3 The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of
4 curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format,
5 supports pads and color and multiple highlights and forms characters
6 and function-key mapping, and has all the other SYSV-curses
7 enhancements over BSD curses.
9 In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he
10 considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the keepers of Unix
11 releases such as BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to ncurses.
13 The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It has been in use for
14 some time with OpenBSD as the system curses library, and on FreeBSD
15 and NetBSD as an external package. It should port easily to any
16 ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported to OS/2 Warp!
18 The distribution includes the library and support utilities, including
19 a terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), clear(1),
20 tput(1), tset(1), and a termcap conversion tool captoinfo(1). Full
21 manual pages are provided for the library and tools.
23 The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the GNU
24 distribution site [1]ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
25 It is also available at [2]ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ .
29 This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0
30 through 5.4; very few applications will require recompilation,
31 depending on the platform. These are the highlights from the
32 change-log since ncurses 5.4 release.
35 * terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
36 "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
37 * terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
38 still use ncurses 4.2).
39 * modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing
40 initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are
41 still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old
43 * modify parameter type in c++ binding for insch() and mvwinsch() to
44 be consistent with underlying ncurses library (was char, is
46 * change NCursesWindow::err_handler() to a virtual function.
47 * form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data.
48 Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the
49 FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw,
50 since that no longer points to an array of char. The
51 set_field_buffer() and field_buffer() functions translate to/from
52 the actual field data.
53 * add symbol to curses.h which can be used to suppress include of
55 #define NCURSES_ENABLE_STDBOOL_H 0
58 * change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure
59 that libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason
60 for this is that the corresponding data which belongs to the
61 upper-level ncurses library has a different size in each model.
62 * winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
63 wide-character configuration.
64 * assume_default_colors() no longer requires that
65 use_default_colors() be called first.
66 * data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
67 * slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
68 multicolumn characters.
69 * start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started.
70 start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
71 * pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if
72 it corresponds to the default-color.
73 * unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond to
76 New features and improvements:
78 + environment variable NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS supports
79 miscellaneous terminal emulators which ignore alternate
80 character set escape sequences when in UTF-8 mode.
81 + modify initialization of key lookup table so that if an
82 extended capability (tic -x) string is defined, and its name
83 begins with 'k', ncurses will automatically treat it as a
85 + change GPM initialization, using dl library to load it
86 dynamically at runtime.
87 + form, menu and panel libraries support debug-tracing.
88 * add NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html by Pradeep Padala (see
89 http://tldp.org/HOWTO/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO/).
92 + The -i option now matches 8-bit controls against its table
93 entries, e.g., so it can analyze the xterm-8bit entry.
94 + add "-x" option to infocmp like tic's "-x", for use in "-F"
95 comparisons. This modifies infocmp to only report extended
96 capabilities if the -x option is given, making this more
97 consistent with tic. Some scripts may break, since infocmp
98 previous gave this information without an option.
100 + modify termcap-parsing to retain 2-character aliases at the
101 beginning of an entry if the "-x" option is used in tic.
102 + filter out long extended names when translating to termcap
103 format. Only two characters are permissible for termcap
105 + correct translation of "%%" in terminfo format to termcap,
106 e.g., using "tic -C".
107 + modify the "-c -v" options to ignore delays when comparing
108 strings. Also modify it to ignore a canceled sgr string,
109 e.g., for terminals which cannot properly combine attributes
110 in one control sequence.
111 + add a check for improperly ended strings, i.e., where a
112 following line begins in column 1.
113 + add a check in tic for terminfo entries having an sgr0 but no
114 sgr string. This confuses Tru64 and HPUX curses when combined
115 with color, e.g., making them leave line-drawing characters
117 + add check (with debug configuration) that provides about the
118 runtime changes that would be made to sgr0 for termcap
121 + add -c and -w options to allow user to suppress ncurses'
122 resizing of the terminal emulator window in the special case
123 where it is not able to detect the true size.
126 * improve logic in tgetent() which adjusts the termcap "me" string
127 to work with ISO-2022 string used in xterm-new. This is a feature
128 that was incompletely implemented in ncurses 5.3. ncurses attempts
129 to provide termcap clients with the portion of the sgr0 (termcap
130 "me") string that does not reset line-drawing.
131 * cells in the WINDOW which are continuations of a multicolumn
132 character are encoded differently, making repainting more
134 * amend change to setupterm() in ncurses 5.4 (20030405) which would
135 reuse the value of cur_term if the same output was selected. This
136 now reuses it only when setupterm() is called from tgetent(),
137 which has no notion of separate SCREENs. Note that tgetent() must
138 be called after initscr() or newterm() to use this feature.
