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28 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
29 -- $Id: INSTALL,v 1.249 2023/10/21 15:51:23 tom Exp $
30 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
31 How to install Ncurses/Terminfo on your system
32 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
34 ************************************************************
35 * READ ALL OF THIS FILE BEFORE YOU TRY TO INSTALL NCURSES. *
36 ************************************************************
38 You should be reading the file INSTALL in a directory called ncurses-d.d, where
39 d.d is the current version number. There should be several subdirectories,
40 including `c++', `form', `man', `menu', 'misc', `ncurses', `panel', `progs',
41 and `test'. See the README file for a roadmap to the package.
43 If you are a distribution integrator or packager, please read and act on the
44 section titled FOR SYSTEM INTEGRATORS below.
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 cross-compiling, see the note below on BUILDING WITH A CROSS-COMPILER.
54 If you want to build the Ada95 binding, go to the Ada95 directory and
55 follow the instructions there. The Ada95 binding is not covered below.
61 You will need the following to build and install ncurses under UNIX:
63 * ANSI C compiler (gcc, for instance)
65 * awk (mawk or gawk will do)
67 * BSD or System V style install (a script is enclosed)
69 Ncurses has been also built in the OS/2 EMX environment.
72 INSTALLATION PROCEDURE:
73 ----------------------
75 1. First, decide whether you want ncurses to replace your existing library (in
76 which case you'll need super-user privileges) or be installed in parallel
79 The --prefix option to configure changes the root directory for installing
80 ncurses. The default is normally in subdirectories of /usr/local, except
81 for systems where ncurses is normally installed as a system library (see
82 "IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR"). Use --prefix=/usr to replace your
83 default curses distribution.
85 The package gets installed beneath the --prefix directory as follows:
87 In $(prefix)/bin: tic, infocmp, captoinfo, tset,
88 reset, clear, tput, toe, tabs
89 In $(prefix)/lib: libncurses*.* libcurses.a
90 In $(prefix)/share/terminfo: compiled terminal descriptions
91 In $(prefix)/include: C header files
92 Under $(prefix)/man: the manual pages
94 Note that the configure script attempts to locate previous installation of
95 ncurses, and will set the default prefix according to where it finds the
98 Do not use commands such as
100 make install prefix=XXX
102 to change the prefix after configuration, since the prefix value is used
103 for some absolute pathnames such as TERMINFO. Instead do this
105 make install DESTDIR=XXX
107 See also the discussion of --with-install-prefix.
109 2. Type `./configure' in the top-level directory of the distribution to
110 configure ncurses for your operating system and create the Makefiles.
111 Besides --prefix, various configuration options are available to customize
112 the installation; use `./configure --help' to list the available options.
114 If your operating system is not supported, read the PORTABILITY section in
115 the file ncurses/README for information on how to create a configuration
116 file for your system.
118 The `configure' script generates makefile rules for one or more object
119 models and their associated libraries:
121 libncurses.a (normal)
123 libcurses.a (normal, a link to libncurses.a)
124 This gets left out if you configure with --disable-overwrite.
126 libncurses.so (shared)
128 libncurses_g.a (debug)
130 libncurses_p.a (profile)
132 libncurses.la (libtool)
134 If you configure using the --enable-widec option, a "w" is appended to the
135 library names (e.g., libncursesw.a), and the resulting libraries support
136 wide-characters, e.g., via a UTF-8 locale. The corresponding header files
137 are compatible with the non-wide-character configuration; wide-character
138 features are provided by ifdef's in the header files. The wide-character
139 library interfaces are not binary-compatible with the non-wide-character
140 version. Building and running the wide-character code relies on a fairly
141 recent implementation of libiconv. We have built this configuration on
142 various systems using libiconv, sometimes requiring libutf8.
144 If you configure using the --with-pthread option, a "t" is appended to
145 the library names (e.g., libncursest.a, libncursestw.a).
147 If you do not specify any models, the normal and debug libraries will be
148 configured. Typing `configure' with no arguments is equivalent to:
150 ./configure --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
154 ./configure --with-shared
156 makes the shared libraries the default, resulting in
158 ./configure --with-shared --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
160 If you want only shared libraries, type
162 ./configure --with-shared --without-normal --without-debug
164 Rules for generating shared libraries are highly dependent upon the choice
165 of host system and compiler. We've been testing shared libraries on
166 several systems, but more work needs to be done to make shared libraries
167 work on other systems.
169 If you have libtool installed, you can type
171 ./configure --with-libtool
173 to generate the appropriate static and/or shared libraries for your
174 platform using libtool.
176 You can make curses and terminfo fall back to an existing file of termcap
177 definitions by configuring with --enable-termcap. If you do this, the
178 library will search /etc/termcap before the terminfo database, and will
179 also interpret the contents of the TERM environment variable. See the
180 section BSD CONVERSION NOTES below.
182 3. Type `make'. Ignore any warnings, no error messages should be produced.
183 This should compile the ncurses library, the terminfo compiler tic(1),
184 captoinfo(1), infocmp(1), toe(1), clear(1) tset(1), reset(1), and tput(1)
185 programs (see the manual pages for explanation of what they do), some test
186 programs, and the panels, menus, and forms libraries.
188 4. Run ncurses and several other test programs in the test directory to
189 verify that ncurses functions correctly before doing an install that
190 may overwrite system files. Read the file test/README for details on
193 NOTE: You must have installed the terminfo database, or set the
194 environment variable $TERMINFO to point to a SVr4-compatible terminfo
195 database before running the test programs. Not all vendors' terminfo
196 databases are SVr4-compatible, but most seem to be.
198 It is possible to configure ncurses to use other terminfo database formats.
199 A few are provided as examples in the include-directory (see --with-caps).
201 If you run the test programs WITHOUT installing terminfo, ncurses may
202 read the termcap file and cache that in $HOME/.terminfo, which will
203 thereafter be used instead of the terminfo database. See the comments
204 on "--enable-getcap-cache", to see why this is a Bad Thing.
206 The ncurses program is designed specifically to test the ncurses library.
207 You can use it to verify that the screen highlights work correctly, that
208 cursor addressing and window scrolling works OK, etc.
210 5. Once you've tested, you can type `make install' to install libraries,
211 the programs, the terminfo database and the manual pages. Alternately, you
212 can type `make install' in each directory you want to install. In the
213 top-level directory, you can do a partial install using these commands:
215 'make install.progs' installs tic, infocmp, etc...
216 'make install.includes' installs the headers.
217 'make install.libs' installs the libraries (and the headers).
218 'make install.data' installs the terminfo data. (Note: `tic' must
219 be installed before the terminfo data can be
221 'make install.man' installs the manual pages.
223 ############################################################################
224 # CAVEAT EMPTOR: `install.data' run as root will NUKE any existing #
225 # terminfo database. If you have any custom or unusual entries SAVE them #
226 # before you install ncurses. #
227 ############################################################################
229 The terminfo(5) manual page must be preprocessed with tbl(1) before
230 being formatted by nroff(1). Modern man(1) implementations tend to do
231 this by default, but you may want to look at your version's manual page
232 to be sure. You may also install the manual pages after preprocessing
233 with tbl(1) by specifying the configure option --with-manpage-tbl.
235 If the system already has a curses library that you need to keep using
236 you'll need to distinguish between it and ncurses. See the discussion of
237 --disable-overwrite. If ncurses is installed outside the standard
238 directories (/usr/include and /usr/lib) then all your users will need to
239 use the -I option to compile programs and -L to link them.
241 If you have another curses installed in your system and you accidentally
242 compile using its curses.h you'll end up with a large number of
243 undefined symbols at link time.
245 IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ROOT: Change directory to the `progs' subdirectory
246 and run the `capconvert' script. This script will deduce various things
247 about your environment and use them to build you a private terminfo tree,
248 so you can use ncurses applications.
250 If more than one user at your site does this, the space for the duplicate
251 trees is wasted. Try to get your site administrators to install a system-
252 wide terminfo tree instead.
254 See the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below for a few more details.
256 6. The c++ directory has C++ classes that are built on top of ncurses and
257 panels. You must have c++ (and its libraries) installed before you can
258 compile and run the demo.
260 Use --without-cxx-binding to tell configure to not build the C++ bindings
263 If you do not have C++, you must use the --without-cxx option to tell
264 the configure script to not attempt to determine the type of 'bool'
265 which may be supported by C++. IF YOU USE THIS OPTION, BE ADVISED THAT
266 YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO COMPILE (OR RUN) NCURSES APPLICATIONS WITH C++.
272 The configure script provides a short list of its options when you type
276 The --help and several options are common to all configure scripts that are
277 generated with autoconf. Those are all listed before the line
279 --enable and --with options recognized:
281 The other options are specific to this package. We list them in alphabetic
284 --disable-assumed-color
285 With ncurses 5.1, we introduced a new function, assume_default_colors()
286 which allows applications to specify what the default foreground and
287 background color are assumed to be. Most color applications use
288 full-screen color; but a few do not color the background. While the
289 assumed values can be overridden by invoking assume_default_colors(),
290 you may find it useful to set the assumed values to the pre-5.1
291 convention, using this configure option.
294 Assume machine has little memory. The configure script attempts to
295 determine if your machine has enough memory (about 6Mb) to compile the
296 terminfo database without writing portions to disk. Some allocators
297 return deceptive results, so you may have to override the configure
298 script. Or you may be building tic for a smaller machine.
300 --disable-big-strings
301 Disable compile-time optimization of predefined tables which puts
302 all of their strings into a very long string, to reduce relocation
306 Use only built-in data. The ncurses libraries normally read terminfo
307 and termcap data from disk. You can configure ncurses to have a
308 built-in database, aka "fallback" entries. Embedded applications may
309 have no need for an external database. Some, but not all of the
310 programs are useful in this configuration, e.g., tset and tput versus
314 Do not install the terminal database. This is used to omit features
315 for packages, as done with --without-progs.
318 Use the option --disable-echo to make the build-log less verbose by
319 suppressing the display of the compile and link commands. This makes
320 it easier to see the compiler warnings. (You can always use "make -n"
321 to see the options that are used).
324 Disable function-extensions. Configure ncurses without the functions
325 that are not specified by XSI. See ncurses/modules for the exact
326 list of library modules that would be suppressed.
328 --disable-gnat-projects
329 Disable GNAT projects even if usable, for testing old makefile rules.
332 Compile without hashmap scrolling-optimization code. This algorithm is
335 --disable-home-terminfo
336 The $HOME/.terminfo directory is normally added to ncurses' search
337 list for reading/writing terminfo entries, since that directory is
338 more likely writable than the system terminfo database. Use this
339 option to disable the feature altogether.
342 Disable compiler flags needed to use large-file interfaces.
345 For testing, compile-in code that frees memory that normally would not
346 be freed, to simplify analysis of memory-leaks.
348 Any implementation of curses must not free the memory associated with
349 a screen, since (even after calling endwin()), it must be available
350 for use in the next call to refresh(). There are also chunks of
351 memory held for performance reasons. That makes it hard to analyze
352 curses applications for memory leaks. To work around this, build a
353 debugging version of the ncurses library which frees those chunks
354 which it can, and provides the _nc_free_and_exit() function to free
355 the remainder and then exit. The ncurses utility and test programs
356 use this feature, e.g., via the ExitProgram() macro.
358 Because this lies outside of the library's intended usage, it is not
359 normally considered part of the ABI. If there were some (as yet
360 unplanned) extension which frees memory in a manner that would let the
361 library resume and reallocate memory, then that would not use a "_nc_"
364 --disable-lib-suffixes
365 Suppress the "w", "t" or "tw" suffixes which normally would be added
366 to the library names for the --enable-widec and --with-pthread options.
368 --disable-libtool-version
369 when using --with-libtool, control how the major/minor version numbers
370 are used for constructing the library name.
372 The default uses the -version-number feature of libtool, which makes
373 the library names compatible (though not identical) with the standard
374 build using --with-shared.
376 Use --disable-libtool-version to use the libtool -version-info feature.
377 This corresponds to the setting used before patch 20100515.
379 Starting with patch 20141115, using this option causes the configure
380 script to apply the top-level VERSION file to the ABI version used
384 The header files will ignore use of the _LP64 symbol to make chtype
385 and mmask_t types 32 bits (they may be long on 64-bit hosts, for
386 compatibility with older releases).
388 NOTE: this is potentially an ABI change, depending on existing
389 packages. The default for this option is "disabled" for ncurses
390 ABI 5, and "enabled" for ABI 6.
393 For testing, use functions rather than macros. The program will run
394 more slowly, but it is simpler to debug. This defines NCURSES_NOMACROS
395 at build time. See also the --enable-expanded option.
398 If you are installing ncurses on a system which contains another
399 development version of curses, or which could be confused by the loader
400 for another version, we recommend that you leave out the link to
401 -lcurses. The ncurses library is always available as -lncurses.
402 Disabling overwrite also causes the ncurses header files to be
403 installed into a subdirectory, e.g., /usr/local/include/ncurses,
404 rather than the include directory. This makes it simpler to avoid
405 compile-time conflicts with other versions of curses.h
407 Putting the header files into a subdirectory assumes that applications
408 will follow the (standard) practice of including the headers with
409 reference to the subdirectory name. For instance, the normal ncurses
410 header would be included using
412 #include <ncurses/curses.h>
413 #include <ncurses/term.h>
415 while the ncursesw headers would be found this way:
417 #include <ncursesw/curses.h>
418 #include <ncursesw/term.h>
420 In either case (with or without the --disable-overwrite option),
421 almost all applications are designed to include a related set of
422 curses header files from the same directory.
424 Manipulating the --includedir configure option to put header files
425 directly in a subdirectory of the normal include-directory defeats
426 this, and breaks builds of portable applications. Likewise, putting
427 some headers in /usr/include, and others in a subdirectory is a good
430 When configured with --disable-overwrite, the installed header files'
431 embedded #include's are adjusted to use the same style of includes
432 noted above. In particular, the unctrl.h header is included from
433 curses.h, which means that a makefile which tells the compiler to
434 include directly from the subdirectory will fail to compile correctly.
435 Without some special effort, it will either fail to compile at all,
436 or the compiler may find a different unctrl.h file.
438 In addition to the curses library, a system may provide its own
439 versions of the add-on libraries (form, menu, panel), which would
440 not be compatible with ncurses. These options allow you to rename
441 ncurses' add-on libraries to avoid conflicts when linking:
443 --with-form-libname=XXX
444 --with-menu-libname=XXX
445 --with-panel-libname=XXX
447 Rather than renaming them arbitrarily, a prefix or suffix is
448 recommended. An "n" prefix provides consistency with ncurses versus
451 --with-form-libname=nform
452 --with-menu-libname=nmenu
453 --with-panel-libname=npanel
455 --disable-pkg-ldflags
456 Omit options in $LDFLAGS and $EXTRA_LDFLAGS from the pkg-config ".pc"
457 and corresponding ncurses*-config script which normally are listed via
458 the "--libs" option. These options are normally used to facilitate
459 linking to ncurses when it was configured to use the rpath feature.
461 See also --enable-rpath and --disable-rpath-hack.
464 If --enable-rpath is given, the generated makefiles normally will
465 rebuild shared libraries during install. Use this option to simply
466 copy whatever the linker produced.
468 Static libraries cannot simply be copied because tools use timestamps
469 to determine if the library's symbol table is up to date. If your
470 install program supports the "-p" (preserve timestamp) option, that
471 is used when --disable-relink is given, to avoid rebuilding the symbol
474 Finally, some tools ignore the subsecond timestamps supported by some
475 filesystems. This option adds a 1-second sleep to help those tools
476 avoid unnecessary relinking during the install process.
478 --disable-root-access
479 Compile with environment restriction, so most file-access is limited
480 when running as root, or via a setuid/setgid application.
482 --disable-root-environ
483 Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment variables
484 are not available when running as root. These are (for example
485 $TERMINFO) those that allow the search path for the terminfo or termcap
486 entry to be customized.
488 Disabling the root environment variables also disables the setuid
489 environment variables by default. Use the --disable-setuid-environ
490 option to modify this behavior.
493 Normally the configure script helps link libraries found in unusual
494 places by adding an rpath option to the link command. If you are
495 building packages, this feature may be redundant. Use this option
496 to suppress the feature.
498 --disable-scroll-hints
499 Compile without scroll-hints code. This option is ignored when
500 hashmap scrolling is configured, which is the default.
503 Do not strip installed executables.
505 --disable-setuid-environ
506 Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment variables
507 are not available when running via a setuid/setgid application. These
508 are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow the search path for the
509 terminfo or termcap entry to be customized.
511 A setuid/setgid application inherits its environment variables from
512 the current user, in contrast to sudo which may limit the environment
513 variables that ncurses uses.
515 --disable-tic-depends
516 When building shared libraries, normally the tic library is linked to
517 depend upon the ncurses library (or equivalently, on the tinfo-library
518 if the --with-termlib option was given). The tic- and tinfo-library
519 ABIs do not depend on the --enable-widec option. Some packagers have
520 used this to reduce the number of library files which are packaged by
521 using only one copy of those libraries. To make this work properly,
522 the tic library must be built without an explicit dependency on the
523 underlying library (ncurses vs ncursesw, tinfo vs tinfow). Use this
524 configure option to do that.
526 configure --with-ticlib --with-shared --disable-tic-depends
528 --disable-tparm-varargs
529 Portable programs should call tparm() using the fixed-length parameter
530 list documented in X/Open. ncurses provides varargs support for this
531 function. Use --disable-tparm-varargs to disable this support.
534 For testing, compile-in assertion code. This is used only for a few
535 places where ncurses cannot easily recover by returning an error code.
537 --enable-broken_linker
538 A few platforms have what we consider a broken linker: it cannot link
539 objects from an archive solely by referring to data objects in those
540 files, but requires a function reference. This configure option
541 changes several data references to functions to work around this
544 NOTE: With ncurses 5.1, this may not be necessary, since we are
545 told that some linkers interpret uninitialized global data as a
546 different type of reference which behaves as described above. We have
547 explicitly initialized all of the global data to work around the
551 Recognize BSD-style prefix padding. Some ancient BSD programs (such as
552 nethack) call tputs("50") to implement delays.
555 Compile-in feature to detect screensize for terminals which do not
556 advertise their screensize, e.g., serial terminals.
559 Compile with experimental $COLORFGBG code. That environment variable
560 is set by some terminal emulators as a hint to applications, by
561 advertising the default foreground and background colors. During
562 initialization, ncurses sets color pair 0 to match this.
565 The curses interface as documented in XSI is rather old, in fact
566 including features that precede ANSI C. The prototypes generally do
567 not make effective use of "const". When using stricter compilers (or
568 gcc with appropriate warnings), you may see warnings about the mismatch
569 between const and non-const data. We provide a configure option which
570 changes the interfaces to use const - quieting these warnings and
571 reflecting the actual use of the parameters more closely. The ncurses
572 library uses the symbol NCURSES_CONST for these instances of const,
573 and if you have asked for compiler warnings, will add gcc's const-qual
574 warning. There will still be warnings due to subtle inconsistencies
575 in the interface, but at a lower level.
577 NOTE: configuring ncurses with this option may detract from the
578 portability of your applications by encouraging you to use const in
579 places where the XSI curses interface would not allow them. Similar
580 issues arise when porting to SVr4 curses, which uses const in even
584 For testing, generate functions for certain macros to make them visible
585 as such to the debugger. See also the --disable-macros option.
588 When configuring for MinGW, use the experimental Windows 10 driver.
591 Extend the cchar_t structure to allow more than 16 colors to be
592 encoded. This applies only to the wide-character (--enable-widec)
595 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
596 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
597 applications which have an array of cchar_t's must be recompiled.
600 Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th mouse button.
601 That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel mouse with xterm or
602 similar X terminal emulators.
604 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
605 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
606 applications which have mouse mask mmask_t's must be recompiled.
609 Modify the file-format written by putwin() to use printable text rather
610 than binary files, allowing getwin() to read screen dumps written by
611 differently-configured ncurses libraries. The extended getwin() can
612 still read binary screen dumps from the "same" configuration of
613 ncurses. This does not change the ABI (the binary interface seen by
614 calling applications).
617 Use the gcc "-fvisibility=hidden" option to make symbols which are not
618 explicitly exported, "hidden". Doing this may reduce the number of
619 symbols exported in the C++ binding; it should have less effect on the
620 C libraries when symbol-versioning is used.
623 Use the 4.4BSD getcap code if available, or a bundled version of it to
624 fetch termcap entries. Entries read in this way cannot use (make
625 cross-references to) the terminfo tree, but it is faster than reading
628 If configured for one of the *BSD systems, this automatically uses
629 the hashed database system produced using cap_mkdb or similar tools.
630 In that case, there is no advantage in using the --enable-getcap-cache
633 See also the --with-hashed-db option.
635 --enable-getcap-cache
636 Cache translated termcaps under the directory $HOME/.terminfo
638 NOTE: this sounds good - it makes ncurses run faster the second time.
639 But look where the data comes from - an /etc/termcap containing lots of
640 entries that are not up to date. If you configure with this option and
641 forget to install the terminfo database before running an ncurses
642 application, you will end up with a hidden terminfo database that
643 generally does not support color and will miss some function keys.
646 Compile-in cursor-optimization code that uses hard-tabs. We would make
647 this a standard feature except for the concern that the terminfo entry
648 may not be accurate, or that your stty settings have disabled the use
652 Compile-in experimental interop bindings. These provide generic types
653 for the form-library.
656 Controls whether the filesystem on which the terminfo database resides
657 supports mixed-case filenames (normal for UNIX, but not on other
658 systems). If you do not specify this option, the configure script
659 checks the current filesystem.
662 Compile-in support for the $NCURSES_NO_PADDING environment variable,
663 which allows you to suppress the effect of non-mandatory padding in
664 terminfo entries. This is the default, unless you have disabled the
667 --enable-opaque-curses
670 --enable-opaque-panel
671 Define symbol in curses.h which controls whether some library
672 structures are treated as "opaque". The --enable-opaque-curses option
673 may be overridden by the --enable-reentrant option.
675 Enabling opaque-curses enables opaque for the form, menu, and panel
676 libraries. Use their corresponding options to disable the feature
679 NOTE: beginning with ncurses 6.5 this option is enabled by default;
680 older versions disable it by default.
683 If pkg-config is found (see --with-pkg-config), generate ".pc" files
684 for each of the libraries, and install them in pkg-config's library
687 --enable-pthreads-eintr
688 add logic in threaded configuration to ensure that a read(2) system
689 call can be interrupted for SIGWINCH.
692 Compile configuration which improves reentrant use of the library by
693 reducing global and static variables. This option is also set if
694 --with-pthread is used.
696 Enabling this option adds a "t" to the library names, except for the
697 special case when --enable-weak-symbols is also used.
700 Use rpath option when generating shared libraries, and (with some
701 restrictions) when linking the corresponding programs. This originally
702 (in 1997) applied mainly to systems using the GNU linker (read the
705 More recently it is useful for systems that require special treatment
706 shared libraries in "unusual" locations. The "system" libraries reside
707 in directories which are on the loader's default search-path. While
708 you may be able to use workarounds such as the $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
709 environment variable, they do not work with setuid applications since
710 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable would be unset in that situation.
712 This option does not apply to --with-libtool, since libtool makes
713 extra assumptions about rpath.
715 --enable-safe-sprintf
716 Compile with experimental safe-sprintf code. You may consider using
717 this if you are building ncurses for a system that has neither
718 vsnprintf() or vsprintf(). It is slow, however, and is used only on
719 very old systems which lack vsnprintf().
722 The term.h header declares a Booleans[] array typed "char". But it
723 stores signed values there and "char" is not necessarily signed.
724 Some packagers choose to alter the type of Booleans[] though this
725 is not strictly compatible. This option allows one to implement this
726 alteration without patching the source code.
729 Compile support for ncurses' SIGWINCH handler. If your application has
730 its own SIGWINCH handler, ncurses will not use its own. The ncurses
731 handler causes wgetch() to return KEY_RESIZE when the screen-size
732 changes. This option is the default, unless you have disabled the
736 Compile-in support for extended functions which accept a SCREEN pointer,
737 reducing the need for juggling the global SP value with set_term() and
741 When enabled, check if the <stdnoreturn.h> header exists, and if found
742 define GCC_NORETURN to _Noreturn rather than either the gcc-specific
743 __attribute__((noreturn)) or an empty token. Doing this may require
744 calling programs which use GCC_NORETURN in their own function
745 definitions to be modified, because _Noreturn is only accepted as
746 the first token in a declaration.
748 --enable-string-hacks
749 Controls whether strlcat and strlcpy may be used. The same issue
750 applies to OpenBSD's warnings about snprintf, noting that this function
751 is weakly standardized.
753 Aside from stifling these warnings, there is no functional improvement
757 If your system supports symbolic links, make tic use symbolic links
758 rather than hard links to save diskspace when writing aliases in the
762 Compile-in support for user-definable terminal capabilities. Use the
763 -x option of tic and infocmp to treat unrecognized terminal
764 capabilities as user-defined strings. This option is the default,
765 unless you have disabled the extended functions.
768 Enable experimental terminal-driver. This is currently used for the
769 MinGW port, by providing a way to substitute the low-level terminfo
770 library with different terminal drivers.
773 Compile in support for reading terminal descriptions from termcap if no
774 match is found in the terminfo database. See also the --enable-getcap
775 and --enable-getcap-cache options.
777 Termcap support requires run-time parsing rather than loading
778 predigested data. If you have specified --with-ticlib, then you
779 cannot have termcap support since run-time parsing is done in the
780 tic library, which is intentionally not part of normal linkage
784 Turn on GCC compiler warnings. There should be only a few.
786 --enable-wattr-macros
787 The 6.0 ABI adds support for extended colors and for extended mouse.
788 The former is a noticeable problem when developers inadvertently
789 compile using the ncurses6 header files and link with an ncurses5
790 library, because the wattr* macros use a new field in the WINDOW
791 structure. These macros are used in several applications.
793 Since ncurses provides an actual function for each of these macros,
794 suppressing them from the curses.h header allows the ncurses5 libraries
795 to be used in most applications.
797 NOTE: The extended colors also are used in the cchar_t structure, but
798 fewer applications use that.
800 NOTE: This workaround does not help with mismatches in the ncurses
801 mouse version. The extended mouse feature uses one less fewer bit for
802 each button, so that only the first button will work as expected with
803 a mismatch between header and library. Again, most applications will
804 work, since most use only the first button.
806 --enable-weak-symbols
807 If the --with-pthread option is set, check if the compiler supports
808 weak-symbols. If it does, then name the thread-capable library without
809 the "t" (libncurses rather than libncursest), and provide for
810 dynamically loading the pthreads entrypoints at runtime. This allows
811 one to reduce the number of library files for ncurses.
813 --enable-wgetch-events
814 Compile with experimental wgetch-events code. See ncurses/README.IZ
817 Compile with wide-character code. This makes a different version of
818 the libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so), which stores characters as
821 NOTE: applications compiled with this configuration are not compatible
822 with those built for 8-bit characters. You cannot simply make a
823 symbolic link to equate libncurses.so with libncursesw.so
825 NOTE: the Ada95 binding may be built against either version of the the
826 ncurses library, but you must decide which: the binding installs the
827 same set of files for either version. Currently (2023/10/21) it does
828 not use the extended features from the wide-character code, so it is
829 probably better to not install the binding for that configuration.
831 NOTE: beginning with ncurses 6.5 this option is enabled by default;
832 older versions disable it by default.
835 Compile-in support experimental xmc (magic cookie) code.
837 --with-abi-altered=NUM
838 Override the displayed (rather than compiled-in) ABI. Only packagers
839 who have created configurations where the ABI differs from ncurses
840 should be interested in this option.
842 --with-abi-version=NUM
843 Override the ABI version, which is used in shared library filenames.
844 Normally this is the same as the release version; some ports have
845 special requirements for compatibility.
847 This option does not affect linking with libtool, which uses the
848 release major/minor numbers.
850 --with-ada-compiler=CMD
851 Specify the Ada95 compiler command (default "gnatmake")
853 --with-ada-include=DIR
854 Tell where to install the Ada includes (default:
855 PREFIX/lib/ada/adainclude)
857 --with-ada-libname=NAME
858 Override the name of the Ada binding (default: "AdaCurses")
860 --with-ada-objects=DIR
861 Tell where to install the Ada objects (default: PREFIX/lib/ada/adalib)
864 Build a shared library for Ada95 binding, if the compiler permits.
866 NOTE: You must also set the --with-shared option on some platforms
867 for a successful build. You need not use this option when you set
868 --with-shared, unless you want to use the Ada shared library.
871 If --without-cxx is specified, override the type used for the "bool"
872 declared in curses.h (normally the type is automatically chosen to
873 correspond with that in <stdbool.h>, or defaults to platform-specific
877 If cross-compiling, specify a host C compiler, which is needed to
878 compile a few utilities which generate source modules for ncurses.
879 If you do not give this option, the configure script checks if the
880 $BUILD_CC variable is set, and otherwise defaults to gcc or cc.
882 --with-build-cflags=XXX
883 If cross-compiling, specify the host C compiler-flags. You might need
884 to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse the
887 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_CFLAGS rather than
891 This option is provided by the same macro used for $BUILD_CC, etc.,
892 but is not directly used by ncurses.
894 --with-build-cppflags=XXX
895 If cross-compiling, specify the host C preprocessor-flags. You might
896 need to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse
899 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_CPPFLAGS rather than
902 --with-build-ldflags=XXX
903 If cross-compiling, specify the host linker-flags. You might need to
904 do this if the target linker has unusual flags which confuse the host
907 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_LDFLAGS rather than
910 --with-build-libs=XXX
911 If cross-compiling, the host libraries. You might need to do this if
912 the target environment requires unusual libraries.
914 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_LIBS rather than
918 Specify an alternate terminfo capabilities file, which makes the
919 configure script look for "include/Caps.XXX". A few systems, e.g.,
920 AIX 4.x use the same overall file-format as ncurses for terminfo
921 data, but use different alignments within the tables to support
922 legacy applications. For those systems, you can configure ncurses
923 to use a terminfo database which is compatible with the native
926 --with-ccharw-max=XXX
927 Override the size of the wide-character array in cchar_t structures.
928 Changing this will alter the binary interface. This defaults to 5.
931 Override type of chtype, which stores the video attributes and (if
932 --enable-widec is not given) a character. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this
933 was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it may be unsigned.
934 Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility with 64-bit
935 executables, e.g., by setting "--with-chtype=long" (the configure
936 script supplies "unsigned").
938 --with-config-suffix=XXX
939 Specify a suffix for the ncursesw6-config file, etc., used to work
940 around conflicts with packages.
942 --with-cxx-libname=NAME
943 Override the basename of the ncurses++ library (default: "ncurses++")
946 When --with-shared is set, build libncurses++ as a shared library.
947 This implicitly relies upon building with gcc/g++, since other
948 compiler suites may have differences in the way shared libraries are
949 built. libtool by the way has similar limitations.
952 Specify the terminfo source file to install. Usually you will wish
953 to install ncurses' default (misc/terminfo.src). Certain systems
954 have special requirements, e.g, OS/2 EMX has a customized terminfo
958 For testing, compile and link with Conor Cahill's dbmalloc library.
959 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
962 Generate debug-libraries (default). These are named by adding "_g"
963 to the root, e.g., libncurses_g.a
965 --with-default-terminfo-dir=XXX
966 Specify the default terminfo database directory. This is normally
967 DATADIR/terminfo, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo.
970 For testing, compile and link with Gray Watson's dmalloc library.
971 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
973 --with-export-syms[=XXX]
974 Limit exported symbols using libtool. The configure script
975 automatically chooses an appropriate ".sym" file, which lists the
976 symbols which are part of the ABI.
978 --with-extra-suffix[=XXX]
979 Add the given suffix to header- and library-names to simplify
980 installing incompatible ncurses libraries, e.g., those using a
981 different ABI. The renaming affects the name of the
982 include-subdirectory if --disable-overwrite is given.
985 Specify a list of fallback terminal descriptions which will be
986 compiled into the ncurses library. See CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES.
988 See also "--with-tic-path" and "--with-infocmp-path".
990 --with-form-libname=NAME
991 Override the basename of the form library (default: "form")
994 use Alessandro Rubini's GPM library to provide mouse support on the
995 Linux console. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this introduced a dependency on
998 Currently ncurses uses the dlsym() function to bind to the library at
999 runtime, so it is only necessary that the library be present when
1000 ncurses is built, to obtain the filename (or soname) used in the
1001 corresponding dlopen() call. If you give a value for this option,
1004 --with-gpm=$HOME/tmp/test-gpm.so
1006 that overrides the configure check for the soname.
1008 See also --without-dlsym
1010 --with-hashed-db[=XXX]
1011 Use a hashed database for storing terminfo data rather than storing
1012 each compiled entry in a separate binary file within a directory
1015 In particular, this uses the Berkeley database 1.8.5 interface, as
1016 provided by that and its successors db 2, 3, and 4. The actual
1017 interface is slightly different in the successor versions of the
1018 Berkeley database. The database should have been configured using
1019 "--enable-compat185".
1021 If you use this option for configuring ncurses, tic will only be able
1022 to write entries in the hashed database. infocmp can still read
1023 entries from a directory tree as well as reading entries from the
1024 hashed database. To do this, infocmp determines whether the $TERMINFO
1025 variable points to a directory or a file, and reads the directory-tree
1026 or hashed database respectively.
1028 You cannot have a directory containing both hashed-database and
1029 filesystem-based terminfo entries.
1031 Use the parameter value to give the install-prefix used for the
1033 --with-hashed-db=/usr/local/BigBase
1034 to find the corresponding include- and lib-directories under the
1035 given directory. Alternatively, you can specify a directory leaf
1037 --with-hashed-db=db4
1038 to make the configure script look for files in a subdirectory such as
1039 /usr/include/db4/db.h
1040 /usr/lib/db4/libdb.so
1042 See also the --enable-getcap option.
1044 --with-infocmp-path[=XXX]
1045 Use this option to override the automatic detection of infocmp in your
1046 $PATH when building fallbacks (see "--with-fallbacks").
1048 --with-install-prefix=XXX
1049 Allows you to specify an alternate location for installing ncurses
1050 after building it. The value you specify is prepended to the "real"
1051 install location. This simplifies making binary packages. The
1052 makefile variable DESTDIR is set by this option. It is also possible
1054 make install DESTDIR=XXX
1055 since the makefiles pass that variable to subordinate makes.
1057 NOTE: a few systems build shared libraries with fixed pathnames; this
1058 option probably will not work for those configurations.
1060 --with-lib-prefix=XXX
1061 OS/2 EMX used a different naming convention from most Unix-like
1062 platforms. It required that the "lib" part of a library name was
1063 omitted. Newer EMX as part of eComStation does not follow that
1064 convention. Use this option to override the configure script's
1065 assumptions about the library-prefix. If this option is omitted, it
1066 uses the original OS/2 EMX convention for that platform. Use
1067 "--with-lib-prefix=lib" for the newer EMX in eComStation. Use
1068 "--without-lib-prefix" to suppress it for other odd platforms.
1070 --with-libtool[=XXX]
1071 Generate libraries with libtool. If this option is selected, then it
1072 overrides all other library model specifications. Note that libtool
1073 must already be installed, uses makefile rules dependent on GNU make,
1074 and does not promise to follow the version numbering convention of
1075 other shared libraries on your system. However, if the --with-shared
1076 option does not succeed, you may get better results with this option.
1078 If a parameter value is given, it must be the full pathname of the
1079 particular version of libtool, e.g.,
1080 /usr/bin/libtool-1.2.3
1082 It is possible to rebuild the configure script to use the automake
1083 macros for libtool, e.g., AC_PROG_LIBTOOL. See the comments in
1084 aclocal.m4 for CF_PROG_LIBTOOL, and ensure that you build configure
1085 using the appropriate patch for autoconf from
1086 https://invisible-island.net/autoconf/
1088 --with-libtool-opts=XXX
1089 Allow user to pass additional libtool options into the library creation
1090 and link steps. The main use for this is to do something like
1091 ./configure --with-libtool-opts=-static
1092 to get the same behavior as automake-flavored
1093 ./configure --enable-static
1095 --with-manpage-aliases
1096 Tell the configure script you wish to create entries in the
1097 man-directory for aliases to manpages which list them, e.g., the
1098 functions in the panel manpage. This is the default. You can disable
1099 it if your man program does this. You can also disable
1100 --with-manpage-symlinks to install files containing a ".so" command
1101 rather than symbolic links.
1103 --with-manpage-format=XXX
1104 Tell the configure script how you would like to install man-pages. The
1105 option value must be one of these: gzip, compress, BSDI, normal,
1106 formatted. If you do not give this option, the configure script
1107 attempts to determine which is the case.
1109 --with-manpage-renames=XXX
1110 Tell the configure script that you wish to rename the manpages while
1111 installing. Currently the only distribution which does this is Debian.
1112 The option value specifies the name of a file that lists the renamed
1113 files, e.g., $srcdir/man/man_db.renames
1115 --with-manpage-symlinks
1116 Tell the configure script that you wish to make symbolic links in the
1117 man-directory for aliases to the man-pages. This is the default, but
1118 can be disabled for systems that provide this automatically. Doing
1119 this on systems that do not support symbolic links will result in
1120 copying the man-page for each alias.
1123 Tell the configure script that you wish to preprocess the manpages
1124 by running them through tbl to generate tables understandable by
1127 --with-menu-libname=NAME
1128 Override the basename of the menu library (default: "menu")
1131 Override type of mmask_t, which stores the mouse mask. Prior to
1132 ncurses 5.5, this was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it
1133 may be unsigned. Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility
1134 with 64-bit executables.
1137 Generate normal (i.e., static) libraries (default).
1139 Note: on Linux, the configure script will attempt to use the GPM
1140 library via the dlsym() function call. Use --without-dlsym to disable
1141 this feature, or --without-gpm, depending on whether you wish to use
1145 Override type of ospeed variable, which is part of the termcap
1146 compatibility interface. In termcap, this is a 'short', which works
1147 for a wide range of baudrates because ospeed is not the actual speed
1148 but the encoded value, e.g., B9600 would be a small number such as 13.
1149 However the encoding scheme originally allowed for values "only" up to
1150 38400bd. A newer set of definitions past 38400bd is not encoded as
1151 compactly, and is not guaranteed to fit into a short (see the function
1152 cfgetospeed(), which returns a speed_t for this reason). In practice,
1153 applications that required knowledge of the ospeed variable, i.e.,
1154 those using termcap, do not use the higher speeds. Your application
1155 (or system, in general) may or may not.
1157 --with-panel-libname=NAME
1158 Override the basename of the panel library (default: "panel")
1160 --with-pc-suffix=SUFFIX
1161 If ".pc" files are installed, optionally add a suffix to the files
1162 and corresponding package names to separate unusual configurations.
1163 If no option value is given (or if it is "none"), no suffix is added.
1166 Add PCRE2 (Perl-compatible regular expressions v2) to the build if it
1167 is available and the user requests it. Assume the application will
1168 otherwise use the POSIX interface.
1170 This is useful for MinGW builds because the usual POSIX interface is
1171 not supplied by the development environment, while ncurses' form
1172 library uses a regular expression feature for one of the field types.
1174 --with-pkg-config=[DIR]
1175 Check for pkg-config, optionally specifying its path.
1177 --with-pkg-config-libdir=[DIR]
1178 If pkg-config was found, override the automatic check for its library
1179 path. The configure script allows only a single directory, because
1180 that is used as the directory in which to install ".pc" files.
1182 The automatic check for the library path prefers the first directory
1183 which currently exists. If none of the directories listed by
1184 pkg-config exist, the check prefers a pkgconfig directory under the
1185 "libdir" set by the configure script (which may not be the system
1186 default), or if pkg-config lists nothing suitable, the first one which
1187 is listed by pkg-config is used.
1189 Automatic selection is overridden by providing an option-value
1192 If this option is omitted, the default directory for installing
1193 ".pc" files is ${libdir}/pkgconfig
1196 Generate profile-libraries These are named by adding "_p" to the root,
1197 e.g., libncurses_p.a
1200 Link with POSIX threads, set --enable-reentrant. The use_window() and
1201 use_screen() functions will use mutex's, allowing rudimentary support
1202 for multithreaded applications.
1205 Compile-in RCS identifiers. Most of the C files have an identifier.
1207 --with-rel-version=NUM
1208 Override the release version, which may be used in shared library
1209 filenames. This consists of a major and minor version number separated
1210 by ".". Normally the major version number is the same as the ABI
1211 version; some ports have special requirements for compatibility.
1214 Generate shared-libraries. The names given depend on the system for
1215 which you are building, typically using a ".so" suffix, along with
1216 symbolic links that refer to the release version.
1218 NOTE: Unless you override the configure script by setting the $CFLAGS
1219 environment variable, these will not be built with the -g debugging
1222 NOTE: For some configurations, e.g., installing a new version of
1223 ncurses shared libraries on a machine which already has ncurses
1224 shared libraries, you may encounter problems with the linker.
1225 For example, it may prevent you from running the build tree's
1226 copy of tic (for installing the terminfo database) because it
1227 loads the system's copy of the ncurses shared libraries.
1229 In that case, using the misc/shlib script may be helpful, since it
1230 sets $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the build tree, e.g.,
1232 ./misc/shlib make install
1234 Alternatively, for most platforms, the linker accepts a list of
1235 directories which will be searched for libraries at run-time. The
1236 configure script allows you to modify this list using the
1237 RPATH_LIST environment variable. It is a colon-separated list of
1238 directories (default: the "libdir" set via the configure script).
1239 If you set that to put "../lib" first in the list, the linker will
1240 look first at the build-directory, and avoid conflict with libraries
1241 already installed. One drawback to this approach is that libraries
1242 can be accidentally searched in any "../lib" directory.
1244 NOTE: If you use the --with-ada-sharedlib option, you should also
1245 set this option, to ensure that C-language modules needed for the
1246 Ada binding use appropriate compiler options.
1248 --with-shlib-version=XXX
1249 Specify whether to use the release or ABI version for shared libraries.
1250 This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of system
1251 which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure script.
1253 --with-strip-program=XXX
1254 When stripping executables during install, use the specified program
1255 rather than "strip".
1258 use FreeBSD sysmouse interface provide mouse support on the console.
1260 --with-system-type=XXX
1261 For testing, override the derived host system-type which is used to
1262 decide things such as the linker commands used to build shared
1263 libraries. This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of
1264 system which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure
1267 --with-terminfo-dirs=XXX
1268 Specify a search-list of terminfo directories which will be compiled
1269 into the ncurses library (default: DATADIR/terminfo)
1271 This is a colon-separated list, like the TERMINFO_DIRS environment
1274 --with-termlib[=XXX]
1275 When building the ncurses library, organize this as two parts: the
1276 curses library (libncurses) and the low-level terminfo library
1277 (libtinfo). This is done to accommodate applications that use only
1278 the latter. The terminfo library is about half the size of the total.
1280 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the terminfo
1281 library. For instance, if the wide-character version is built, the
1282 terminfo library would be named libtinfow. But the libtinfow interface
1283 is upward compatible from libtinfo, so it would be possible to overlay
1284 libtinfo.so with a "wide" version of libtinfow.so by renaming it with
1288 Specify a search-list of termcap files which will be compiled into the
1289 ncurses library (default: /etc/termcap:/usr/share/misc/termcap)
1291 --with-tic-path[=XXX]
1292 Use this option to override the automatic detection of tic in your
1293 $PATH when building fallbacks (see "--with-fallbacks").
1296 When building the ncurses library, build a separate library for
1297 the modules that are used only by the utility programs. Normally
1298 those would be bundled with the termlib or ncurses libraries.
1300 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the tic
1301 library. As in termlib, there is no ABI difference between the
1302 "wide" libticw.so and libtic.so
1304 NOTE: Overriding the name of the tic library may be useful if you are
1305 also using the --with-termlib option to rename libtinfo. If you are
1306 not doing that, renaming the tic library can result in conflicting
1307 library dependencies for tic and other programs built with the tic
1310 --with-tparm-arg[=XXX]
1311 Override the type used for tparm() arguments, which normally is a
1312 "long". However the function must assume that its arguments can hold a
1313 pointer to char's which is not always workable for 64-bit platforms. A
1314 better choice would be intptr_t, which was not available at the time
1315 tparm's interface was defined.
1317 If the option is not given, this defaults to "long".
1320 Configure the trace() function as part of the all models of the ncurses
1321 library. Normally it is part of the debug (libncurses_g) library only.
1324 For testing, compile with debug option.
1325 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
1327 --with-versioned-syms[=XXX]
1328 The Solaris, GNU and reportedly some other linkers (ld) accept a
1329 "--version-script" option which tells the linker to annotate the
1330 resulting objects with version identifiers.
1332 Use "objdump -T" on a library to see the annotations.
1334 The configure script attempts to automatically apply a suitable ".map"
1335 file to provide this information for Linux. Solaris mapfiles differ:
1337 a) comments are not accepted
1338 b) wildcards are not accepted, except for a special case of "_*".
1339 c) each symbol listed in the map file must exist in the library
1341 The Solaris limitations conflict with the development goal of providing
1342 a small set of ".map" files as examples, which cover the most common
1343 configurations. Because that coverage is done by merging together
1344 several builds, some symbols will be listed in the the ".map" files
1345 that do not happen to be present in one configuration or another.
1347 The sample ".map" (and ".sym") files are generated using a set of
1348 scripts which build several configurations for each release version,
1349 checking to see which of the "_nc_" symbols can be made local. In
1350 addition to the ncurses libraries and programs, the symbols used
1351 by the "tack" program before version 1.08 are made global.
1353 These sample ".map" files will not cover all possible combinations.
1354 In some cases, e.g., when using the --with-weak-symbols option, you
1355 may prefer to use a different ".map" file by setting this option's
1358 --with-wrap-prefix=XXX
1359 When using the --enable-reentrant option, ncurses redefines variables
1360 that would be global in curses, e.g., LINES, as a macro that calls a
1361 "wrapping" function which fetches the data from the current SCREEN
1362 structure. Normally that function is named by prepending "_nc_" to the
1363 variable's name. The function is technically private (since portable
1364 applications would not refer directly to it). But according to one
1365 line of reasoning, it is not the same type of "private" as functions
1366 which applications should not call even via a macro. This configure
1367 option lets you choose the prefix for these wrapped variables.
1370 Provide a pathname for the X11 rgb file, used by the picsmap program.
1371 This overrides a configure check which usually works, but is needed
1372 due to the lack of standardization for X11's files.
1374 --with-xterm-kbs=XXX
1375 Configure xterm's terminfo entries to use either BS (^H, i.e., ASCII
1376 backspace) or DEL (^?, or 127). XXX can be BS (or bs, 8) or DEL
1377 (or del, 127). If XXX is "auto", the configure script chooses BS or
1378 DEL according to platform defaults.
1380 During installation, the makefile and scripts modifies the "xterm+kbs"
1381 terminfo entry to use this setting.
1384 Suppress the configure script's check for Ada95, do not build the
1385 Ada95 binding and related demo.
1388 Don't install the ncurses header with the name "curses.h". Rather,
1389 install as "ncurses.h" and modify the installed headers and manpages
1392 Likewise, do not install an alias "curses" for the ncurses manpage.
1395 XSI curses declares "bool" as part of the interface. C++ also declares
1396 "bool". Neither specifies the size and type of booleans, but both
1397 insist on the same name. We chose to accommodate this by making the
1398 configure script check for the size and type (e.g., unsigned or signed)
1399 that your C++ compiler uses for booleans. If you do not wish to use
1400 ncurses with C++, use this option to tell the configure script to not
1401 adjust ncurses bool to match C++.
1403 --without-cxx-binding
1404 Suppress the configure script's check for C++, do not build the
1405 C++ binding and related demo.
1408 Disable development options. This does not include those that change
1409 the interface, such as --enable-widec.
1412 Do not use dlsym() to load GPM dynamically.
1415 Tell the configure script to suppress the install of ncurses' manpages.
1418 Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' application
1419 programs (e.g., tic). The test applications will still be built if you
1420 type "make", though not if you simply do "make install".
1423 Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' test
1427 Tell the configure script to use "xterm-old" for the entry used in
1428 the terminfo database. This will work with variations such as
1429 X11R5 and X11R6 xterm.
1432 COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER RELEASES:
1433 ---------------------------------
1435 Because ncurses implements X/Open Curses, its interface is fairly stable.
1436 That does not mean the interface does not change. Changes are made to the
1437 documented interfaces when we find differences between ncurses and X/Open
1438 or implementations which largely correspond to X/Open (such as Solaris).
1439 We add extensions to those interfaces to solve problems not addressed by
1440 the original curses design, but those must not conflict with the X/Open
1443 Here are some of the major interface changes, and related problems which
1444 you may encounter when building a system with different versions of
1456 Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants):
1458 + add _nc_free_termtype1 and _nc_free_tparm, for memory-leaks
1460 Removed internal functions:
1464 Modified internal functions:
1471 + the definition of TERMTYPE2 is now internal, not visible in the ABI,
1472 like the enclosing TERMINAL which was previously made opaque. This
1473 was done to provide SCREEN-specific "static" variables in terminfo.
1477 + add sp-funcs for erasewchar, killwchar.
1479 Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants):
1481 + _nc_safe_fopen and _nc_safe_open3 limit privileges if possible when
1482 opening a file; otherwise disallow access for updating files.
1484 + _nc_tiparm is a variant of tiparm which is used when all of the
1485 parameters are known to be numbers rather than possibly strings.
1487 + _nc_reset_tparm improves tic's checks by resetting the terminfo
1488 "static variables" before calling functions which may update them.
1490 Removed internal functions:
1494 Modified internal functions:
1496 + _nc_trace_ttymode passes pointer to const data
1498 + _nc_tparm_analyze passes pointer to int*, not int[]
1503 + the terminal database must be compiled with ncurses 6.2 tic;
1504 older versions of tic/infocmp will not work. Aside from that,
1505 the compiled database will work with older applications.
1507 + "*.pc" and "ncurses*-config" files give the same information.
1509 + vwprintw and vwscanw are deprecated.
1513 + These make it simpler to substitute a debug-configuration of the
1514 library for non-debug:
1519 Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants):
1521 + These provide fast-lookup of common user-defined capabilities:
1523 _nc_get_userdefs_table
1526 + This is added to work around compiler-warnings:
1529 Removed internal functions:
1531 + _nc_import_termtype
1533 Modified internal functions:
1535 + _nc_reserve_pairs no longer returns a value
1540 + X/Open Curses specifies a "reserved" void* parameter in several
1541 functions, saying that it must be NULL. In this release, if the
1542 parameter is non-NULL, it is interpreted as a point to an integer
1543 containing a color pair. In previous releases, a non-NULL parameter
1544 caused an error return. Portable applications are unaffected. Here
1545 are the functions which have been extended:
1564 + the TERMINAL structure declared in <term.h> has been made opaque,
1565 and its size increased to handle the increased size of color pair
1566 and color value, as well as other numeric capabilities.
1568 A few applications required change, e.g., to use def_prog_mode;
1569 only one application (tack) is known to have a valid reason for
1570 accessing these internal details, and that was addressed by the
1571 release of tack 1.08 in 2017. Internal functions marked as used
1572 by tack will be deprecated in future releases.
1576 + Several new functions were added to manipulate extended color pairs
1577 and color values. These include:
1579 extended_color_content
1580 extended_pair_content
1588 as well as corresponding sp-functions.
1590 + A new terminfo capability "RGB" tells the ncurses library that the
1591 color values are red/green/blue, to eliminate the need for palettes
1592 in that special case for the color_content function.
1594 Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants):
1596 _nc_export_termtype2
1604 Removed internal functions:
1608 Modified internal functions:
1610 + symbols are used by tic/infocmp/toe:
1611 _nc_align_termtype - change parameters to TERMTYPE2*
1612 _nc_check_termtype2 - change parameter to TERMTYPE2*
1613 _nc_read_file_entry - change parameter to TERMTYPE2*
1614 _nc_read_termtype - change parameter to TERMTYPE2*
1615 _nc_trim_sgr0 - change parameter to TERMTYPE2*
1616 _nc_write_entry - change parameter to TERMTYPE2*
1618 + symbols used only within the library:
1619 _nc_fallback - change return type to TERMTYPE2*
1620 _nc_init_termtype - change parameter to TERMTYPE2*
1625 + The 6.0 ABI modifies the defaults for these configure options:
1633 --with-chtype=uint32_t
1634 --with-mmask_t=uint32_t
1635 --with-tparm-arg=intptr_t
1637 + ncurses supports symbol versioning. If you use this feature, about
1638 half of the "_nc_" private symbols are changed to local symbols.
1640 + a few applications may need to explicitly flush the standard output
1641 when switching between printf's and (curses) printw.
1645 + use_tioctl is an improvement over use_env
1647 + added wgetdelay to support the NCURSES_OPAQUE feature.
1649 Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants):
1656 Removed internal functions:
1659 Modified internal functions:
1660 _nc_do_color - change parameters from short/bool to int
1661 _nc_keypad - change parameter from bool to int
1662 _nc_setupscreen - change parameter from bool to int
1663 _nc_signal_handler - change parameter from bool to int
1669 + add an alternate library configuration, i.e., "terminal driver" to
1670 support port to Windows, built with MinGW. There are two drivers
1671 (terminfo and Windows console). The terminfo driver works on other
1674 + add a new set of functions which accept a SCREEN* parameter, in
1675 contrast with the original set which use the global value "sp".
1676 By default, these names end with "_sp", and are otherwise
1677 functionally identical with the originals.
1679 In addition to the "_sp" functions, there are a few new functions
1680 associated with this feature: ceiling_panel, ground_panel,
1683 If the library is not built with the sp-funcs extension, there
1684 are no related interface changes.
1686 + add tiparm function based on review of X/Open Curses Issue 7.
1688 + change internal _nc_has_mouse function to public has_mouse function
1692 + add a few more functions to support the NCURSES_OPAQUE feature:
1693 get_escdelay, is_pad, is_subwin
1695 Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants):
1704 _nc_retrace_int_attr_t
1710 Removed internal functions:
1711 _nc_makenew (some configurations replace by _nc_makenew_sp)
1713 Modified internal functions:
1720 5.7 (November 2, 2008)
1723 + generate linkable stubs for some macros:
1726 + Add new library configuration for tic-library (the non-curses portion
1727 of the ncurses library used for the tic program as well as some
1728 others such as tack. There is no API change, but makefiles would be
1729 changed to use the tic-library built separately.
1731 tack, distributed separately from ncurses, uses some of the internal
1732 _nc_XXX functions, which are declared in the tic.h header file.
1734 The reason for providing this separate library is that none of the
1735 functions in it are suitable for threaded applications.
1737 + Add new library configuration (ncursest, ncurseswt) which provides
1738 rudimentary support for POSIX threads. This introduces opaque
1739 access functions to the WINDOW structure and adds a parameter to
1740 several internal functions.
1742 + move most internal variables (except tic-library) into data blocks
1743 _nc_globals and _nc_prescreen to simplify analysis. Those were
1744 globally accessible, but since they were not part of the documented
1745 API, there is no ABI change.
1747 + changed static tables of strings to be indices into long strings, to
1748 improve startup performance. This changes parameter lists for some
1749 of the internal functions.
1753 + add NCURSES_OPAQUE definition in curses.h to control whether internal
1754 details of the WINDOW structure are visible to an application. This
1755 is always defined when the threaded library is built, and is optional
1756 otherwise. New functions for this: is_cleared, is_idcok, is_idlok,
1757 is_immedok, is_keypad, is_leaveok, is_nodelay, is_notimeout,
1758 is_scrollok, is_syncok, wgetparent and wgetscrreg.
1760 + the threaded library (ncursest) also disallows direct updating of
1761 global curses-level variables, providing functions (via macros) for
1762 obtaining their value. A few of those variables can be modified by
1763 the application, using new functions: set_escdelay, set_tabsize
1765 + added functions use_window() and use_screen() which wrap a mutex
1766 (if threading is configured) around a call to a user-supplied
1769 Added internal functions:
1780 These are used for leak-testing, and are stubs for
1781 ABI compatibility when ncurses is not configured for that
1782 using the --disable-leaks configure script option:
1787 Removed internal functions:
1790 Modified internal functions:
1796 _nc_locale_breaks_acs
1798 _nc_update_screensize
1800 Use new typedef TRIES to replace "struct tries":
1808 5.6 (December 17, 2006)
1811 + generate linkable stubs for some macros:
1813 getbegx, getbegy, getcurx, getcury, getmaxx, getmaxy, getparx,
1816 and (for libncursesw)
1824 Added internal functions:
1838 Also (if using the hashed database configuration):
1853 Removed internal functions:
1856 Modified internal functions:
1863 5.5 (October 10, 2005)
1866 + terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
1867 "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
1869 + terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
1870 still use ncurses 4.2).
1872 + modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing
1873 initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are
1874 still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old
1877 + form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data.
1878 Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the
1879 FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw, since
1880 that no longer points to an array of char. The set_field_buffer()
1881 and field_buffer() functions translate to/from the actual field
1884 + change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure that
1885 libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason for this
1886 is that the corresponding data which belongs to the upper-level
1887 ncurses library has a different size in each model.
1889 + winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
1890 wide-character configuration.
1892 + assume_default_colors() no longer requires that use_default_colors()
1895 + data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
1897 + slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
1898 multicolumn characters.
1900 + start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started.
1901 start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
1903 + pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if it
1904 corresponds to the default-color.
1906 + unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond
1907 to an unsigned char.
1910 Experimental mouse version 2 supports wheel mice with buttons
1911 4 and 5. This requires ABI 6 because it modifies the encoding
1914 Experimental extended colors allows encoding of 256 foreground
1915 and background colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
1916 xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6 because
1917 it changes the size of cchar_t.
1919 Added internal functions:
1923 _nc_retrace_cvoid_ptr
1924 _nc_retrace_void_ptr
1927 Removed internal functions:
1930 Modified internal functions:
1935 5.4 (February 8, 2004)
1938 + add the remaining functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1939 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1940 --enable-widec option.
1944 + write getyx() and related 2-return macros in terms of getcury(),
1947 + simplify ifdef for bool declaration in curses.h
1949 + modify ifdef's in curses.h that disabled use of __attribute__() for
1950 g++, since recent versions implement the cases which ncurses uses.
1952 + change some interfaces to use const:
1964 Added internal functions:
1967 _nc_is_charable() wide
1968 _nc_locale_breaks_acs()
1971 _nc_to_widechar() wide
1973 _nc_trace_bufcat() debug
1974 _nc_unicode_locale()
1976 Removed internal functions:
1980 Modified internal functions:
1982 _nc_retrace_chtype()
1984 5.3 (October 12, 2002)
1987 + change type for bool used in headers to NCURSES_BOOL, which usually
1988 is the same as the compiler's definition for 'bool'.
1990 + add all but two functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1991 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1992 --enable-widec option. Missing functions are
1996 + add environment variable $NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS to modify the
1997 assume_default_colors() extension.
2003 Added internal functions:
2004 _nc_altcharset_name() debug
2006 _nc_retrace_bool() debug
2007 _nc_retrace_unsigned() debug
2009 _nc_trace_ttymode() debug
2014 Removed internal functions:
2017 Modified internal functions:
2020 5.2 (October 21, 2000)
2023 + revert termcap ospeed variable to 'short' (see discussion of the
2024 --with-ospeed configure option).
2029 + made the extended terminal capabilities
2030 (configure --enable-tcap-names) a standard feature. This should
2031 be transparent to applications that do not require it.
2033 + removed the trace() function and related trace support from the
2036 + modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict
2039 Added extensions: assume_default_colors().
2041 5.0 (October 23, 1999)
2044 + implemented the wcolor_set() and slk_color() functions.
2046 + move macro winch to a function, to hide details of struct ldat
2048 + corrected prototypes for slk_* functions, using chtype rather than
2051 + the slk_attr_{set,off,on} functions need an additional void*
2052 parameter according to XSI.
2054 + modified several prototypes to correspond with 1997 version of X/Open
2055 Curses: [w]attr_get(), [w]attr_set(), border_set() have different
2056 parameters. Some functions were renamed or misspelled:
2057 erase_wchar(), in_wchntr(), mvin_wchntr(). Some developers have used
2060 Added extensions: keybound(), curses_version().
2062 Terminfo database changes:
2064 + change translation for termcap 'rs' to terminfo 'rs2', which is
2065 the documented equivalent, rather than 'rs1'.
2067 The problems are subtler in recent releases.
2069 a) This release provides users with the ability to define their own
2070 terminal capability extensions, like termcap. To accomplish this,
2071 we redesigned the TERMTYPE struct (in term.h). Very few
2072 applications use this struct. They must be recompiled to work with
2075 a) If you use the extended terminfo names (i.e., you used configure
2076 --enable-tcap-names), the resulting terminfo database can have some
2077 entries which are not readable by older versions of ncurses. This
2078 is a bug in the older versions:
2080 + the terminfo database stores booleans, numbers and strings in
2081 arrays. The capabilities that are listed in the arrays are
2082 specified by X/Open. ncurses recognizes a number of obsolete and
2083 extended names which are stored past the end of the specified
2086 + a change to read_entry.c in 951001 made the library do an lseek()
2087 call incorrectly skipping data which is already read from the
2088 string array. This happens when the number of strings in the
2089 terminfo data file is greater than STRCOUNT, the number of
2090 specified and obsolete or extended strings.
2092 + as part of alignment with the X/Open final specification, in the
2093 990109 patch we added two new terminfo capabilities:
2094 set_a_attributes and set_pglen_inch). This makes the indices for
2095 the obsolete and extended capabilities shift up by 2.
2097 + the last two capabilities in the obsolete/extended list are memu
2098 and meml, which are found in most terminfo descriptions for xterm.
2100 When trying to read this terminfo entry, the spurious lseek()
2101 causes the library to attempt to read the final portion of the
2102 terminfo data (the text of the string capabilities) 4 characters
2103 past its starting point, and reads 4 characters too few. The
2104 library rejects the data, and applications are unable to
2105 initialize that terminal type.
2107 FIX: remove memu and meml from the xterm description. They are
2108 obsolete, not used by ncurses. (It appears that the feature was
2109 added to xterm to make it more like hpterm).
2111 This is not a problem if you do not use the -x option of tic to
2112 create a terminfo database with extended names. Note that the
2113 user-defined terminal capabilities are not affected by this bug,
2114 since they are stored in a table after the older terminfo data ends,
2115 and are invisible to the older libraries.
2117 c) Some developers did not wish to use the C++ binding, and used the
2118 configure --without-cxx option. This causes problems if someone
2119 uses the ncurses library from C++ because that configure test
2120 determines the type for C++'s bool and makes ncurses match it, since
2121 both C++ and curses are specified to declare bool. Calling ncurses
2122 functions with the incorrect type for bool will cause execution
2123 errors. In 5.0 we added a configure option "--without-cxx-binding"
2124 which controls whether the binding itself is built and installed.
2129 + correct prototype for termattrs() as per XPG4 version 2.
2131 + add placeholder prototypes for color_set(), erasewchar(),
2132 term_attrs(), wcolor_set() as per XPG4 version 2.
2134 + add macros getcur[xy] getbeg[xy] getpar[xy], which are defined in
2137 New extensions: keyok() and define_key().
2139 Terminfo database changes:
2141 + corrected definition in curses.h for ACS_LANTERN, which was 'I'
2146 We added these extensions: use_default_colors(). Also added
2147 configure option --enable-const, to support the use of const where
2148 X/Open should have, but did not, specify.
2150 The terminfo database content changed the representation of color for
2151 most entries that use ANSI colors. SVr4 curses treats the setaf/setab
2152 and setf/setb capabilities differently, interchanging the red/blue
2153 colors in the latter.
2155 4.0 (December 24, 1996)
2157 We bumped to version 4.0 because the newly released Linux dynamic
2158 loader (ld.so.1.8.5) did not load shared libraries whose ABI and REL
2159 versions were inconsistent. At that point, ncurses ABI was 3.4 and the
2160 REL was 1.9.9g, so we made them consistent.
2162 1.9.9g (December 1, 1996)
2164 This fixed most of the problems with 1.9.9e, and made these interface
2167 + remove tparam(), which had been provided for compatibility with
2168 some termcap. tparm() is standard, and does not conflict with
2169 application's fallback for missing tparam().
2171 + turn off hardware echo in initscr(). This changes the sense of the
2172 echo() function, which was initialized to echoing rather than
2173 nonechoing (the latter is specified). There were several other
2174 corrections to the terminal I/O settings which cause applications to
2177 + implemented several functions (such as attr_on()) which were
2178 available only as macros.
2180 + corrected several typos in curses.h.in (i.e., the mvXXXX macros).
2182 + corrected prototypes for delay_output(),
2183 has_color, immedok() and idcok().
2185 + corrected misspelled getbkgd(). Some applications used the
2188 + added _yoffset to WINDOW. The size of WINDOW does not impact
2189 applications, since they use only pointers to WINDOW structs.
2191 These changes were made to the terminfo database:
2193 + removed boolean 'getm' which was available as an extended name.
2195 We added these extensions: wresize(), resizeterm(), has_key() and
2198 1.9.9e (March 24, 1996)
2200 not recommended (a last-minute/untested change left the forms and
2201 menus libraries unusable since they do not repaint the screen).
2202 Foreground/background colors are combined incorrectly, working properly
2203 only on a black background. When this was released, the X/Open
2204 specification was available only in draft form.
2206 Some applications (such as lxdialog) were "fixed" to work with the
2207 incorrect color scheme.
2210 FOR SYSTEM INTEGRATORS:
2211 ----------------------
2213 Configuration and Installation:
2215 On platforms where ncurses is assumed to be installed in /usr/lib,
2216 the configure script uses "/usr" as a default. These include any
2217 that use the Linux kernel, as well as these special cases:
2219 FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Cygwin, MinGW
2221 For other platforms, the default is "/usr/local". See the discussion
2222 of the "--disable-overwrite" option.
2224 The location of the terminfo is set indirectly by the "--datadir"
2225 configure option, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo, given a datadir of
2226 /usr/share. You may want to override this if you are installing
2227 ncurses libraries in nonstandard locations, but wish to share the
2230 Normally the ncurses library is configured in a pure-terminfo mode;
2231 that is, with the --disable-termcap option. This makes the ncurses
2232 library smaller and faster. The ncurses library includes a termcap
2233 emulation that queries the terminfo database, so even applications that
2234 use raw termcap to query terminal characteristics will win (providing
2235 you recompile and relink them!).
2237 If you must configure with termcap fallback enabled, you may also wish
2238 to use the --enable-getcap option. This speeds up termcap-based
2239 startups, at the expense of not allowing personal termcap entries to
2240 reference the terminfo tree. See comments in
2241 ncurses/tinfo/read_termcap.c for further details.
2243 Note that if you have $TERMCAP set, ncurses will use that value
2244 to locate termcap data. In particular, running from xterm will
2245 set $TERMCAP to the contents of the xterm's termcap entry.
2246 If ncurses sees that, it will not examine /etc/termcap.
2250 The terminfo file assumes that Shift-Tab generates \E[Z (the ECMA-48
2251 reverse-tabulation sequence) rather than ^I. Here are the loadkeys -d
2252 mappings that will set this up:
2254 keycode 15 = Tab Tab
2255 alt keycode 15 = Meta_Tab
2256 shift keycode 15 = F26
2257 string F26 ="\033[Z"
2259 Naming the Console Terminal
2261 In various systems there has been a practice of designating the system
2262 console driver type as `console'. Please do not do this! It
2263 complicates peoples' lives, because it can mean that several different
2264 terminfo entries from different operating systems all logically want to
2265 be called `console'.
2267 Please pick a name unique to your console driver and set that up
2268 in the /etc/inittab table or local equivalent. Send the entry to the
2269 terminfo maintainer (listed in the misc/terminfo file) to be included
2270 in the terminfo file, if it is not already there. See the
2271 term(7) manual page included with this distribution for more on
2272 conventions for choosing type names.
2274 Here are some recommended primary console names:
2276 linux -- Linux console driver
2281 If you are responsible for integrating ncurses for one of these
2282 distributions, please either use the recommended name or get back
2283 to us explaining why you don't want to, so we can work out nomenclature
2284 that will make users' lives easier rather than harder.
2287 MODERN XTERM VERSIONS:
2288 ---------------------
2290 The terminfo database file included with this distribution assumes you
2291 are running a modern xterm based on XFree86 (i.e., xterm-new). The
2292 earlier X11R6 entry (xterm-r6) and X11R5 entry (xterm-r5) is provided
2293 as well. See the --without-xterm-new configure script option if you
2294 are unable to update your system.
2297 CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES:
2298 ----------------------------
2300 In order to support operation of ncurses programs before the terminfo
2301 tree is accessible (that is, in single-user mode or at OS installation
2302 time) the ncurses library can be compiled to include an array of
2303 pre-fetched fallback entries.
2305 NOTE: This must be done on a machine which has ncurses' infocmp and
2306 terminfo database installed (as well as ncurses' tic and infocmp
2307 programs). That is because the fallback sources are generated and
2308 compiled into the library before the build-tree's copy of infocmp is
2311 These entries are checked by setupterm() only when the conventional
2312 fetches from the terminfo tree and the termcap fallback (if configured)
2313 have been tried and failed. Thus, the presence of a fallback will not
2314 shadow modifications to the on-disk entry for the same type, when that
2315 entry is accessible.
2317 By default, there are no entries on the fallback list. After you have
2318 built the ncurses suite for the first time, you can change the list
2319 (the process needs infocmp(1)). To do so, use the script
2320 ncurses/tinfo/MKfallback.sh. The configure script option
2321 --with-fallbacks does this (it accepts a comma-separated list of the
2322 names you wish, and does not require a rebuild).
2324 If you wanted (say) to have linux, vt100, and xterm fallbacks, you
2325 might use the commands
2328 tinfo/MKfallback.sh \
2330 ../misc/terminfo.src \
2333 linux vt100 xterm >fallback.c
2335 The first four parameters of the script are normally supplied by
2336 the configured makefiles via the "--with-fallbacks" option. They
2339 1) the location of the terminfo database
2340 2) the source for the terminfo entries
2341 3) the location of the tic program, used to create a terminfo
2343 4) the location of the infocmp program, used to print a terminfo
2346 Then just rebuild and reinstall the library as you would normally.
2347 You can restore the default empty fallback list with
2349 tinfo/MKfallback.sh \
2351 ../misc/terminfo.src \
2356 The overhead for an empty fallback list is one trivial stub function.
2357 Any non-empty fallback list is const'd and therefore lives in shareable
2358 text space. You can look at the comment trailing each initializer in
2359 the generated ncurses/fallback.c file to see the core cost of the
2360 fallbacks. A good rule of thumb for modern vt100-like entries is that
2361 each one will cost about 2.5K of text space.
2364 BSD CONVERSION NOTES:
2365 --------------------
2367 If you need to support really ancient BSD programs, you probably
2368 want to configure with the --enable-bsdpad option. What this does
2369 is enable code in tputs() that recognizes a numeric prefix on a
2370 capability as a request for that much trailing padding in milliseconds.
2371 There are old BSD programs that do things like tputs("50").
2373 (If you are distributing ncurses as a support-library component of
2374 an application you probably want to put the remainder of this section
2375 in the package README file.)
2377 The following note applies only if you have configured ncurses with
2380 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
2382 If you are installing this application privately (either because you
2383 have no root access or want to experiment with it before doing a root
2384 installation), there are a couple of details you need to be aware of.
2385 They have to do with the ncurses library, which uses terminfo rather
2386 than termcap for describing terminal characteristics.
2388 Though the ncurses library is terminfo-based, it can interpret your
2389 TERMCAP variable (if present), any local termcap files you reference
2390 through it, and the system termcap file. However, to avoid slowing
2391 down your application startup, it does this only once per terminal type!
2393 The first time you load a given terminal type from your termcap
2394 database, the library initialization code will automatically write it
2395 in terminfo format to a subdirectory under $HOME/.terminfo. After
2396 that, the initialization code will find it there and do a (much
2397 faster) terminfo fetch.
2399 Usually, all this means is that your home directory will silently grow
2400 an invisible .terminfo subdirectory which will get filled in with
2401 terminfo descriptions of terminal types as you invoke them. If anyone
2402 ever installs a global terminfo tree on your system, this will quietly
2403 stop happening and your $HOME/.terminfo will become redundant.
2405 The objective of all this logic is to make converting from BSD termcap
2406 as painless as possible without slowing down your application (termcap
2407 compilation is expensive).
2409 If you don't have a TERMCAP variable or custom personal termcap file,
2410 you can skip the rest of this dissertation.
2412 If you *do* have a TERMCAP variable and/or a custom personal termcap file
2413 that defines a terminal type, that definition will stop being visible
2414 to this application after the first time you run it, because it will
2415 instead see the terminfo entry that it wrote to $HOME/terminfo the
2418 Subsequently, editing the TERMCAP variable or personal TERMCAP file
2419 will have no effect unless you explicitly remove the terminfo entry
2420 under $HOME/terminfo. If you do that, the entry will be recompiled
2421 from your termcap resources the next time it is invoked.
2423 To avoid these complications, use infocmp(1) and tic(1) to edit the
2424 terminfo directory directly.
2426 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
2430 Ncurses 4.1 and up can be configured to use GPM (General Purpose Mouse)
2431 which is used with Linux console. Be aware that GPM is commonly
2432 installed as a shared library which contains a wrapper for the curses
2433 wgetch() function (libcurses.o). Some integrators have simplified
2434 linking applications by combining all or part of libcurses.so into the
2435 libgpm.so file, producing symbol conflicts with ncurses (specifically
2436 the wgetch function). This was originally the BSD curses, but
2437 generally whatever curses library exists on the system.
2439 You may be able to work around this problem by linking as follows:
2441 cc -o foo foo.o -lncurses -lgpm -lncurses
2443 but the linker may not cooperate, producing mysterious errors.
2444 See the FAQ, as well as the discussion under the --with-gpm option:
2446 https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#using_gpm_lib
2449 BUILDING WITH A CROSS-COMPILER:
2450 ------------------------------
2451 Ncurses can be built with a cross-compiler. Some parts must be built
2452 with the host's compiler since they are used for building programs
2453 (e.g., ncurses/make_hash and ncurses/make_keys) that generate tables
2454 that are compiled into the ncurses library. The essential thing to do
2455 is set the BUILD_CC environment variable to your host's compiler, and
2456 run the configure script configuring for the cross-compiler.
2458 The configure options --with-build-cc, etc., are provided to make this
2459 simpler. Since make_hash and make_keys use only ANSI C features, it
2460 is normally not necessary to provide the other options such as
2461 --with-build-libs, but they are provided for completeness.
2463 Note that all of the generated source-files which are part of ncurses
2464 will be made if you use
2468 This would be useful in porting to an environment which has little
2469 support for the tools used to generate the sources, e.g., sed, awk and
2472 When ncurses has been successfully cross-compiled, you may want to use
2473 "make install" (with a suitable target directory) to construct an
2474 install tree. Note that in this case (as with the --with-fallbacks
2475 option), ncurses uses the development platform's tic to do the "make
2476 install.data" portion.
2478 The system's tic program is used to install the terminal database,
2479 even for cross-compiles. For best results, the tic program should be
2480 from the most current version of ncurses.
2482 NOTE: the system's tic program may use a different terminfo database
2483 format than the target system. For instance, as described in term(5),
2484 the conventional terminfo layout uses a directory hierarchy with one
2485 letter names, while some platforms use two-letter names to work with
2486 case-insensitive filesystems. The configure script searches for a tic
2487 program using the AC_CHECK_TOOL macro, which will prefer programs
2488 using the canonical host prefix in their name. You can use this fact
2489 to provide a cross-compiler support utility tic, otherwise you can
2490 override the configure script's choice using --with-tic-path
2495 Send any feedback to the ncurses mailing list at
2496 bug-ncurses@gnu.org. To subscribe send mail to
2497 bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with body that reads:
2498 subscribe ncurses <your-email-address-here>
2500 The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines
2501 on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly.