1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 -- Copyright (c) 1998-2005,2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. --
4 -- Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a --
5 -- copy of this software and associated documentation files (the --
6 -- "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including --
7 -- without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, --
8 -- distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell copies --
9 -- of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished --
10 -- to do so, subject to the following conditions: --
12 -- The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included --
13 -- in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. --
15 -- THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS --
16 -- OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF --
17 -- MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN --
18 -- NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, --
19 -- DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR --
20 -- OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE --
21 -- USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. --
23 -- Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright --
24 -- holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the --
25 -- sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written --
27 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
28 -- $Id: INSTALL,v 1.119 2007/07/28 19:56:35 tom Exp $
29 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
30 How to install Ncurses/Terminfo on your system
31 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
33 ************************************************************
34 * READ ALL OF THIS FILE BEFORE YOU TRY TO INSTALL NCURSES. *
35 ************************************************************
37 You should be reading the file INSTALL in a directory called ncurses-d.d, where
38 d.d is the current version number. There should be several subdirectories,
39 including `c++', `form', `man', `menu', 'misc', `ncurses', `panel', `progs',
40 and `test'. See the README file for a roadmap to the package.
42 If you are a Linux or FreeBSD or NetBSD distribution integrator or packager,
43 please read and act on the section titled IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR
46 If you are converting from BSD curses and do not have root access, be sure
47 to read the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below.
49 If you are trying to build applications using gpm with ncurses,
50 read the USING NCURSES WITH GPM section below.
52 If you are running over the Andrew File System see the note below on
53 USING NCURSES WITH AFS.
55 If you are cross-compiling, see the note below on BUILDING NCURSES WITH A
58 If you want to build the Ada95 binding, go to the Ada95 directory and
59 follow the instructions there. The Ada95 binding is not covered below.
61 If you are using anything but (a) Linux, or (b) one of the 4.4BSD-based
62 i386 Unixes, go read the Portability section in the TO-DO file before you
69 You will need the following to build and install ncurses under UNIX:
71 * ANSI C compiler (gcc, for instance)
73 * awk (mawk or gawk will do)
75 * BSD or System V style install (a script is enclosed)
77 Ncurses has been also built in the OS/2 EMX environment.
80 INSTALLATION PROCEDURE:
81 ----------------------
83 1. First, decide whether you want ncurses to replace your existing library (in
84 which case you'll need super-user privileges) or be installed in parallel
87 The --prefix option to configure changes the root directory for installing
88 ncurses. The default is normally in subdirectories of /usr/local, except
89 for systems where ncurses is normally installed as a system library, e.g.,
90 Linux, the various BSD systems and Cygwin. Use --prefix=/usr to replace
91 your default curses distribution.
93 The package gets installed beneath the --prefix directory as follows:
95 In $(prefix)/bin: tic, infocmp, captoinfo, tset,
96 reset, clear, tput, toe
97 In $(prefix)/lib: libncurses*.* libcurses.a
98 In $(prefix)/share/terminfo: compiled terminal descriptions
99 In $(prefix)/include: C header files
100 Under $(prefix)/man: the manual pages
102 Note that the configure script attempts to locate previous installation of
103 ncurses, and will set the default prefix according to where it finds the
106 Do not use commands such as
108 make install prefix=XXX
110 to change the prefix after configuration, since the prefix value is used
111 for some absolute pathnames such as TERMINFO. Instead do this
113 make install DESTDIR=XXX
115 See also the discussion of --with-install-prefix.
117 2. Type `./configure' in the top-level directory of the distribution to
118 configure ncurses for your operating system and create the Makefiles.
119 Besides --prefix, various configuration options are available to customize
120 the installation; use `./configure --help' to list the available options.
122 If your operating system is not supported, read the PORTABILITY section in
123 the file ncurses/README for information on how to create a configuration
124 file for your system.
126 The `configure' script generates makefile rules for one or more object
127 models and their associated libraries:
129 libncurses.a (normal)
131 libcurses.a (normal, a link to libncurses.a)
132 This gets left out if you configure with --disable-overwrite.
134 libncurses.so (shared)
136 libncurses_g.a (debug)
138 libncurses_p.a (profile)
140 libncurses.la (libtool)
142 If you configure using the --enable-widec option, a "w" is appended to the
143 library names (e.g., libncursesw.a), and the resulting libraries support
144 wide-characters, e.g., via a UTF-8 locale. The corresponding header files
145 are compatible with the non-wide-character configuration; wide-character
146 features are provided by ifdef's in the header files. The wide-character
147 library interfaces are not binary-compatible with the non-wide-character
148 version. Building and running the wide-character code relies on a fairly
149 recent implementation of libiconv. We have built this configuration on
150 Linux using libiconv, sometimes requiring libutf8.
152 If you do not specify any models, the normal and debug libraries will be
153 configured. Typing `configure' with no arguments is equivalent to:
155 ./configure --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
159 ./configure --with-shared
161 makes the shared libraries the default, resulting in
163 ./configure --with-shared --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
165 If you want only shared libraries, type
167 ./configure --with-shared --without-normal --without-debug
169 Rules for generating shared libraries are highly dependent upon the choice
170 of host system and compiler. We've been testing shared libraries on Linux
171 and SunOS with gcc, but more work needs to be done to make shared libraries
172 work on other systems.
174 If you have libtool installed, you can type
176 ./configure --with-libtool
178 to generate the appropriate static and/or shared libraries for your
179 platform using libtool.
181 You can make curses and terminfo fall back to an existing file of termcap
182 definitions by configuring with --enable-termcap. If you do this, the
183 library will search /etc/termcap before the terminfo database, and will
184 also interpret the contents of the TERM environment variable. See the
185 section BSD CONVERSION NOTES below.
187 3. Type `make'. Ignore any warnings, no error messages should be produced.
188 This should compile the ncurses library, the terminfo compiler tic(1),
189 captoinfo(1), infocmp(1), toe(1), clear(1) tset(1), reset(1), and tput(1)
190 programs (see the manual pages for explanation of what they do), some test
191 programs, and the panels, menus, and forms libraries.
