-
-The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of
-curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format,
-supports pads and color
-and multiple highlights and forms characters and function-key mapping,
-and has all the other SYSV-curses enhancements over BSD curses.
-
-In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he
-considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the keepers of
-Unix releases such as BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to
-ncurses.
-
-The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux.
-It has been in use for some time with OpenBSD as the system curses library,
-and on FreeBSD and NetBSD as an external package.
-It should port easily to any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX.
-It has even been ported to OS/2 Warp!
-
-The distribution includes the library and support utilities, including a
-terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), clear(1), tput(1), tset(1),
-and a termcap conversion tool captoinfo(1). Full manual pages are provided for
-the library and tools.
-
-This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 through 5.4;
-very few applications will require recompilation, depending on the platform.
-These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.4 release.
-
-Interface changes:
-
-
terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
- "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ Announcing ncurses @VERSION@
+
+
+
+
+
+
Announcing ncurses @VERSION@
+
+
The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation
+ of curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo
+ format, supports pads and color and multiple highlights and forms
+ characters and function-key mapping, and has all the other
+ SYSV-curses enhancements over BSD curses.
+
+
In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared
+ that he considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the
+ keepers of Unix releases such as BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to
+ switch over to ncurses.
+
+
The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It has been in
+ use for some time with OpenBSD as the system curses library, and
+ on FreeBSD and NetBSD as an external package. It should port
+ easily to any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported
+ to OS/2 Warp!
+
+
The distribution includes the library and support utilities,
+ including a terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1),
+ clear(1), tput(1), tset(1), and a termcap conversion tool
+ captoinfo(1). Full manual pages are provided for the library and
+ tools.
This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses
+ 5.0 through 5.8; very few applications will require
+ recompilation, depending on the platform. These are the
+ highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.8 release.
+
+
This is a bug-fix release, correcting a small number of urgent
+ problems in the ncurses library from the 5.8 release.
+
+
It also improves the Ada95 binding:
+
+
+
fixes a longstanding portability problem with its use of
+ the set_field_type
+ function. Because that function uses variable-length argument
+ lists, its interface with gnat does not work with certain
+ platforms.
+
+
improves configurability and portability, particularly when
+ built separately from the main ncurses tree. The 5.8 release
+ introduced scripts which can be used to construct separate
+ tarballs for the Ada95 and ncurses examples.
+
+
Those were a proof of concept. For the 5.9 release, those
+ scripts are augmented with rpm- and dpkg-scripts used in test
+ builds against a variety of gnat- and system ncurses versions
+ as old as gnat 3.15 and ncurses 5.4 (see snapshots and
+ systems tested here.
+
+
+
additional improvements were made for portability of the
+ ncurses examples, adding rpm- and dpkg-scripts for test-builds.
+ See this
+ page for snapshots and other information.
+
+
+
Features of Ncurses
+
+
The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V
+ Release 4) curses:
+
+
+
All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are
+ documented).
+
+
Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard
+ mapping, color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and
+ automatic recognition of keypad and function keys.
+
+
An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting a stack
+ of windows with backing store, is included.
+
+
An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting a
+ uniform but flexible interface for menu programming, is
+ included.
+
+
An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting data
+ collection through on-screen forms, is included.
+
+
Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1)
+ implementation are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format
+ SVr4 curses uses.
+
+
The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo
+ entries for use with less capable
+ curses/terminfo versions such
+ as the HP/UX and AIX ports.
+
+
+
The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over
+ SVr4:
+
+
+
The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the
+ X/OPEN curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements
+ all BASE level features, and most EXTENDED features). It
+ includes many function calls not supported under SVr4 curses
+ (but portability of all calls is documented so you can use the
+ SVr4 subset only).
+
+
Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the
+ rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if your terminal has
+ an insert-character capability.
+
+
Ada95 and C++ bindings.
+
+
Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and
+ FreeBSD and OS/2 console windows.
+
+
Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm
+ package.
+
+
The function wresize allows you to resize
+ windows, preserving their data.
+
+
The function use_default_colors allows you to
+ use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair,
+ achieving the effect of transparent colors.
+
+
The functions keyok and
+ define_key allow you to better control the use of
+ function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, or by
+ defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key
+ code.
+
+
Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm, when
+ configured using the --enable-ext-colors
+ option.
+
+
Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm
+ and modern xterm.
+
+
Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now
+ features a cursor-local-movement computation more efficient
+ than either BSD's or System V's.
+
+
Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code
+ incorporates a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables
+ it to make optimal use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion,
+ and line-deletion for screen-line movements. This algorithm is
+ more powerful than the 4.4BSD curses quickch
+ routine.
