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7 <TITLE>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</TITLE>
8 <link rev=made href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">
12 <H1>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</H1>
14 The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of
15 curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format,
16 supports pads and color
17 and multiple highlights and forms characters and function-key mapping,
18 and has all the other SYSV-curses enhancements over BSD curses.<P>
20 In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he
21 considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and is encouraging the keepers of
22 Unix releases such as BSD/OS, freeBSD and netBSD to switch over to
25 The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It should port easily to
26 any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported to OS/2 Warp!<P>
28 The distribution includes the library and support utilities, including a
29 terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), clear(1), tput(1), tset(1),
30 and a termcap conversion tool captoinfo(1). Full manual pages are provided for
31 the library and tools.<P>
33 The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at
34 the GNU distribution site
35 <A HREF="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses</A>.
36 <br>It is also available at
37 <A HREF="ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses">ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses</A>.
39 <H1>Release Notes</H1>
41 This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 and 5.1;
42 very few applications will require recompilation, depending on the platform.
43 These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.1 release.
47 <li>change type of <code>ospeed</code> variable back to
48 <code>short</code> to match its use in legacy applications. It was
49 altered after ncurses 4.2 to <code>speed_t</code> to repair a type
50 mismatch which was introduced after 1.9.4 in 1995. The principal
51 users of termcap continued to use <code>short</code>, which is
54 <em>NOTE</em>: A few applications will have to be recompiled
55 (about 1% of the programs in a typical Linux distribution,
56 10% of the programs that use ncurses). These are easy to
57 identify with <code>nm</code> or <code>strings</code>.
59 <li>remove a private function <code>_nc_can_clear_with()</code>, which
60 was built with the configure --enable-expanded option but not used.
62 <li>add several private functions (prefixed with "_nc_") for tracing
63 <code>chtype</code> values in the debug library, and for better
64 access and buffer limit checking.
66 New features and improvements:
68 <li>rewrote <code>tgoto()</code> to make it better support existing
69 termcap applications which use hardcoded strings rather than obtain
70 all of their information from the termcap file. If the string does
71 not appear to be a terminfo string (i.e., does not refer to a "%p"
72 parameter, or terminfo-style padding), and termcap support is configured, <code>tgoto()</code>
73 will interpret it as termcap. Otherwise, as before, it will use
76 <li>to ensure that the <code>tgoto()</code> changes work properly,
77 added checks to <code>tic</code> which report capabilities that do
78 not reference the expected number of parameters.
80 <li>new configure script options:
82 <li>option <code>--disable-root-environ</code> adds runtime checks
83 which tell ncurses to disregard $TERMINFO and similar environment
84 variables if the current user is root, or running setuid/setgid.
86 <li>option <code>--disable-assumed-color</code> allows you to use the
87 pre-5.1 convention of default colors used for color-pair 0 to be
88 configured (see assume_default_colors()).
90 <li>implement configure script options that transform installed
91 program names, e.g., <code>--program-prefix</code>, including the
92 manpage names and cross references.
94 <li>option <code>--with-database</code> allows you to specify a
95 different terminfo source-file to install. On OS/2 EMX, the
96 default is misc/emx.src, otherwise misc/terminfo.src
98 <li>option <code>--with-default-terminfo-dir</code> allows you to
99 specify the default terminfo database directory.
101 <li>option <code>--with-libtool</code> allows you to build with
102 <code>libtool</code>. <p> <em>NOTE</em>: <code>libtool</code>
103 uses a different notation for numbering shared library versions
104 from the existing ncurses configuration.
106 <li>option <code>--with-manpage-tbl</code> causes the manpages to be
107 preprocessed by tbl(1) prior to installation,
109 <li>option <code>--without-curses-h</code> causes the installation
110 process to install curses.h as ncurses.h and make appropriate
111 changes to headers and manpages.