193 4. Run ncurses and several other test programs in the test directory to
194 verify that ncurses functions correctly before doing an install that
195 may overwrite system files. Read the file test/README for details on
198 NOTE: You must have installed the terminfo database, or set the
199 environment variable $TERMINFO to point to a SVr4-compatible terminfo
200 database before running the test programs. Not all vendors' terminfo
201 databases are SVr4-compatible, but most seem to be. Exceptions include
202 DEC's Digital Unix (formerly known as OSF/1).
204 If you run the test programs WITHOUT installing terminfo, ncurses may
205 read the termcap file and cache that in $HOME/.terminfo, which will
206 thereafter be used instead of the terminfo database. See the comments
207 on "--enable-getcap-cache", to see why this is a Bad Thing.
209 It is possible to configure ncurses to use other terminfo database formats.
210 A few are provided as examples in the include-directory (see --with-caps).
212 The ncurses program is designed specifically to test the ncurses library.
213 You can use it to verify that the screen highlights work correctly, that
214 cursor addressing and window scrolling works OK, etc.
216 5. Once you've tested, you can type `make install' to install libraries,
217 the programs, the terminfo database and the manual pages. Alternately, you
218 can type `make install' in each directory you want to install. In the
219 top-level directory, you can do a partial install using these commands:
221 'make install.progs' installs tic, infocmp, etc...
222 'make install.includes' installs the headers.
223 'make install.libs' installs the libraries (and the headers).
224 'make install.data' installs the terminfo data. (Note: `tic' must
225 be installed before the terminfo data can be
227 'make install.man' installs the manual pages.
229 ############################################################################
230 # CAVEAT EMPTOR: `install.data' run as root will NUKE any existing #
231 # terminfo database. If you have any custom or unusual entries SAVE them #
232 # before you install ncurses. I have a file called terminfo.custom for #
233 # this purpose. Don't forget to run tic on the file once you're done. #
234 ############################################################################
236 The terminfo(5) manual page must be preprocessed with tbl(1) before
237 being formatted by nroff(1). Modern man(1) implementations tend to do
238 this by default, but you may want to look at your version's manual page
239 to be sure. You may also install the manual pages after preprocessing
240 with tbl(1) by specifying the configure option --with-manpage-tbl.
242 If the system already has a curses library that you need to keep using
243 you'll need to distinguish between it and ncurses. See the discussion of
244 --disable-overwrite. If ncurses is installed outside the standard
245 directories (/usr/include and /usr/lib) then all your users will need to
246 use the -I option to compile programs and -L to link them.
248 If you have another curses installed in your system and you accidentally
249 compile using its curses.h you'll end up with a large number of
250 undefined symbols at link time.
252 IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ROOT: Change directory to the `progs' subdirectory
253 and run the `capconvert' script. This script will deduce various things
254 about your environment and use them to build you a private terminfo tree,
255 so you can use ncurses applications.
257 If more than one user at your site does this, the space for the duplicate
258 trees is wasted. Try to get your site administrators to install a system-
259 wide terminfo tree instead.
261 See the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below for a few more details.
263 6. The c++ directory has C++ classes that are built on top of ncurses and
264 panels. You must have c++ (and its libraries) installed before you can
265 compile and run the demo.
267 Use --without-cxx-binding to tell configure to not build the C++ bindings
270 If you do not have C++, you must use the --without-cxx option to tell
271 the configure script to not attempt to determine the type of 'bool'
272 which may be supported by C++. IF YOU USE THIS OPTION, BE ADVISED THAT
273 YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO COMPILE (OR RUN) NCURSES APPLICATIONS WITH C++.
276 SUMMARY OF CONFIGURE OPTIONS:
277 ----------------------------
279 The configure script provides a short list of its options when you type
283 The --help and several options are common to all configure scripts that are
284 generated with autoconf. Those are all listed before the line
286 --enable and --with options recognized:
288 The other options are specific to this package. We list them in alphabetic
291 --disable-assumed-color
292 With ncurses 5.1, we introduced a new function, assume_default_colors()
293 which allows applications to specify what the default foreground and
294 background color are assumed to be. Most color applications use
295 full-screen color; but a few do not color the background. While the
296 assumed values can be overridden by invoking assume_default_colors(),
297 you may find it useful to set the assumed values to the pre-5.1
298 convention, using this configure option.
301 Assume machine has little memory. The configure script attempts to
302 determine if your machine has enough memory (about 6Mb) to compile the
303 terminfo database without writing portions to disk. Some allocators
304 return deceptive results, so you may have to override the configure
305 script. Or you may be building tic for a smaller machine.
307 --disable-big-strings
308 Disable compile-time optimization of predefined tables which puts
309 all of their strings into a very long string, to reduce relocation
313 Use only built-in data. The ncurses libraries normally read terminfo
314 and termcap data from disk. You can configure ncurses to have a
315 built-in database, aka "fallback" entries. Embedded applications may
316 have no need for an external database. Some, but not all of the
317 programs are useful in this configuration, e.g., reset and tput versus
321 Disable function-extensions. Configure ncurses without the functions
322 that are not specified by XSI. See ncurses/modules for the exact
323 list of library modules that would be suppressed.
326 Compile without hashmap scrolling-optimization code. This algorithm is
329 --disable-home-terminfo
330 The $HOME/.terminfo directory is normally added to ncurses' search
331 list for reading/writing terminfo entries, since that directory is
332 more likely writable than the system terminfo database. Use this
333 option to disable the feature altogether.
336 Disable compiler flags needed to use large-file interfaces.
339 For testing, compile-in code that frees memory that normally would not
340 be freed, to simplify analysis of memory-leaks.
342 Any implementation of curses must not free the memory associated with
343 a screen, since (even after calling endwin()), it must be available
344 for use in the next call to refresh(). There are also chunks of
345 memory held for performance reasons. That makes it hard to analyze
346 curses applications for memory leaks. To work around this, build
347 a debugging version of the ncurses library which frees those chunks
348 which it can, and provides the _nc_free_and_exit() function to free
349 the remainder on exit. The ncurses utility and test programs use this
350 feature, e.g., via the ExitProgram() macro.
353 The header files will ignore use of the _LP64 symbol to make chtype
354 and mmask_t types 32 bits (they may be long on 64-bit hosts, for
355 compatibility with older releases).
357 NOTE: this is potentially an ABI change, depending on existing
358 packages. The default for this option is "disabled" for ncurses
359 ABI 5, and "enabled" for ABI 6.
362 For testing, use functions rather than macros. The program will run
363 more slowly, but it is simpler to debug. This defines NCURSES_NOMACROS
364 at build time. See also the --enable-expanded option.
