>va_list</tt>, or as an array.</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>
+ </ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the misc/gen_edit.sh script selects a "linux" entry which
- works with the current kernel rather than assuming it is
- always "linux3.0"</p>
+ <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>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the test/configure script makes it simpler to override
- names of curses-related libraries, to help with linking with
- pdcurses in MinGW environment.</p>
+ <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>
</li>
+ </ul>
+ <p>Here are some of the other portability fixes:</p>
+
+ <ul>
<li>
- <p>the configure-script/ifdef's allow the BSD OLD_TTY feature
- to be suppressed if the type of <code>ospeed</code> is
- configured using the option <code>--with-ospeed</code> to not
- be a <code>short</code>. By default, it is a
- <code>short</code> for termcap-compatibility.</p>
+ <p>added dummy "check" rule in top-level and test-Makefile to
+ simplify building test-packages for ArchLinux.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the MKlib_gen.sh script works around a recent change in
- gcc 5 (released <a href=
- "https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-5/">mid-2015</a>) which essentially
- emits multiple <code>#line</code> statements for the same
- position in a file.</p>
+ <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>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the configure script works with Minix3.2 (see <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/autoconf/portability-test.html">note</a>
- on portability)</p>
+ <p>made build-fixes for configuration using --program-suffix
+ with Ada95, noticed with MacOS but applicable to other
+ platforms without libpanelw, etc.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>OS/2 redux:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>the configure script supports OS/2 kLIBC.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>the <code>--with-lib-prefix</code> option allows
- configuring for old/new flavors of OS/2 EMX.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
+ <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>improved configure-script checks for
- <code>_XOPEN_SOURCE</code>:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>the definition works starting with Solaris 10.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>the definition is suppressed for IRIX64, since its
- header files have a conflict versus
- <code>_SGI_SOURCE</code>.</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
+ <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>
</li>
</ul>
+
<hr>
- <h2><a name="h2-features" id="h2-features">Features of <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em></a></h2>
+ <h2><a name="h2-features" id="h2-features">Features of
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a></h2>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> package is fully
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> package is fully
upward-compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:</p>
<ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p><em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> supports all of the
+ <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>
</li>
<li>
- <p><em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> provides these SVr4
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> provides these SVr4
add-on libraries (not part of X/Open Curses):</p>
<ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p><em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>'s terminal database is
- fully compatible with that used by SVr4 curses.</p>
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span>'s terminal database
+ is fully compatible with that used by SVr4 curses.</p>
<ul>
- <li><em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> supports
- user-defined capabilities which it can see, but which are
- hidden from SVr4 curses applications using the
- <em>same</em> terminal database.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> supports
+ user-defined capabilities which it can see, but which are
+ hidden from SVr4 curses applications using the
+ <em>same</em> terminal database.</p>
+ </li>
<li>
<p>It can be optionally configured to match the format
</li>
<li>
- <p>Alternatively, <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> can
- be configured to use hashed databases rather than the
+ <p>Alternatively, <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
+ can be configured to use hashed databases rather than the
directory of files used by SVr4 curses.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> utilities have
+ <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>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> package also has many
- useful extensions over SVr4:</p>
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> package also has
+ many useful extensions over SVr4:</p>
<ul>
<li>
</li>
<li>
- <p>Unlike SVr3 curses, <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>
+ <p>Unlike SVr3 curses, <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if
your terminal has an insert-character capability.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The functions <code>keyok</code> and
<code>define_key</code> allow you to better control the use
- of function keys, e.g., disabling the <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> KEY_MOUSE, or by defining more than
- one control sequence to map to a given key code.</p>
+ of function keys, e.g., disabling the <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> KEY_MOUSE, or by defining more
+ than one control sequence to map to a given key code.</p>
</li>
<li>
<li>
<p>The <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html">tic</a>/<a href="http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo</a>
- utility provided with <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> has
- the ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM
- and AT&T extension sets.</p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tic</span></a>/<a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo</a>
+ utility provided with <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
+ has the ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX,
+ IBM and AT&T extension sets.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A BSD-like <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html">tset</a>
- utility is provided.</p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tset</span></a> utility is provided.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> library and
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 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
<li>
<p>The table-of-entries utility <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html">toe</a>
- makes it easy for users to see exactly what terminal types
- are available on the system.</p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ toe</span></a> makes it easy for users to see exactly what
+ terminal types are available on the system.</p>
</li>
<li>
<li>
<p>Extensive documentation is provided (see the <em><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#additional_reading">
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#additional_reading">
Additional Reading</a></em> section of the <em><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html"><em class="small-caps">
- ncurses</em> FAQ</a></em> for online documentation).</p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html"><span class="main-name">
+ ncurses</span> FAQ</a></em> for online documentation).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2><a name="h2-who-uses" id="h2-who-uses">Applications using
- <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em></a></h2>
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a></h2>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> distribution includes
- a selection of test programs (including a few games). These are
- available separately as <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a></p>
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> distribution
+ includes a selection of test programs (including a few games).