114 <li>modified configure script options:
116 <li>change symbol used by the <code>--install-prefix</code> configure
117 option from <code>INSTALL_PREFIX</code> to <code>DESTDIR</code>
118 (the latter has become common usage although the name is
121 <li>modify <code>ld -rpath</code> options (e.g., Linux, and Solaris)
122 to use an absolute pathname for the build tree's lib directory,
123 avoiding confusion with directories relative to the current one
124 with the installed programs.
126 <li>modified <code>misc/run_tic.in</code> to use
127 <code>tic -o</code>, to eliminate dependency on
128 <code>$TERMINFO</code> variable for installs.
131 <li>terminfo database:
133 <li>updated xterm terminfo entries to match XFree86 xterm patch #146.
137 QNX qansi to misc/terminfo.src.
139 <li>added os2 entry to misc/emx.src.
141 <li>add S0 and E0 extensions to <code>screen</code>'s terminfo entry
142 since otherwise the FreeBSD port makes it pass termcap equivalents
143 to <code>tgoto</code>, which would be misinterpreted by older
147 <li>improvements to program usability:
149 <li>modify programs to use <code>curses_version()</code> string to
150 report the version of ncurses with which they are compiled rather
151 than the NCURSES_VERSION string. The function returns the patch
152 level in addition to the major and minor version numbers.
154 <li>modify <code>tput</code> program so it can be renamed or invoked via a link as
155 'reset' or 'init', producing the same effect as <code>tput reset</code> or <code>tput init</code>.
157 <li>add error checking to infocmp's -v and -m options to ensure that
158 the option value is indeed a number.
161 <li>improved performance:
163 <li>replace a lookup table in lib_vidattr.c used to decode
164 <code>no_color_video</code> with a logic expression which is faster.
170 <li>correct <code>manlinks.sed</code> script introduced in ncurses 5.1
171 to avoid using ERE "\+", which is not understood by standard versions
172 of <code>sed</code>. This happens to work with GNU <code>sed</code>,
173 but is not portable, and was the initial motivation for this release.
175 <li>remove "hpux10.*" case from CF_SHARED_OPTS configure script macro.
176 This differed from the "hpux*" case by using reversed symbolic
177 links, which made the 5.1 version not match the configuration of
178 5.0 shared libraries.
180 <li>guard against corrupt terminfo data:
182 <li>modify <code>tparm()</code> to disallow arithmetic on strings,
183 analyze the varargs list to read strings as strings and numbers as
186 <li>modify <code>tparm()</code>'s internal function
187 <code>spop()</code> to treat a null pointer as an empty string.
189 <li>modify <code>parse_format()</code> in lib_tparm.c to ignore
190 precision if it is longer than 10000.
192 <li>rewrote limit checks in lib_mvcur.c using new functions
193 <code>_nc_safe_strcat()</code>, etc. Made other related changes to
194 check lengths used for <code>strcat()</code> and
195 <code>strcpy()</code>.
198 <li>corrections to screen optimization:
200 <li>added special case in lib_vidattr.c to reset underline and
201 standout for devices that have no sgr0 defined.
203 <li>change handling of <code>non_dest_scroll_region</code> in
204 tty_update.c to clear text after it is shifted in rather than before
205 shifting out. Also correct row computation.
207 <li>modify <code>rs2</code> capability in xterm-r6 and similar entries
208 where cursor save/restore bracketed the sequence for resetting video
209 attributes. The cursor restore would undo that.
214 <li>when checking LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables
215 for UTF-8 locale, ignore those which are set to an empty value, as
218 <li>encode 0xFFFD in UTF-8 with 3 bytes, not 2.
220 <li>modify <code>_nc_utf8_outch()</code> to avoid sign-extension when
221 checking for out-of-range value.
224 <li>other library fixes:
226 <li>added checks for an empty <code>$HOME</code> environment
227 variable, to avoid retrieving terminfo descriptions from
228 <code>./.terminfo</code> .
230 <li>change functions <code>_nc_parse_entry()</code> and
231 <code>postprocess_termcap()</code> to avoid using
232 <code>strtok()</code>, because it is non-reentrant.