139 * make setcchar() now works when its wchar_t* parameter is pointing
140 to a string which contains more data than can be converted.
141 * win_wchnstr() now works for more than one cell.
142 * resizeterm() now processes all levels of window hierarchy.
143 * disable GPM mouse support when $TERM happens to be prefixed with
144 "xterm". Gpm_Open() would otherwise assert that it can deal with
145 mouse events in this case.
146 * add SP->_screen_acs_map[], used to ensure that mapping of missing
147 line-drawing characters is handled properly. For example,
148 ACS_DARROW is absent from xterm-new, and it was coincidentally
149 displayed the same as ACS_BTEE.
156 set compiler and linker flags to use largefile
160 Allow encoding of 256 foreground and background
161 colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
162 xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6
163 because it changes the size of cchar_t.
166 This defines NCURSES_MOUSE_VERSION 2, and modifies
167 the encoding of mouse events to support wheel mice,
168 which may transmit buttons 4 and 5. This works with
169 xterm and similar terminal emulators. This requires
170 ABI 6 because it changes the encoding of mouse
174 overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of chtype
177 overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of mmask_t
180 Installs "xterm-old" as the "xterm" entry of the
183 + The --with-termlib option now accepts a value which sets the
184 name of the terminfo library. This would allow a packager to
185 build libtinfow.so renamed to coincide with libtinfo.so
186 + fixes/improvements for cross-compiling:
187 o suppress $suffix in misc/run_tic.sh when
188 cross-compiling. This allows cross-compiles to use the
189 host's tic program to handle the "make install.data"
191 o correct BUILD_CPPFLAGS substitution in
192 ncurses/Makefile.in, to allow cross-compiling from a
193 separate directory tree.
195 + add ifdef's for _LP64 in curses.h to avoid using wasteful
196 64-bits for chtype and mmask_t, but add configure option
197 --disable-lp64 in case anyone used that configuration.
198 + modify C++ binding to use some C internal functions to make
199 it compile properly on Solaris (and other platforms).
200 + remove check in newwin() that prevents allocating windows
201 that extend beyond the screen (Solaris does this).
202 + check for nl_langinfo(CODESET), use it if available. This
203 replaces ad hoc tests of environment variables to check if
204 the terminal is setup for UTF-8 encoding. Applications which
205 do not call setlocale() should be corrected, to make them
206 work properly with UTF-8 encoding.
207 In particular, applications which assume (and do not call
208 setlocale()) that Latin-1 codes are printable will no longer
209 work in a UTF-8 locale since the ad hoc check of environment
210 variables to see if the locale was UTF-8 is not used when
211 nl_langinfo(CODESET) is available.
212 + use setlocale() to query the program's current locale rather
213 than using getenv(). This supports applications which rely
214 upon legacy treatment of 8-bit characters when the locale is
219 The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4)
221 * All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are
223 * Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping,
224 color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic
225 recognition of keypad and function keys.
226 * An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting a stack of
227 windows with backing store, is included.
228 * An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting a uniform but
229 flexible interface for menu programming, is included.
230 * An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting data collection
231 through on-screen forms, is included.
232 * Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1)
233 implementation are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format
235 * The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo entries
236 for use with less capable curses/terminfo versions such as the
239 The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4:
240 * The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN
241 curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE
242 level features, but not all EXTENDED features). Most
243 EXTENDED-level features not directly concerned with wide-character
244 support are implemented, including many function calls not
245 supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of all calls is
246 documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only).
247 * Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost
248 corner of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character
250 * Ada95 and C++ bindings.
251 * Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and OS/2
253 * Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package.
254 * The function wresize() allows you to resize windows, preserving
256 * The function use_default_colors() allows you to use the terminal's
257 default colors for the default color pair, achieving the effect of
259 * The functions keyok() and define_key() allow you to better control
260 the use of function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE,
261 or by defining more than one control sequence to map to a given
263 * Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 xterm.
264 * Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a
265 cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's
267 * Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code
268 incorporates a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables it
269 to make optimal use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion, and
270 line-deletion for screen-line movements. This algorithm is more
271 powerful than the 4.4BSD curses quickch() routine.
272 * Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch. The
273 screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if the
274 magic- cookie unattributed spaces required just before the
275 beginning and after the end would step on a non-space character.
276 It will automatically shift highlight boundaries when doing so
277 would make it possible to draw the highlight without changing the
278 visual appearance of the screen.