+ These are available separately as <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a></p>
<p>The ncurses library has been tested with a wide variety of
applications including:</p>
<blockquote>
<dl>
- <dt>cdk</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">aptitude</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>FrontEnd to Apt, the debian package manager</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude">https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">cdk</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
<p>Curses Development Kit</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/cdk/">http://invisible-island.net/cdk/</a><br>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/cdk/">https://invisible-island.net/cdk/</a><br>
+
</p>
</dd>
- <dt>ded</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">ded</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
<p>directory-editor</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ded/">http://invisible-island.net/ded/</a></p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ded/">https://invisible-island.net/ded/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>dialog</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">dialog</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
<p>the underlying application used in Slackware's setup,
many systems.</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/dialog/">http://invisible-island.net/dialog/</a></p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/dialog/">https://invisible-island.net/dialog/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>lynx</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">lynx</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
<p>the text WWW browser</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://lynx.isc.org/">http://lynx.isc.org/</a></p>
+ "https://lynx.invisible-island.net/">https://lynx.invisible-island.net/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>Midnight Commander</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">mutt</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
- <p>file manager</p>
+ <p>mail utility</p>
- <p><a href=
- "http://www.midnight-commander.org/">http://www.midnight-commander.org/</a></p>
+ <p><a href="http://www.mutt.org/">http://www.mutt.org/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>mutt</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">ncftp</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
- <p>mail utility</p>
+ <p>file-transfer utility</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://www.mutt.org/">http://www.mutt.org/</a></p>
+ "https://www.ncftp.com/">https://www.ncftp.com/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>ncftp</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">nvi</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
- <p>file-transfer utility</p>
+ <p>New vi uses ncurses.</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://www.ncftp.com/">http://www.ncftp.com/</a></p>
+ "https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi">https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi</a><br>
+
+ </p>
</dd>
- <dt>nvi</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">ranger</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
- <p>New vi uses ncurses.</p>
+ <p>A console file manager with VI key bindings in
+ <em>Python</em>.</p>
<p><a href=
- "https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi">https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi</a><br>
- </p>
+ "https://ranger.github.io/">https://ranger.github.io/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>tin</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">tin</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
<p>newsreader, supporting color, MIME</p>
- <p><a href=
- "http://www.tin.org/">http://www.tin.org/</a></p>
+ <p><a href="http://www.tin.org/">http://www.tin.org/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">vifm</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>File manager with vi like keybindings</p>
+
+ <p><a href="https://vifm.info/">https://vifm.info/</a></p>
</dd>
</dl>
</blockquote>
- <p>as well as some that use <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>
- for the terminfo support alone:</p>
+ <p>as well as some that use <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> for the terminfo support alone:</p>
<blockquote>
<dl>
- <dt>minicom</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">minicom</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
<p>terminal emulator for serial modem connections</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/</a></p>
+ "https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>mosh</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">mosh</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
<p>a replacement for <code>ssh</code>.</p>
"https://mosh.mit.edu/">https://mosh.mit.edu/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>tack</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">tack</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
<p>terminfo action checker</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html</a></p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>tmux</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">tmux</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
<p>terminal multiplexor</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://tmux.github.io/">http://tmux.github.io/</a></p>
+ "https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki">https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>vile</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">vile</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
- <p>vi-like-emacs may be built to use the terminfo, termcap
- or curses interfaces.</p>
+ <p><em>vi-like-emacs</em> may be built to use the terminfo,
+ termcap or curses interfaces.</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/vile/">http://invisible-island.net/vile/</a></p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/vile/">https://invisible-island.net/vile/</a></p>
</dd>
</dl>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<dl>
- <dt>emacs</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">emacs</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
<p>text editor</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/</a></p>
+ "https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">less</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>The most commonly used <em>pager</em> (a program that
+ displays text files).</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/">http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>screen</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">screen</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
<p>terminal multiplexor</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/">http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/</a></p>
+ "https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/">https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>vim</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">vim</span>
+ </dt>
<dd>
<p>text editor</p>
- <p><a href=
- "http://www.vim.org/">http://www.vim.org/</a></p>
+ <p><a href="https://www.vim.org/">https://www.vim.org/</a></p>
</dd>
</dl>
</blockquote>
<h2><a name="h2-development" id="h2-development">Development
activities</a></h2>
- <p>Zeyd Ben-Halim started <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>
+ <p>Zeyd Ben-Halim started <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
from a previous package pcurses, written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S.