234 <li>initialize <code>fds[]</code> array to 0's in
235 <code>_nc_timed_wait()</code>; apparently <code>poll()</code> only
236 sets the <code>revents</code> members of that array when there is
237 activity corresponding to the related file.
239 <li>add a check for null pointer in <code>Make_Enum_Type()</code>.
241 <li>fix a heap problem with the c++ binding.
243 <li>correct missing includes for <string.h> in several places,
244 including the C++ binding. This is not noted by gcc unless we use
245 the <code>-fno-builtin</code> option.
248 <li>several fixes for tic:
250 <li>add a check for empty buffers returned by <code>fgets()</code> in
251 comp_scan.c <code>next_char()</code> function, in case
252 <code>tic</code> is run on a non-text file (fixes a core dump).
254 <li>modify <code>tic</code> to verify that its inputs are really files,
255 in case someone tries to read a directory (or
256 <code>/dev/zero</code>).
258 <li>correct an uninitialized parameter to <code>open_tempfile()</code>
259 in tic.c which made "tic -I" give an ambiguous error message about
262 <li>correct logic in <code>adjust_cancels()</code>, which did not check
263 both alternatives when reclassifying an extended name between
264 boolean, number and string, causing an infinite loop in
268 <li>using new checks in <code>tic</code> for parameter counts in
269 capability strings, found/fixed several errors both in the
270 terminfo database and in the include/Caps file.
272 <li>modified several terminfo capability strings, including the
273 definitions for setaf, setab, in include/Caps to indicate that the
274 entries are parameterized. This information is used to tell which
275 strings are translated when converting to termcap. This fixes a
276 problem where the generated termcap would contain a spurious "%p1"
277 for the terminfo "%p1%d".
279 <li>correct parameter counts in include/Caps for dclk as well as some
280 printer-specific capabilities: csnm, defc, scs, scsd, smgtp, smglp.
283 <li>various fixes for install scripts used to support configure
284 <code>--srcdir</code> and <code>--with-install-prefix</code>.
286 <li>correct several mismatches between manpage filename and ".TH"
287 directives, renaming dft_fgbg.3x to default_colors.3x and
288 menu_attribs.3x to menu_attributes.3x.
293 <li>configure script:
295 <li>newer config.guess, config.sub, including changes to support OS/2
296 EMX. The configure script for OS/2 EMX still relies on a patch
297 since there is no (working) support for that platform in the main
298 autoconf distribution.
300 <li>make configure script checks on variables <code>$GCC</code> and
301 <code>$GXX</code> consistently compare against 'yes' rather than
302 test if they are nonnull, since either may be set to the
303 corresponding name of the C or C++ compiler.
305 <li>change configure script to use AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM rather than
306 AC_CANONICAL_HOST, which means that <code>configure --target</code>
307 will set a default program-prefix.
309 <li>modify the check for big-core to force a couple of memory
310 accesses, which may work as needed for older/less-capable machines
311 (if not, there's still the explicit configure option).
313 <li>modify configure test for <code>tcgetattr()</code> to allow for
314 old implementations, e.g., on BeOS, which only defined it as a
317 <li>add configure check for filesystems (such as OS/2 EMX) which do
318 not distinguish between upper/lowercase filenames, use this to fix
319 tags rules in makefiles.
321 <li>add MKncurses_def.sh to generate fallback definitions for
322 ncurses_cfg.h, to quiet gcc -Wundef warnings, modified ifdef's in
323 code to consistently use "#if" rather than "#ifdef".
325 <li>change most remaining unquoted parameters of <code>test</code> in
326 configure script to use quotes, for instance fixing a problem in the
327 <code>--disable-database</code> option.
329 <li>modify scripts so that "make install.data" works on OS/2 EMX.
331 <li>modify scripts and makefiles so the Ada95 directory builds on
337 <li>replaced case-statement in <code>_nc_tracebits()</code> for CSIZE
338 with a table to simplify working around implementations that define
339 random combinations of the related macros to zero.