+
+
Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch.
+ The screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if
+ the magic- cookie unattributed spaces required just before the
+ beginning and after the end would step on a non-space
+ character. It will automatically shift highlight boundaries
+ when doing so would make it possible to draw the highlight
+ without changing the visual appearance of the screen.
+
+
It is possible to generate the library with a list of
+ pre-loaded fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve
+ those terminal types even when no terminfo tree or termcap file
+ is accessible (this may be useful for support of
+ screen-oriented programs that must run in single-user
+ mode).
-
terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
- still use ncurses 4.2).
+
The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the
+ ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and
+ AT&T extension sets.
+
+
A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided.
-
modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing
- initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are
- still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old
- compilers.
+
The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read
+ terminfo entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile
+ to that directory if it exists and the user has no write access
+ to the system directory. This feature makes it easier for users
+ to have personal terminfo entries without giving up access to
+ the system terminfo directory.
-
modify parameter type in c++ binding for insch() and mvwinsch() to
- be consistent with underlying ncurses library (was char, is chtype).
+
You may specify a path of directories to search for
+ compiled descriptions with the environment variable
+ TERMINFO_DIRS (this generalizes the feature provided by
+ TERMINFO under stock System V.)
-
change NCursesWindow::err_handler() to a virtual function.
+
In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not
+ just to other entries in the same source file (as in System V)
+ but also to compiled entries in either the system terminfo
+ directory or the user's $HOME/.terminfo directory.
-
form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data.
- Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the
- FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw,
- since that no longer points to an array of char. The
- set_field_buffer() and field_buffer() functions translate to/from
- the actual field data.
+
A script (capconvert) is provided to help
+ BSD users transition from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the
+ information in a TERMCAP environment variable and/or a
+ ~/.termcap local entries file and converts it to an equivalent
+ local terminfo tree under $HOME/.terminfo.
+
Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled
+ in when it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This
+ feature is neither fast nor cheap, you don't want to use it
+ unless you have to, but it's there.
-
add symbol to curses.h which can be used to suppress include of
- stdbool.h, e.g.,
-
The table-of-entries utility toe makes it
+ easy for users to see exactly what terminal types are available
+ on the system.
-
change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure
- that libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason
- for this is that the corresponding data which belongs to the
- upper-level ncurses library has a different size in each model.
+
The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro
+ entry point have a corresponding function which may be linked
+ (and will be prototype-checked) if the macro definition is
+ disabled with #undef.
-
winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
- wide-character configuration.
+
An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document
+ provides a narrative introduction to the curses programming
+ interface.
+
-
assume_default_colors() no longer requires that
- use_default_colors() be called first.
+
State of the Package
-
data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
+
Numerous bugs present in earlier versions have been fixed; the
+ library is far more reliable than it used to be. Bounds checking
+ in many `dangerous' entry points has been improved. The code is
+ now type-safe according to gcc -Wall. The library has been
+ checked for malloc leaks and arena corruption by the Purify
+ memory-allocation tester.
-
slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
- multicolumn characters.
+
The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of
+ applications including (versions starting with those noted):
-
start_color() now returns OK if colors have
- already been started.
- start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
+
+
cdk
-
pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair()
- if it corresponds to the default-color.
+
environment variable NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS supports
- miscellaneous terminal emulators which ignore alternate
- character set escape sequences when in UTF-8 mode.
+
ded
-
modify initialization of key lookup table so that if an extended
- capability (tic -x) string is defined, and its name begins with 'k',
- ncurses will automatically treat it as a key.
+
add "-x" option to infocmp like tic's "-x", for use in "-F"
- comparisons. This modifies infocmp to only report extended
- capabilities if the -x option is given, making this more
- consistent with tic. Some scripts may break, since infocmp
- previous gave this information without an option.
+
correct translation of "%%" in terminfo format to termcap,
- e.g., using "tic -C".
+
pinfo
-
modify the "-c -v" options to ignore delays when comparing
- strings. Also modify it to ignore a canceled sgr string,
- e.g., for terminals which cannot properly combine attributes
- in one control sequence.
+
add a check for improperly ended strings, i.e., where a
- following line begins in column 1.
+
tin
-
add a check in tic for terminfo entries having an sgr0 but no
- sgr string. This confuses Tru64 and HPUX curses when combined
- with color, e.g., making them leave line-drawing characters in
- odd places.
+
add -c and -w options to allow user to suppress ncurses'
- resizing of the terminal emulator window in the special case
- where it is not able to detect the true size.