279 * It is possible to generate the library with a list of pre-loaded
280 fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve those terminal
281 types even when no terminfo tree or termcap file is accessible
282 (this may be useful for support of screen-oriented programs that
283 must run in single-user mode).
284 * The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the ability
285 to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and AT&T extension
287 * A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided.
288 * The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read terminfo
289 entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that
290 directory if it exists and the user has no write access to the
291 system directory. This feature makes it easier for users to have
292 personal terminfo entries without giving up access to the system
294 * You may specify a path of directories to search for compiled
295 descriptions with the environment variable TERMINFO_DIRS (this
296 generalizes the feature provided by TERMINFO under stock System
298 * In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not just to
299 other entries in the same source file (as in System V) but also to
300 compiled entries in either the system terminfo directory or the
301 user's $HOME/.terminfo directory.
302 * A script (capconvert) is provided to help BSD users transition
303 from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the information in a TERMCAP
304 environment variable and/or a ~/.termcap local entries file and
305 converts it to an equivalent local terminfo tree under
307 * Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled in
308 when it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This feature is
309 neither fast nor cheap, you don't want to use it unless you have
311 * The table-of-entries utility toe makes it easy for users to see
312 exactly what terminal types are available on the system.
313 * The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro entry point
314 have a corresponding function which may be linked (and will be
315 prototype-checked) if the macro definition is disabled with
317 * An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document
318 provides a narrative introduction to the curses programming
323 Numerous bugs present in earlier versions have been fixed; the library
324 is far more reliable than it used to be. Bounds checking in many
325 `dangerous' entry points has been improved. The code is now type-safe
326 according to gcc -Wall. The library has been checked for malloc leaks
327 and arena corruption by the Purify memory-allocation tester.
329 The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of applications
330 including (versions starting with those noted):
333 Curses Development Kit
334 [3]http://invisible-island.net/cdk/
335 [4]http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/
339 [5]http://invisible-island.net/ded/
342 the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the
343 basis for similar applications on GNU/Linux.
344 [6]http://invisible-island.net/dialog/
347 the character-screen WWW browser
348 [7]http://lynx.isc.org/release/
352 [8]http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/
356 [9]http://www.mutt.org/
359 file-transfer utility
360 [10]http://www.ncftp.com/
363 New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7 and
365 [11]http://www.bostic.com/vi/
368 Lynx-like info browser.
369 [12]http://dione.ids.pl/~pborys/software/pinfo/
372 newsreader, supporting color, MIME [13]http://www.tin.org/
375 Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File
376 [14]http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html
378 as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
382 [15]http://www.netsonic.fi/~walker/minicom.html
386 [16]http://invisible-island.net/vile/
388 The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs
389 (including a few games).
391 Who's Who and What's What
393 Zeyd Ben-Halim started it from a previous package pcurses, written by
394 Pavel Curtis. Eric S. Raymond continued development. Jürgen Pfeifer
395 wrote most of the form and menu libraries. Ongoing work is being done
396 by [17]Thomas Dickey. Thomas Dickey acts as the maintainer for the
397 Free Software Foundation, which holds the copyright on ncurses.
398 Contact the current maintainers at [18]bug-ncurses@gnu.org.
400 To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
401 bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org containing the line:
402 subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
404 This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development
405 and testing of this package.
407 Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made
408 available at [19]ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ .
412 * Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization
414 * Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows.
416 We need people to help with these projects. If you are interested in
417 working on them, please join the ncurses list.
419 Other Related Resources
421 The distribution provides a newer version of the terminfo-format
422 terminal description file maintained by [20]Eric Raymond . Unlike the
423 older version, the termcap and terminfo data are provided in the same
426 You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not
427 covered in the terminfo file at [21]Richard Shuford's archive .
431 1. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/
432 2. ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/
433 3. http://invisible-island.net/cdk/
434 4. http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/
435 5. http://invisible-island.net/ded/
436 6. http://invisible-island.net/dialog/
437 7. http://lynx.isc.org/release/
438 8. http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/
439 9. http://www.mutt.org/
440 10. http://www.ncftp.com/
441 11. http://www.bostic.com/vi/
442 12. http://dione.ids.pl/~pborys/software/pinfo/
443 13. http://www.tin.org/
444 14. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html
445 15. http://www.netsonic.fi/~walker/minicom.html
446 16. http://invisible-island.net/vile/
447 17. mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net
448 18. mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org
449 19. ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/
450 20. http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/
451 21. http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html