341 <li>improved OS/2 mouse support by retrying as a 2-button mouse if code
342 fails to set up a 3-button mouse.
344 <li>added private entrypoint <code>_nc_basename()</code>, used to
345 consolidate related code in progs, as well as accommodating OS/2 EMX
348 <li>alter definition of NCURSES_CONST to make it non-empty.
350 <li>redefine 'TEXT' in menu.h for AMIGA, since it is reported to have
351 an (unspecified) symbol conflict.
356 <li>modified progs/tset.c and tack/sysdep.c to build with sgttyb
357 interface if neither termio or termios is available. Tested this
358 with FreeBSD 2.1.5 (which does have termios - but the sgttyb does
364 <H1>Features of Ncurses</H1>
366 The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:
369 <LI>All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are documented).
370 <LI>Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping, color,
371 forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic recognition of keypad
373 <LI>An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting
374 a stack of windows with backing store, is included.
375 <LI>An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting
376 a uniform but flexible interface for menu programming, is included.
377 <LI>An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting
378 data collection through on-screen forms, is included.
379 <LI>Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1) implementation
380 are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format SVr4 curses uses.
381 <LI>The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo
382 entries for use with less capable <STRONG>curses</STRONG>/<STRONG>terminfo</STRONG>
383 versions such as the HP/UX and AIX ports.</UL>
385 The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4:
388 <LI>The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN curses
389 specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE level features,
390 but not all EXTENDED features). Most EXTENDED-level features not directly
391 concerned with wide-character support are implemented, including many
392 function calls not supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of all
393 calls is documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only).
394 <LI>Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner
395 of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character capability.
396 <LI>Ada95 and C++ bindings.
397 <LI>Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and OS/2 console windows.
398 <LI>Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package.
399 <LI>The function <CODE>wresize()</CODE> allows you to resize windows, preserving
401 <LI>The function <CODE>use_default_colors()</CODE> allows you to
402 use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair,
403 achieving the effect of transparent colors.
404 <LI>The functions <CODE>keyok()</CODE>
405 and <CODE>define_key()</CODE> allow
406 you to better control the use of function keys,
407 e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE,
408 or by defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key code.
409 <LI>Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 xterm.
410 <LI>Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a
411 cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's
413 <LI>Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code incorporates
414 a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables it to make optimal
415 use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion, and line-deletion
416 for screen-line movements. This algorithm is more powerful than
417 the 4.4BSD curses quickch() routine.
418 <LI>Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch. The
419 screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if the magic-
420 cookie unattributed spaces required just before the beginning and
421 after the end would step on a non-space character. It will
422 automatically shift highlight boundaries when doing so would make it
423 possible to draw the highlight without changing the visual appearance
425 <LI>It is possible to generate the library with a list of pre-loaded
426 fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve those terminal types even
427 when no terminfo tree or termcap file is accessible (this may be useful
428 for support of screen-oriented programs that must run in single-user mode).
429 <LI>The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the
430 ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and
431 AT&T extension sets.
432 <LI>A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided.
433 <LI>The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read terminfo
434 entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that directory
435 if it exists and the user has no write access to the system directory.
436 This feature makes it easier for users to have personal terminfo entries
437 without giving up access to the system terminfo directory.
438 <LI>You may specify a path of directories to search for compiled
439 descriptions with the environment variable TERMINFO_DIRS (this
440 generalizes the feature provided by TERMINFO under stock System V.)
441 <LI>In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not just to
442 other entries in the same source file (as in System V) but also to
443 compiled entries in either the system terminfo directory or the user's
444 $HOME/.terminfo directory.
445 <LI>A script (<STRONG>capconvert</STRONG>) is provided to help BSD users
446 transition from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the information in a
447 TERMCAP environment variable and/or a ~/.termcap local entries file
448 and converts it to an equivalent local terminfo tree under $HOME/.terminfo.