+
The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs
+ (including a few games).
-
-Major bug fixes:
-
+
Who's Who and What's What
-
improve logic in tgetent() which adjusts the termcap "me" string
- to work with ISO-2022 string used in xterm-new.
- This is a feature that was incompletely implemented in ncurses 5.3.
- ncurses attempts to provide termcap clients with the portion of
- the sgr0 (termcap "me") string that does not reset line-drawing.
+
Zeyd Ben-Halim started it 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 work is being done by Thomas Dickey. Thomas
+ Dickey acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation,
+ which holds the copyright on ncurses. Contact the current
+ maintainers at bug-ncurses@gnu.org.
-
cells in the WINDOW which are continuations of a multicolumn
- character are encoded differently, making repainting more
- reliable.
+
To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
+ bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org containing the line:
+
+ subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
+
-
amend change to setupterm() in ncurses 5.4 (20030405) which would
- reuse the value of cur_term if the same output was selected. This
- now reuses it only when setupterm() is called from tgetent(),
- which has no notion of separate SCREENs. Note that tgetent() must
- be called after initscr() or newterm() to use this feature.
+
This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the
+ development and testing of this package.
-
make setcchar() now works when its wchar_t* parameter is
- pointing to a string which contains more data than can be converted.
+
disable GPM mouse support when $TERM happens to be prefixed with
- "xterm". Gpm_Open() would otherwise assert that it can deal with
- mouse events in this case.
+
Future Plans
-
add SP->_screen_acs_map[], used to ensure that mapping of missing
- line-drawing characters is handled properly. For example, ACS_DARROW
- is absent from xterm-new, and it was coincidentally displayed the
- same as ACS_BTEE.
+
+
Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization
+ support.
-
+
Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows.
+
-Portability:
-
-
configure script:
-
-
new options:
-
-
--enable-largefile
-
set compiler and linker flags to use largefile support.
+
We need people to help with these projects. If you are
+ interested in working on them, please join the ncurses list.
-
--enable-ext-colors
-
Allow encoding of 256 foreground
- and background colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
- xterm-88color terminfo entries.
- This requires ABI 6 because it changes the size of cchar_t.
+
Other Related Resources
-
--enable-ext-mouse
-
This defines NCURSES_MOUSE_VERSION 2, and modifies the encoding of
- mouse events to support wheel mice, which may transmit buttons
- 4 and 5. This works with xterm and similar terminal
- emulators.
- This requires ABI 6 because it changes the encoding of
- mouse events.
-
-
--with-chtype
-
overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of chtype
-
-
--with-mmask-t
-
overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of mmask_t
-
-
--without-xterm-new
-
Installs "xterm-old" as the "xterm" entry of the terminfo
- database.
-
-
-
-
The --with-termlib option now accepts a value which sets
- the name of the terminfo library. This would allow a packager to
- build libtinfow.so renamed to coincide with libtinfo.so
-
-
fixes/improvements for cross-compiling:
-
-
-
suppress $suffix in misc/run_tic.sh when cross-compiling.
- This allows cross-compiles to use the host's tic program to
- handle the "make install.data" step.
-
-
correct BUILD_CPPFLAGS substitution in ncurses/Makefile.in, to allow
- cross-compiling from a separate directory tree.
-
-
-
-
-
-
library:
-
-
-
add ifdef's for _LP64 in curses.h to avoid using wasteful
- 64-bits for chtype and mmask_t, but add configure option
- --disable-lp64 in case anyone used that configuration.
-
-
modify C++ binding to use some C internal functions to make it
- compile properly on Solaris (and other platforms).
-
-
remove check in newwin() that prevents allocating windows that
- extend beyond the screen (Solaris does this).
-
-
check for nl_langinfo(CODESET), use it if available.
- This replaces ad hoc tests of environment variables to
- check if the terminal is setup for UTF-8 encoding.
- Applications which do not call setlocale()
- should be corrected, to make them work properly with
- UTF-8 encoding.
-
- In particular, applications which assume (and
- do not call setlocale()) that
- Latin-1 codes are printable will no longer work in
- a UTF-8 locale since the ad hoc check of environment
- variables to see if the locale was UTF-8 is not used
- when nl_langinfo(CODESET) is available.
-
-
use setlocale() to query the program's current locale rather
- than using getenv(). This supports applications which rely
- upon legacy treatment of 8-bit characters when the locale is
- not initialized.
-
-
-
-
-
Features of Ncurses
-
-The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:
-
-
-
All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are documented).