Raymond continued development. Jürgen Pfeifer wrote most of
- the form and menu libraries. Ongoing development work is done by
- <a href="mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net">Thomas Dickey</a>.
- Thomas Dickey also acts as the maintainer for the Free Software
- Foundation, which holds the <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html">copyright
- on ncurses</a>.</p>
+ the form and menu libraries.</p>
+
+ <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 holds a <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/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 Thomas E. Dickey (see the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#relicensed">
+ ncurses FAQ</a> for additional information).</p>
<p>Contact the current maintainers at</p>
<blockquote>
<a href=
"mailto:bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org">bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org</a>
- </blockquote>containing the line:
+ </blockquote>
+ containing the line:
<blockquote>
<p><code>subscribe</code>
<p>This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the
development and testing of this package.</p>
- <p>Beta versions of <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> and
- patches to the current release are made available at</p>
+ <p>Beta versions of <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> are
+ made available at</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <p><a href=
+ "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/current/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/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>Patches to the current release are made available at</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
- "ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a> .</p>
+ "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/6.1/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/6.1/</a>
+ and<br>
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.1/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.1/</a> .</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is an archive of the mailing list here:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/scripts/man2html.html">man2html</a></li>
-
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.nethttp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html">
- <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> licensing</a></li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html"><span class="main-name">
+ ncurses</span> licensing</a></li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html">Symbol
- versioning in <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em></a></li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html">Symbol
+ versioning in <span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a></li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mingw.html">The
- MinGW port of <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em></a></li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-slang.html">Comments
+ on <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> versus <span class=
+ "main-name">slang</span> (S-Lang)</a></li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">tack –
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">tack –
terminfo action checker</a></li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/autoconf/portability-tar.html">tar
- versus portability</a></li>
-
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html">tctest
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html">tctest
– termcap library checker</a></li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.html#download_database">
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.html#download_database">
Terminal Database</a></li>
</ul>
terminfo-format terminal description file once maintained by
<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/">Eric
Raymond</a> . Unlike the older version, the termcap and
- terminfo data are provided in the same file, and provides several
- user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open specification.</p>
+ terminfo data are provided in the same file, which also provides
+ several user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open
+ specification.</p>
<p>You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
not covered in the terminfo file at <a href=
"http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal">
- Richard Shuford's archive</a> .</p>
+ Richard Shuford's archive</a> . The collection of computer
+ manuals at <a href=
+ "http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/">bitsavers.org</a> has also been
+ useful.</p>
<div class="nav">
<ul>
<a href="#h3-library">Library improvements</a>
<ul>
- <li><a href="#h3-lib-setbuf">Output
- buffering</a></li>
-
- <li><a href="#h3-lib-versioning">Symbol
- versioning</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#h4-new-library">New features</a></li>
- <li><a href="#h3-lib-other">Miscellaneous</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#h4-fixes-library">Other
+ improvements</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#h3-documentation">Documentation</a></li>
- <li><a href="#h3-bug-fixes">Interesting
- bug-fixes</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#h3-bug-fixes">Interesting bug-fixes</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a>
</ul>
</li>
- <li>
- <a href="#h3-portability">Portability</a>
-
- <ul>
- <li><a href="#h4-port-mingw">MinGW</a></li>
-
- <li><a href="#h4-port-systems">Other ports</a></li>
- </ul>
- </li>
+ <li><a href="#h3-portability">Portability</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
- <li><a href="#h2-features">Features of <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em></a></li>
+ <li><a href="#h2-features">Features of <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span></a></li>
- <li><a href="#h2-who-uses">Applications using <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em></a></li>
+ <li><a href="#h2-who-uses">Applications using <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span></a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-development">Development activities</a></li>