367 If you are installing ncurses on a system which contains another
368 development version of curses, or which could be confused by the loader
369 for another version, we recommend that you leave out the link to
370 -lcurses. The ncurses library is always available as -lncurses.
371 Disabling overwrite also causes the ncurses header files to be
372 installed into a subdirectory, e.g., /usr/local/include/ncurses,
373 rather than the include directory. This makes it simpler to avoid
374 compile-time conflicts with other versions of curses.h
377 If --enable-rpath is given, the generated makefiles normally will
378 rebuild the libraries during install. Use this option to simply
379 copy whatever the linked produced.
381 This option is ignored if --enable-rpath is not given.
383 --disable-root-environ
384 Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment variables
385 are not available when running as root, or via a setuid/setgid
386 application. These are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow the
387 search path for the terminfo or termcap entry to be customized.
389 --disable-scroll-hints
390 Compile without scroll-hints code. This option is ignored when
391 hashmap scrolling is configured, which is the default.
393 --disable-tparm-varargs
394 Portable programs should call tparm() using the fixed-length parameter
395 list documented in X/Open. ncurses provides varargs support for this
396 function. Use --disable-tparm-varargs to disable this support.
399 For testing, compile-in assertion code. This is used only for a few
400 places where ncurses cannot easily recover by returning an error code.
402 --enable-broken_linker
403 A few platforms have what we consider a broken linker: it cannot link
404 objects from an archive solely by referring to data objects in those
405 files, but requires a function reference. This configure option
406 changes several data references to functions to work around this
409 NOTE: With ncurses 5.1, this may not be necessary, since we are
410 told that some linkers interpret uninitialized global data as a
411 different type of reference which behaves as described above. We have
412 explicitly initialized all of the global data to work around the
416 Recognize BSD-style prefix padding. Some ancient BSD programs (such as
417 nethack) call tputs("50") to implement delays.
420 Compile with experimental $COLORFGBG code. That environment variable
421 is set by some terminal emulators as a hint to applications, by
422 advertising the default foreground and background colors. During
423 initialization, ncurses sets color pair 0 to match this.
426 The curses interface as documented in XSI is rather old, in fact
427 including features that precede ANSI C. The prototypes generally do
428 not make effective use of "const". When using stricter compilers (or
429 gcc with appropriate warnings), you may see warnings about the mismatch
430 between const and non-const data. We provide a configure option which
431 changes the interfaces to use const - quieting these warnings and
432 reflecting the actual use of the parameters more closely. The ncurses
433 library uses the symbol NCURSES_CONST for these instances of const,
434 and if you have asked for compiler warnings, will add gcc's const-qual
435 warning. There will still be warnings due to subtle inconsistencies
436 in the interface, but at a lower level.
438 NOTE: configuring ncurses with this option may detract from the
439 portability of your applications by encouraging you to use const in
440 places where the XSI curses interface would not allow them. Similar
441 issues arise when porting to SVr4 curses, which uses const in even
445 Use the option --disable-echo to make the build-log less verbose by
446 suppressing the display of the compile and link commands. This makes
447 it easier to see the compiler warnings. (You can always use "make -n"
448 to see the options that are used).
451 For testing, generate functions for certain macros to make them visible
452 as such to the debugger. See also the --disable-macros option.
455 Extend the cchar_t structure to allow more than 16 colors to be
456 encoded. This applies only to the wide-character (--enable-widec)
459 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
460 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
461 applications which have an array of cchar_t's must be recompiled.
464 Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th mouse button.
465 That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel mouse with xterm or
466 similar X terminal emulators.
468 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
469 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
470 applications which have mouse mask mmask_t's must be recompiled.
473 Use the 4.4BSD getcap code if available, or a bundled version of it to
474 fetch termcap entries. Entries read in this way cannot use (make
475 cross-references to) the terminfo tree, but it is faster than reading
478 If configured for one of the *BSD systems, this automatically uses
479 the hashed database system produced using cap_mkdb or similar tools.
480 In that case, there is no advantage in using the --enable-getcap-cache
483 See also the --with-hashed-db option.
485 --enable-getcap-cache
486 Cache translated termcaps under the directory $HOME/.terminfo
488 NOTE: this sounds good - it makes ncurses run faster the second time.
489 But look where the data comes from - an /etc/termcap containing lots of
490 entries that are not up to date. If you configure with this option and
491 forget to install the terminfo database before running an ncurses
492 application, you will end up with a hidden terminfo database that
493 generally does not support color and will miss some function keys.
496 Compile-in cursor-optimization code that uses hard-tabs. We would make
497 this a standard feature except for the concern that the terminfo entry
498 may not be accurate, or that your stty settings have disabled the use
502 Compile-in support for the $NCURSES_NO_PADDING environment variable,
503 which allows you to suppress the effect of non-mandatory padding in
504 terminfo entries. This is the default, unless you have disabled the
508 Compile experimental configuration which improves reentrant use of the
509 library by reducing global and static variables.
512 Use rpath option when generating shared libraries, and (with some
513 restrictions) when linking the corresponding programs. This originally
514 (in 1997) applied mainly to systems using the GNU linker (read the
517 More recently it is useful for systems that require special treatment
518 shared libraries in "unusual" locations. The "system" libraries reside
519 in directories which are on the loader's default search-path. While
520 you may be able to use workarounds such as the $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
521 environment variable, they do not work with setuid applications since
522 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable would be unset in that situation.
524 This option does not apply to --with-libtool, since libtool makes
525 extra assumptions about rpath.
527 --enable-safe-sprintf
528 Compile with experimental safe-sprintf code. You may consider using
529 this if you are building ncurses for a system that has neither
530 vsnprintf() or vsprintf(). It is slow, however.
533 Compile support for ncurses' SIGWINCH handler. If your application has
534 its own SIGWINCH handler, ncurses will not use its own. The ncurses
535 handler causes wgetch() to return KEY_RESIZE when the screen-size
536 changes. This option is the default, unless you have disabled the
540 The term.h header declares a Booleans[] array typed "char". But it
541 stores signed values there and "char" is not necessarily signed.
542 Some packagers choose to alter the type of Booleans[] though this
543 is not strictly compatible. This option allows one to implement this
544 alteration without patching the source code.
547 If your system supports symbolic links, make tic use symbolic links
548 rather than hard links to save diskspace when writing aliases in the
552 Compile-in support for user-definable terminal capabilities. Use the
553 -x option of tic and infocmp to treat unrecognized terminal
554 capabilities as user-defined strings. This option is the default,
555 unless you have disabled the extended functions.