449 <LI>Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled in
450 when it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This feature is neither
451 fast nor cheap, you don't want to use it unless you have to,
453 <LI>The table-of-entries utility <STRONG>toe</STRONG> makes it easy for users to
454 see exactly what terminal types are available on the system.
455 <LI>The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro entry
456 point have a corresponding function which may be linked (and will be
457 prototype-checked) if the macro definition is disabled with
459 <LI>An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document provides
460 a narrative introduction to the curses programming interface.
463 <H1>State of the Package</H1>
465 Numerous bugs present in earlier versions have been fixed; the
466 library is far more reliable than it used to be. Bounds checking in many
467 `dangerous' entry points has been improved. The code is now type-safe
468 according to gcc -Wall. The library has been checked for malloc leaks and
469 arena corruption by the Purify memory-allocation tester.<P>
471 The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of applications
472 including (versions starting with those noted):
475 <DD> Curses Development Kit
477 <A HREF="http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html">http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html</a>
479 <A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/cdk/cdk.html">http://dickey.his.com/cdk</A>.
481 <DD> directory-editor
483 <A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/ded/ded.html">http://dickey.his.com/ded</A>.
485 <DD> the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the basis
486 for similar applications on GNU/Linux.
488 <A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/dialog/dialog.html">http://dickey.his.com/dialog</A>.
490 <DD> the character-screen WWW browser
492 <A HREF="http://lynx.isc.org/release/">http://lynx.isc.org/release</A>.
493 <DT> Midnight Commander 4.1
496 <A HREF="www.gnome.org/mc/">www.gnome.org/mc/</A>.
500 <A HREF="http://www.mutt.org">http://www.mutt.org</A>.
502 <DD> file-transfer utility
504 <A HREF="http://www.ncftp.com">http://www.ncftp.com</A>.
506 <DD> New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7 and later.
508 <A HREF="http://www.bostic.com/vi/">http://www.bostic.com/vi/</A>.
510 <DD> newsreader, supporting color, MIME
512 <A HREF="http://www.tin.org">http://www.tin.org</A>.
514 <DD> tape archive utility
516 <A HREF="http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/">http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/</A>.
518 <DD> Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File
520 <A HREF="http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html">http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html</A>.
522 as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
525 <DD> terminal emulator
527 <A HREF="http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html">http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html</A>.
531 <A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/vile/vile.html">http://dickey.his.com/vile</A>.
535 The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs (including
538 <H2>Who's Who and What's What</H2>
540 The original developers of ncurses are <A
541 HREF="mailto:zmbenhal@netcom.com">Zeyd Ben-Halim</A> and
542 <A HREF="http://www.ccil.org/~esr/home.html">Eric S. Raymond</A>.
543 Ongoing work is being done by
544 <A HREF="mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com">Thomas Dickey</A>
546 <A HREF="mailto:juergen.pfeifer@gmx.net">Jürgen Pfeifer</A>.
547 <A HREF="mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com">Thomas Dickey</A>
548 acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which holds the
549 copyright on ncurses.
550 Contact the current maintainers at
551 <A HREF="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">bug-ncurses@gnu.org</A>.
554 To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
555 <CODE>bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org</CODE> containing the line:
557 subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
560 This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development and
561 testing of this package.<P>
563 Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made available at
564 <A HREF="ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses">ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses</A>.
566 <H2>Future Plans</H2>
568 <LI>Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization support.
569 <LI>Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows.
571 We need people to help with these projects. If you are interested in working
572 on them, please join the ncurses list.
574 <H2>Other Related Resources</H2>
576 The distribution includes and uses a version of the terminfo-format
577 terminal description file maintained by Eric Raymond.
578 <A HREF="http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo">http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo</A>.<P>
580 You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
581 not covered in the terminfo file at
582 <A HREF="http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html">Richard Shuford's
587 # The following sets edit modes for GNU EMACS
590 # case-fold-search:nil