-
Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping, color,
-forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic recognition of keypad
-and function keys.
-
An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting
-a stack of windows with backing store, is included.
-
An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting
-a uniform but flexible interface for menu programming, is included.
-
An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting
-data collection through on-screen forms, is included.
-
Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1) implementation
-are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format SVr4 curses uses.
-
The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo
-entries for use with less capable curses/terminfo
-versions such as the HP/UX and AIX ports.
-
-The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4:
-
-
-
The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN curses
-specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE level features,
-but not all EXTENDED features). Most EXTENDED-level features not directly
-concerned with wide-character support are implemented, including many
-function calls not supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of all
-calls is documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only).
-
Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner
-of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character capability.
-
Ada95 and C++ bindings.
-
Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and OS/2 console windows.
-
Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package.
-
The function wresize() allows you to resize windows, preserving
-their data.
-
The function use_default_colors() allows you to
-use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair,
-achieving the effect of transparent colors.
-
The functions keyok()
-and define_key() allow
-you to better control the use of function keys,
-e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE,
-or by defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key code.
-
Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 xterm.
-
Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a
-cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's
-or System V's.
-
Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code incorporates
-a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables it to make optimal
-use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion, and line-deletion
-for screen-line movements. This algorithm is more powerful than
-the 4.4BSD curses quickch() routine.
-
Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch. The
-screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if the magic-
-cookie unattributed spaces required just before the beginning and
-after the end would step on a non-space character. It will
-automatically shift highlight boundaries when doing so would make it
-possible to draw the highlight without changing the visual appearance
-of the screen.
-
It is possible to generate the library with a list of pre-loaded
-fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve those terminal types even
-when no terminfo tree or termcap file is accessible (this may be useful
-for support of screen-oriented programs that must run in single-user mode).
-
The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the
-ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and
-AT&T extension sets.
-
A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided.
-
The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read terminfo
-entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that directory
-if it exists and the user has no write access to the system directory.
-This feature makes it easier for users to have personal terminfo entries
-without giving up access to the system terminfo directory.
-
You may specify a path of directories to search for compiled
-descriptions with the environment variable TERMINFO_DIRS (this
-generalizes the feature provided by TERMINFO under stock System V.)
-
In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not just to
-other entries in the same source file (as in System V) but also to
-compiled entries in either the system terminfo directory or the user's
-$HOME/.terminfo directory.
-
A script (capconvert) is provided to help BSD users
-transition from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the information in a
-TERMCAP environment variable and/or a ~/.termcap local entries file
-and converts it to an equivalent local terminfo tree under $HOME/.terminfo.
-
Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled in
-when it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This feature is neither
-fast nor cheap, you don't want to use it unless you have to,
-but it's there.
-
The table-of-entries utility toe makes it easy for users to
-see exactly what terminal types are available on the system.
-
The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro entry
-point have a corresponding function which may be linked (and will be
-prototype-checked) if the macro definition is disabled with
-#undef.
-
An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document provides
-a narrative introduction to the curses programming interface.
-
-
-
State of the Package
-
-Numerous bugs present in earlier versions have been fixed; the
-library is far more reliable than it used to be. Bounds checking in many
-`dangerous' entry points has been improved. The code is now type-safe
-according to gcc -Wall. The library has been checked for malloc leaks and
-arena corruption by the Purify memory-allocation tester.
-
-The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of applications
-including (versions starting with those noted):
-
-
-The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs (including
-a few games).
-
-
Who's Who and What's What
-
-Zeyd Ben-Halim
-started it 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 work is being done by
-Thomas Dickey.
-Thomas Dickey
-acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation,
-which holds the copyright on ncurses.
-Contact the current maintainers at
-bug-ncurses@gnu.org.
-
-
-To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
-bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org containing the line:
-
- subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
-
-
-This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development and
-testing of this package.
Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization support.
-
Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows.
-
-We need people to help with these projects. If you are interested in working
-on them, please join the ncurses list.
-
-
Other Related Resources
-
-The distribution provides a newer version of the terminfo-format
-terminal description file maintained by
-Eric Raymond .
-Unlike the older version, the termcap and terminfo data are provided
-in the same file.
-
-You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
-not covered in the terminfo file at
-Richard Shuford's
-archive .
-
-
-
+
The distribution provides a newer version of the
+ terminfo-format terminal description file once maintained by
+ Eric
+ Raymond . Unlike the older version, the termcap and
+ terminfo data are provided in the same file, and provides several
+ user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open specification.
+
+
You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
+ not covered in the terminfo file at
+ Richard Shuford's archive .