558 Compile in support for reading terminal descriptions from termcap if no
559 match is found in the terminfo database. See also the --enable-getcap
560 and --enable-getcap-cache options.
563 Turn on GCC compiler warnings. There should be only a few.
565 --enable-wgetch-events
566 Compile with experimental wgetch-events code. See ncurses/README.IZ
569 Compile with wide-character code. This makes a different version of
570 the libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so), which stores characters as
573 NOTE: applications compiled with this configuration are not compatible
574 with those built for 8-bit characters. You cannot simply make a
575 symbolic link to equate libncurses.so with libncursesw.so
577 NOTE: the Ada95 binding may be built against either version of the the
578 ncurses library, but you must decide which: the binding installs the
579 same set of files for either version. Currently (2002/6/22) it does
580 not use the extended features from the wide-character code, so it is
581 probably better to not install the binding for that configuration.
584 Compile-in support experimental xmc (magic cookie) code.
586 --with-abi-version=NUM
587 Override the ABI version, which is used in shared library filenames.
588 Normally this is the same as the release version; some ports have
589 special requirements for compatibility.
591 --with-ada-compiler=CMD
592 Specify the Ada95 compiler command (default "gnatmake")
594 --with-ada-include=DIR
595 Tell where to install the Ada includes (default:
596 PREFIX/lib/ada/adainclude)
598 --with-ada-objects=DIR
599 Tell where to install the Ada objects (default: PREFIX/lib/ada/adalib)
602 If --without-cxx is specified, override the type used for the "bool"
603 declared in curses.h (normally the type is automatically chosen to
604 correspond with that in <stdbool.h>, or defaults to platform-specific
608 If cross-compiling, specify a host C compiler, which is needed to
609 compile a few utilities which generate source modules for ncurses.
610 If you do not give this option, the configure script checks if the
611 $BUILD_CC variable is set, and otherwise defaults to gcc or cc.
613 --with-build-cflags=XXX
614 If cross-compiling, specify the host C compiler-flags. You might need
615 to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse the
618 --with-build-cppflags=XXX
619 If cross-compiling, specify the host C preprocessor-flags. You might
620 need to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse
623 --with-build-ldflags=XXX
624 If cross-compiling, specify the host linker-flags. You might need to
625 do this if the target linker has unusual flags which confuse the host
628 --with-build-libs=XXX
629 If cross-compiling, the host libraries. You might need to do this if
630 the target environment requires unusual libraries.
633 Specify an alternate terminfo capabilities file, which makes the
634 configure script look for "include/Caps.XXX". A few systems, e.g.,
635 AIX 4.x use the same overall file-format as ncurses for terminfo
636 data, but use different alignments within the tables to support
637 legacy applications. For those systems, you can configure ncurses
638 to use a terminfo database which is compatible with the native
642 Override type of chtype, which stores the video attributes and (if
643 --enable-widec is not given) a character. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this
644 was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it may be unsigned.
645 Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility with 64-bit
649 Specify the terminfo source file to install. Usually you will wish
650 to install ncurses' default (misc/terminfo.src). Certain systems
651 have special requirements, e.g, OS/2 EMX has a customized terminfo
655 For testing, compile and link with Conor Cahill's dbmalloc library.
656 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
659 Generate debug-libraries (default). These are named by adding "_g"
660 to the root, e.g., libncurses_g.a
662 --with-default-terminfo-dir=XXX
663 Specify the default terminfo database directory. This is normally
664 DATADIR/terminfo, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo.
667 For testing, compile and link with Gray Watson's dmalloc library.
668 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
671 Specify a list of fallback terminal descriptions which will be
672 compiled into the ncurses library. See CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES.
675 use Alessandro Rubini's GPM library to provide mouse support on the
676 Linux console. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this introduced a dependency on
679 Currently ncurses uses the dlsym() function to bind to the library at
680 runtime, so it is only necessary that the library be present when
681 ncurses is built, to obtain the filename (or soname) used in the
682 corresponding dlopen() call. If you give a value for this option,
685 --with-gpm=$HOME/tmp/test-gpm.so
687 that overrides the configure check for the soname.
689 See also --without-dlsym
692 Use a hashed database for storing terminfo data rather than storing
693 each compiled entry in a separate binary file within a directory
696 If you use this option for configuring ncurses, tic will only be able
697 to write entries in the hashed database. infocmp can still read
698 entries from a directory tree as well as reading entries from the
699 hashed database. To do this, infocmp determines whether the $TERMINFO
700 variable points to a directory or a file, and reads the directory-tree
701 or hashed database respectively.
703 You cannot have a directory containing both hashed-database and
704 filesystem-based terminfo entries.
706 See also the --enable-getcap option.
708 --with-install-prefix=XXX
709 Allows you to specify an alternate location for installing ncurses
710 after building it. The value you specify is prepended to the "real"
711 install location. This simplifies making binary packages. The
712 makefile variable DESTDIR is set by this option. It is also possible
714 make install DESTDIR=XXX
715 since the makefiles pass that variable to subordinate makes.
717 NOTE: a few systems build shared libraries with fixed pathnames; this
718 option probably will not work for those configurations.
721 Generate libraries with libtool. If this option is selected, then it
722 overrides all other library model specifications. Note that libtool
723 must already be installed, uses makefile rules dependent on GNU make,
724 and does not promise to follow the version numbering convention of
725 other shared libraries on your system. However, if the --with-shared
726 option does not succeed, you may get better results with this option.
728 If a parameter value is given, it must be the full pathname of the
729 particular version of libtool, e.g.,
730 /usr/bin/libtool-1.2.3
732 It is possible to rebuild the configure script to use the automake
733 macros for libtool, e.g., AC_PROG_LIBTOOL. See the comments in
734 aclocal.m4 for CF_PROG_LIBTOOL, and ensure that you build configure
735 using the appropriate patch for autoconf from
736 http://invisible-island.net/autoconf/
738 --with-manpage-aliases
739 Tell the configure script you wish to create entries in the
740 man-directory for aliases to manpages which list them, e.g., the
741 functions in the panel manpage. This is the default. You can disable
742 it if your man program does this. You can also disable
743 --with-manpage-symlinks to install files containing a ".so" command
744 rather than symbolic links.
746 --with-manpage-format=XXX
747 Tell the configure script how you would like to install man-pages. The
748 option value must be one of these: gzip, compress, BSDI, normal,
749 formatted. If you do not give this option, the configure script
750 attempts to determine which is the case.
752 --with-manpage-renames=XXX
753 Tell the configure script that you wish to rename the manpages while
754 installing. Currently the only distribution which does this is
755 the Linux Debian. The option value specifies the name of a file
756 that lists the renamed files, e.g., $srcdir/man/man_db.renames
758 --with-manpage-symlinks
759 Tell the configure script that you wish to make symbolic links in the
760 man-directory for aliases to the man-pages. This is the default, but
761 can be disabled for systems that provide this automatically. Doing
762 this on systems that do not support symbolic links will result in
763 copying the man-page for each alias.
766 Tell the configure script that you with to preprocess the manpages
767 by running them through tbl to generate tables understandable by
771 Override type of mmask_t, which stores the mouse mask. Prior to
772 ncurses 5.5, this was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it
773 may be unsigned. Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility
774 with 64-bit executables.
777 Override type of ospeed variable, which is part of the termcap
778 compatibility interface. In termcap, this is a 'short', which works
779 for a wide range of baudrates because ospeed is not the actual speed
780 but the encoded value, e.g., B9600 would be a small number such as 13.
781 However the encoding scheme originally allowed for values "only" up to
782 38400bd. A newer set of definitions past 38400bd is not encoded as
783 compactly, and is not guaranteed to fit into a short (see the function
784 cfgetospeed(), which returns a speed_t for this reason). In practice,
785 applications that required knowledge of the ospeed variable, i.e.,
786 those using termcap, do not use the higher speeds. Your application
787 (or system, in general) may or may not.
790 Generate normal (i.e., static) libraries (default).
792 Note: on Linux, the configure script will attempt to use the GPM
793 library via the dlsym() function call. Use --without-dlsym to disable
794 this feature, or --without-gpm, depending on whether you wish to use
798 Generate profile-libraries These are named by adding "_p" to the root,
802 Compile-in RCS identifiers. Most of the C files have an identifier.
804 --with-rel-version=NUM
805 Override the release version, which may be used in shared library
806 filenames. This consists of a major and minor version number separated
807 by ".". Normally the major version number is the same as the ABI
808 version; some ports have special requirements for compatibility.
811 Generate shared-libraries. The names given depend on the system for
812 which you are building, typically using a ".so" suffix, along with
813 symbolic links that refer to the release version.
815 NOTE: Unless you override the configure script by setting the $CFLAGS
816 environment variable, these will not be built with the -g debugging
819 NOTE: For some configurations, e.g., installing a new version of
820 ncurses shared libraries on a machine which already has ncurses
821 shared libraries, you may encounter problems with the linker.
822 For example, it may prevent you from running the build tree's
823 copy of tic (for installing the terminfo database) because it
824 loads the system's copy of the ncurses shared libraries. In that
825 case, using the misc/shlib script may be helpful, since it sets
826 $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the build tree, e.g.,
827 ./misc/shlib make install
829 --with-shlib-version=XXX
830 Specify whether to use the release or ABI version for shared libraries.
831 This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of system
832 which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure script.
835 use FreeBSD sysmouse interface provide mouse support on the console.
837 --with-system-type=XXX
838 For testing, override the derived host system-type which is used to
839 decide things such as the linker commands used to build shared
840 libraries. This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of
841 system which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure
844 --with-terminfo-dirs=XXX
845 Specify a search-list of terminfo directories which will be compiled
846 into the ncurses library (default: DATADIR/terminfo)
849 When building the ncurses library, organize this as two parts: the
850 curses library (libncurses) and the low-level terminfo library
851 (libtinfo). This is done to accommodate applications that use only
852 the latter. The terminfo library is about half the size of the total.
854 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the terminfo
855 library. For instance, if the wide-character version is built, the
856 terminfo library would be named libtinfow. But the libtinfow interface
857 is upward compatible from libtinfo, so it would be possible to overlay
858 libtinfo.so with a "wide" version of libtinfow.so by renaming it with
862 Specify a search-list of termcap files which will be compiled into the
863 ncurses library (default: /etc/termcap:/usr/share/misc/termcap)
866 When building the ncurses library, build a separate library for
867 the modules that are used only by the utility programs. Normally
868 those would be bundled with the termlib or ncurses libraries.
870 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the tic
871 library. As in termlib, there is no ABI difference between the
872 "wide" libticw.so and libtic.so
875 Configure the trace() function as part of the all models of the ncurses
876 library. Normally it is part of the debug (libncurses_g) library only.
879 For testing, compile with debug option.
880 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
883 Suppress the configure script's check for Ada95, do not build the
884 Ada95 binding and related demo.
887 Don't install the ncurses header with the name "curses.h". Rather,
888 install as "ncurses.h" and modify the installed headers and manpages
892 XSI curses declares "bool" as part of the interface. C++ also declares
893 "bool". Neither specifies the size and type of booleans, but both
894 insist on the same name. We chose to accommodate this by making the
895 configure script check for the size and type (e.g., unsigned or signed)
896 that your C++ compiler uses for booleans. If you do not wish to use
897 ncurses with C++, use this option to tell the configure script to not
898 adjust ncurses bool to match C++.
900 --without-cxx-binding
901 Suppress the configure script's check for C++, do not build the
902 C++ binding and related demo.
905 Disable development options. This does not include those that change
906 the interface, such as --enable-widec.
909 Do not use dlsym() to load GPM dynamically.
912 Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' application
913 programs (e.g., tic). The test applications will still be built if you
914 type "make", though not if you simply do "make install".
917 Tell the configure script to use "xterm-old" for the entry used in
918 the terminfo database. This will work with variations such as
919 X11R5 and X11R6 xterm.
922 COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER VERSIONS OF NCURSES:
923 --------------------------------------------
925 Because ncurses implements the X/Open Curses Specification, its interface
926 is fairly stable. That does not mean the interface does not change.
927 Changes are made to the documented interfaces when we find differences
928 between ncurses and X/Open or implementations which they certify (such as
929 Solaris). We add extensions to those interfaces to solve problems not
930 addressed by the original curses design, but those must not conflict with
931 the X/Open documentation.
933 Here are some of the major interface changes, and related problems which
934 you may encounter when building a system with different versions of
937 5.6 (December 17, 2006)
940 + generate linkable stubs for some macros:
942 getbegx, getbegy, getcurx, getcury, getmaxx, getmaxy, getparx,
945 and (for libncursesw)
953 Added internal functions:
967 Also (if using the hashed database configuration):
982 Removed internal functions:
985 Modified internal functions:
992 5.5 (October 10, 2005)
995 + terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
996 "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
998 + terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
999 still use ncurses 4.2).
1001 + modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing
1002 initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are
1003 still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old
1006 + form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data.
1007 Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the
1008 FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw, since
1009 that no longer points to an array of char. The set_field_buffer()
1010 and field_buffer() functions translate to/from the actual field
1013 + change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure that
1014 libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason for this
1015 is that the corresponding data which belongs to the upper-level
1016 ncurses library has a different size in each model.
1018 + winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
1019 wide-character configuration.
1021 + assume_default_colors() no longer requires that use_default_colors()
1024 + data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
1026 + slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
1027 multicolumn characters.
1029 + start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started.
1030 start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
1032 + pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if it
1033 corresponds to the default-color.
1035 + unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond
1036 to an unsigned char.
1039 Experimental mouse version 2 supports wheel mice with buttons
1040 4 and 5. This requires ABI 6 because it modifies the encoding
1043 Experimental extended colors allows encoding of 256 foreground
1044 and background colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
1045 xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6 because
1046 it changes the size of cchar_t.
1048 Added internal functions:
1052 _nc_retrace_cvoid_ptr
1053 _nc_retrace_void_ptr
1056 Removed internal functions:
1059 Modified internal functions:
1064 5.4 (February 8, 2004)
1067 + add the remaining functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1068 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1069 --enable-widec option.
1073 + write getyx() and related 2-return macros in terms of getcury(),
1076 + simplify ifdef for bool declaration in curses.h
1078 + modify ifdef's in curses.h that disabled use of __attribute__() for
1079 g++, since recent versions implement the cases which ncurses uses.
1081 + change some interfaces to use const:
1093 Added internal functions:
1096 _nc_is_charable() wide
1097 _nc_locale_breaks_acs()
1100 _nc_to_widechar() wide
1102 _nc_trace_bufcat() debug
1103 _nc_unicode_locale()
1105 Removed internal functions:
1109 Modified internal functions:
1111 _nc_retrace_chtype()
1113 5.3 (October 12, 2002)
1116 + change type for bool used in headers to NCURSES_BOOL, which usually
1117 is the same as the compiler's definition for 'bool'.
1119 + add all but two functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1120 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1121 --enable-widec option. Missing functions are
1125 + add environment variable $NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS to modify the
1126 assume_default_colors() extension.
1132 Added internal functions:
1133 _nc_altcharset_name() debug
1135 _nc_retrace_bool() debug
1136 _nc_retrace_unsigned() debug
1138 _nc_trace_ttymode() debug
1143 Removed internal functions:
1146 Modified internal functions:
1149 5.2 (October 21, 2000)
1152 + revert termcap ospeed variable to 'short' (see discussion of the
1153 --with-ospeed configure option).
1158 + made the extended terminal capabilities
1159 (configure --enable-tcap-names) a standard feature. This should
1160 be transparent to applications that do not require it.
1162 + removed the trace() function and related trace support from the
1165 + modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict
1168 Added extensions: assume_default_colors().
1170 5.0 (October 23, 1999)
1173 + implemented the wcolor_set() and slk_color() functions.
1175 + move macro winch to a function, to hide details of struct ldat
1177 + corrected prototypes for slk_* functions, using chtype rather than
1180 + the slk_attr_{set,off,on} functions need an additional void*
1181 parameter according to XSI.
1183 + modified several prototypes to correspond with 1997 version of X/Open
1184 Curses: [w]attr_get(), [w]attr_set(), border_set() have different
1185 parameters. Some functions were renamed or misspelled:
1186 erase_wchar(), in_wchntr(), mvin_wchntr(). Some developers have used
1189 Added extensions: keybound(), curses_version().
1191 Terminfo database changes:
1193 + change translation for termcap 'rs' to terminfo 'rs2', which is
1194 the documented equivalent, rather than 'rs1'.
1196 The problems are subtler in recent releases.
1198 a) This release provides users with the ability to define their own
1199 terminal capability extensions, like termcap. To accomplish this,
1200 we redesigned the TERMTYPE struct (in term.h). Very few
1201 applications use this struct. They must be recompiled to work with
1204 a) If you use the extended terminfo names (i.e., you used configure
1205 --enable-tcap-names), the resulting terminfo database can have some
1206 entries which are not readable by older versions of ncurses. This
1207 is a bug in the older versions:
1209 + the terminfo database stores booleans, numbers and strings in
1210 arrays. The capabilities that are listed in the arrays are
1211 specified by X/Open. ncurses recognizes a number of obsolete and
1212 extended names which are stored past the end of the specified
1215 + a change to read_entry.c in 951001 made the library do an lseek()
1216 call incorrectly skipping data which is already read from the
1217 string array. This happens when the number of strings in the
1218 terminfo data file is greater than STRCOUNT, the number of
1219 specified and obsolete or extended strings.
1221 + as part of alignment with the X/Open final specification, in the
1222 990109 patch we added two new terminfo capabilities:
1223 set_a_attributes and set_pglen_inch). This makes the indices for
1224 the obsolete and extended capabilities shift up by 2.
1226 + the last two capabilities in the obsolete/extended list are memu
1227 and meml, which are found in most terminfo descriptions for xterm.
1229 When trying to read this terminfo entry, the spurious lseek()
1230 causes the library to attempt to read the final portion of the
1231 terminfo data (the text of the string capabilities) 4 characters
1232 past its starting point, and reads 4 characters too few. The
1233 library rejects the data, and applications are unable to
1234 initialize that terminal type.
1236 FIX: remove memu and meml from the xterm description. They are
1237 obsolete, not used by ncurses. (It appears that the feature was
1238 added to xterm to make it more like hpterm).
1240 This is not a problem if you do not use the -x option of tic to
1241 create a terminfo database with extended names. Note that the
1242 user-defined terminal capabilities are not affected by this bug,
1243 since they are stored in a table after the older terminfo data ends,
1244 and are invisible to the older libraries.
1246 c) Some developers did not wish to use the C++ binding, and used the
1247 configure --without-cxx option. This causes problems if someone
1248 uses the ncurses library from C++ because that configure test
1249 determines the type for C++'s bool and makes ncurses match it, since
1250 both C++ and curses are specified to declare bool. Calling ncurses
1251 functions with the incorrect type for bool will cause execution
1252 errors. In 5.0 we added a configure option "--without-cxx-binding"
1253 which controls whether the binding itself is built and installed.
1258 + correct prototype for termattrs() as per XPG4 version 2.
1260 + add placeholder prototypes for color_set(), erasewchar(),
1261 term_attrs(), wcolor_set() as per XPG4 version 2.
1263 + add macros getcur[xy] getbeg[xy] getpar[xy], which are defined in
1266 New extensions: keyok() and define_key().
1268 Terminfo database changes:
1270 + corrected definition in curses.h for ACS_LANTERN, which was 'I'
1275 We added these extensions: use_default_colors(). Also added
1276 configure option --enable-const, to support the use of const where
1277 X/Open should have, but did not, specify.
1279 The terminfo database content changed the representation of color for
1280 most entries that use ANSI colors. SVr4 curses treats the setaf/setab
1281 and setf/setb capabilities differently, interchanging the red/blue
1282 colors in the latter.
1284 4.0 (December 24, 1996)
1286 We bumped to version 4.0 because the newly released dynamic loader
1287 (ld.so.1.8.5) on Linux did not load shared libraries whose ABI and REL
1288 versions were inconsistent. At that point, ncurses ABI was 3.4 and the
1289 REL was 1.9.9g, so we made them consistent.
1291 1.9.9g (December 1, 1996)
1293 This fixed most of the problems with 1.9.9e, and made these interface
1296 + remove tparam(), which had been provided for compatibility with
1297 some termcap. tparm() is standard, and does not conflict with
1298 application's fallback for missing tparam().
1300 + turn off hardware echo in initscr(). This changes the sense of the
1301 echo() function, which was initialized to echoing rather than
1302 nonechoing (the latter is specified). There were several other
1303 corrections to the terminal I/O settings which cause applications to
1306 + implemented several functions (such as attr_on()) which were
1307 available only as macros.
1309 + corrected several typos in curses.h.in (i.e., the mvXXXX macros).
1311 + corrected prototypes for delay_output(),
1312 has_color, immedok() and idcok().
1314 + corrected misspelled getbkgd(). Some applications used the
1317 + added _yoffset to WINDOW. The size of WINDOW does not impact
1318 applications, since they use only pointers to WINDOW structs.
1320 These changes were made to the terminfo database:
1322 + removed boolean 'getm' which was available as an extended name.
1324 We added these extensions: wresize(), resizeterm(), has_key() and
1327 1.9.9e (March 24, 1996)
1329 not recommended (a last-minute/untested change left the forms and
1330 menus libraries unusable since they do not repaint the screen).
1331 Foreground/background colors are combined incorrectly, working properly
1332 only on a black background. When this was released, the X/Open
1333 specification was available only in draft form.
1335 Some applications (such as lxdialog) were "fixed" to work with the
1336 incorrect color scheme.
1339 IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR:
1340 ------------------------------
1342 Configuration and Installation:
1344 On platforms where ncurses is assumed to be installed in /usr/lib,
1345 the configure script uses "/usr" as a default:
1347 Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Cygwin
1349 For other platforms, the default is "/usr/local". See the discussion
1350 of the "--disable-overwrite" option.
1352 The location of the terminfo is set indirectly by the "--datadir"
1353 configure option, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo, given a datadir of
1354 /usr/share. You may want to override this if you are installing
1355 ncurses libraries in nonstandard locations, but wish to share the
1358 Normally the ncurses library is configured in a pure-terminfo mode;
1359 that is, with the --disable-termcap option. This makes the ncurses
1360 library smaller and faster. The ncurses library includes a termcap
1361 emulation that queries the terminfo database, so even applications that
1362 use raw termcap to query terminal characteristics will win (providing
1363 you recompile and relink them!).
1365 If you must configure with termcap fallback enabled, you may also wish
1366 to use the --enable-getcap option. This speeds up termcap-based
1367 startups, at the expense of not allowing personal termcap entries to
1368 reference the terminfo tree. See comments in
1369 ncurses/tinfo/read_termcap.c for further details.
1371 Note that if you have $TERMCAP set, ncurses will use that value
1372 to locate termcap data. In particular, running from xterm will
1373 set $TERMCAP to the contents of the xterm's termcap entry.
1374 If ncurses sees that, it will not examine /etc/termcap.
1378 The terminfo file assumes that Shift-Tab generates \E[Z (the ECMA-48
1379 reverse-tabulation sequence) rather than ^I. Here are the loadkeys -d
1380 mappings that will set this up:
1382 keycode 15 = Tab Tab
1383 alt keycode 15 = Meta_Tab
1384 shift keycode 15 = F26
1385 string F26 ="\033[Z"
1387 Naming the Console Terminal
1389 In various systems there has been a practice of designating the system
1390 console driver type as `console'. Please do not do this! It
1391 complicates peoples' lives, because it can mean that several different
1392 terminfo entries from different operating systems all logically want to
1393 be called `console'.
1395 Please pick a name unique to your console driver and set that up
1396 in the /etc/inittab table or local equivalent. Send the entry to the
1397 terminfo maintainer (listed in the misc/terminfo file) to be included
1398 in the terminfo file, if it's not already there. See the
1399 term(7) manual page included with this distribution for more on
1400 conventions for choosing type names.
1402 Here are some recommended primary console names:
1404 linux -- Linux console driver
1409 If you are responsible for integrating ncurses for one of these
1410 distribution, please either use the recommended name or get back
1411 to us explaining why you don't want to, so we can work out nomenclature
1412 that will make users' lives easier rather than harder.
1415 RECENT XTERM VERSIONS:
1416 ---------------------
1418 The terminfo database file included with this distribution assumes you
1419 are running a modern xterm based on XFree86 (i.e., xterm-new). The
1420 earlier X11R6 entry (xterm-r6) and X11R5 entry (xterm-r5) is provided
1421 as well. See the --without-xterm-new configure script option if you
1422 are unable to update your system.
1425 CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES:
1426 ----------------------------
1428 In order to support operation of ncurses programs before the terminfo
1429 tree is accessible (that is, in single-user mode or at OS installation
1430 time) the ncurses library can be compiled to include an array of
1431 pre-fetched fallback entries. This must be done on a machine which
1432 has ncurses' infocmp and terminfo database installed.
1434 These entries are checked by setupterm() only when the conventional
1435 fetches from the terminfo tree and the termcap fallback (if configured)
1436 have been tried and failed. Thus, the presence of a fallback will not
1437 shadow modifications to the on-disk entry for the same type, when that
1438 entry is accessible.
1440 By default, there are no entries on the fallback list. After you have
1441 built the ncurses suite for the first time, you can change the list
1442 (the process needs infocmp(1)). To do so, use the script
1443 ncurses/tinfo/MKfallback.sh. A configure script option
1444 --with-fallbacks does this (it accepts a comma-separated list of the
1445 names you wish, and does not require a rebuild).
1447 If you wanted (say) to have linux, vt100, and xterm fallbacks, you
1448 would use the commands
1451 tinfo/MKfallback.sh linux vt100 xterm >fallback.c
1453 Then just rebuild and reinstall the library as you would normally.
1454 You can restore the default empty fallback list with
1456 tinfo/MKfallback.sh >fallback.c
1458 The overhead for an empty fallback list is one trivial stub function.
1459 Any non-empty fallback list is const-ed and therefore lives in sharable
1460 text space. You can look at the comment trailing each initializer in
1461 the generated ncurses/fallback.c file to see the core cost of the
1462 fallbacks. A good rule of thumb for modern vt100-like entries is that
1463 each one will cost about 2.5K of text space.
1466 BSD CONVERSION NOTES:
1467 --------------------
1469 If you need to support really ancient BSD programs, you probably
1470 want to configure with the --enable-bsdpad option. What this does
1471 is enable code in tputs() that recognizes a numeric prefix on a
1472 capability as a request for that much trailing padding in milliseconds.
1473 There are old BSD programs that do things like tputs("50").
1475 (If you are distributing ncurses as a support-library component of
1476 an application you probably want to put the remainder of this section
1477 in the package README file.)
1479 The following note applies only if you have configured ncurses with
1482 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
1484 If you are installing this application privately (either because you
1485 have no root access or want to experiment with it before doing a root
1486 installation), there are a couple of details you need to be aware of.
1487 They have to do with the ncurses library, which uses terminfo rather
1488 than termcap for describing terminal characteristics.
1490 Though the ncurses library is terminfo-based, it will interpret your
1491 TERMCAP variable (if present), any local termcap files you reference
1492 through it, and the system termcap file. However, in order to avoid
1493 slowing down your application startup, it will only do this once per
1496 The first time you load a given terminal type from your termcap
1497 database, the library initialization code will automatically write it
1498 in terminfo format to a subdirectory under $HOME/.terminfo. After
1499 that, the initialization code will find it there and do a (much
1500 faster) terminfo fetch.
1502 Usually, all this means is that your home directory will silently grow
1503 an invisible .terminfo subdirectory which will get filled in with
1504 terminfo descriptions of terminal types as you invoke them. If anyone
1505 ever installs a global terminfo tree on your system, this will quietly
1506 stop happening and your $HOME/.terminfo will become redundant.
1508 The objective of all this logic is to make converting from BSD termcap
1509 as painless as possible without slowing down your application (termcap
1510 compilation is expensive).
1512 If you don't have a TERMCAP variable or custom personal termcap file,
1513 you can skip the rest of this dissertation.
1515 If you *do* have a TERMCAP variable and/or a custom personal termcap file
1516 that defines a terminal type, that definition will stop being visible
1517 to this application after the first time you run it, because it will
1518 instead see the terminfo entry that it wrote to $HOME/terminfo the
1521 Subsequently, editing the TERMCAP variable or personal TERMCAP file
1522 will have no effect unless you explicitly remove the terminfo entry
1523 under $HOME/terminfo. If you do that, the entry will be recompiled
1524 from your termcap resources the next time it is invoked.
1526 To avoid these complications, use infocmp(1) and tic(1) to edit the
1527 terminfo directory directly.
1529 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
1531 USING NCURSES WITH AFS:
1532 AFS treats each directory as a separate logical filesystem, you
1533 can't hard-link across them. The --enable-symlinks option copes
1534 with this by making tic use symbolic links.
1536 USING NCURSES WITH GPM:
1537 Ncurses 4.1 and up can be configured to use GPM (General Purpose
1538 Mouse) which is used on Linux console. Be aware that GPM is commonly
1539 installed as a shared library which contains a wrapper for the curses
1540 wgetch() function (libcurses.o). Some integrators have simplified
1541 linking applications by combining all or part of libcurses.so into the
1542 libgpm.so file, producing symbol conflicts with ncurses (specifically
1543 the wgetch function). This was originally the BSD curses, but
1544 generally whatever curses library exists on the system.
1546 You may be able to work around this problem by linking as follows:
1548 cc -o foo foo.o -lncurses -lgpm -lncurses
1550 but the linker may not cooperate, producing mysterious errors.
1551 See the FAQ, as well as the discussion under the --with-gpm option:
1553 http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#using_gpm_lib
1555 BUILDING NCURSES WITH A CROSS-COMPILER
1556 Ncurses can be built with a cross-compiler. Some parts must be built
1557 with the host's compiler since they are used for building programs
1558 (e.g., ncurses/make_hash and ncurses/make_keys) that generate tables
1559 that are compiled into the ncurses library. The essential thing to do
1560 is set the BUILD_CC environment variable to your host's compiler, and
1561 run the configure script configuring for the cross-compiler.
1563 The configure options --with-build-cc, etc., are provided to make this
1564 simpler. Since make_hash and make_keys use only ANSI C features, it
1565 is normally not necessary to provide the other options such as
1566 --with-build-libs, but they are provided for completeness.
1568 Note that all of the generated source-files which are part of ncurses
1569 will be made if you use
1573 This would be useful in porting to an environment which has little
1574 support for the tools used to generate the sources, e.g., sed, awk and
1577 When ncurses has been successfully cross-compiled, you may want to use
1578 "make install" (with a suitable target directory) to construct an
1579 install tree. Note that in this case (as with the --with-fallbacks
1580 option), ncurses uses the development platform's tic to do the
1581 "make install.data" portion.
1584 Send any feedback to the ncurses mailing list at
1585 bug-ncurses@gnu.org. To subscribe send mail to
1586 bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with body that reads:
1587 subscribe ncurses <your-email-address-here>
1589 The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines
1590 on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly.