- Announcing ncurses 6.2
+ Announcing ncurses 6.3
Overview
Release Notes
- These notes are for ncurses 6.2, released February 12, 2020.
+ These notes are for ncurses 6.3, released October 21, 2021.
This release is designed to be source-compatible with ncurses 5.0
- through 6.1; providing extensions to the application binary interface
+ through 6.2; providing extensions to the application binary interface
(ABI). Although the source can still be configured to support the
ncurses 5 ABI, the reason for the release is to reflect improvements
to the ncurses 6 ABI and the supporting utility programs.
There are, of course, numerous other improvements, listed in this
announcement.
- The most important bug-fixes/improvements dealt with user-defined
- capabilities in terminal descriptions. The release notes also mention
- some other bug-fixes, but are focused on new features and improvements
- to existing features since ncurses 6.1 release.
+ The most important bug-fixes/improvements dealt with portability
+ issues. The release notes also mention some other bug-fixes, but are
+ focused on new features and improvements to existing features since
+ ncurses 6.2 release.
Library improvements
New features
- There are several new features:
- * O_EDGE_INSERT_STAY tells the form library to optionally delay
- cursor movement on a field edge/boundary
- * O_INPUT_FIELD extension to form library allows a dynamic field to
- shrink if the new limit is smaller than the current field size.
- * added exit_curses and exit_terminfo to replace internal symbols
- for leak-checking.
- * added curses_trace, to replace trace().
+ There are a few new features:
+ * A new (experimental) driver, for the Windows Terminal
+ configuration is provided.
+ * A script is provided which enables OpenBSD users to upgrade their
+ system to use ncurses 6.3 (OpenBSD developers are also invited to
+ do this).
Additionally, to improve performance other changes (and extensions)
are provided in this release:
- * mouse decoding now handles shift/control/alt logic when decoding
- xterm's 1006 mode
- * ncurses now defines a limit for wgetnstr, wgetn_wstr when length
- is negative or "too large".
- * reordered loop-limit checks in winsnstr in case the string has no
- terminating null and only the number of characters is used.
- * there is now no buffer-size limit when reading the $TERMCAP
- variable.
- * the $TERMCAP variable may be interpreted as a fallback to a
- terminfo entry
- * mvcur now decides whether to use hard-tabs, using xt, tbc and hts
- as clues.
- * extended colors are improved by modifying an internal call to
- vid_puts to pass extended color pairs e.g., from tty_update.c and
- lib_mvcur.c
- * the initialization functions now avoid relying upon persistent
- data for the result from getenv
- * scrolling is improved:
- + a limit check in newline_forces_scroll handles the case where
- the row is inside scroll-margins, but not at the end.
- + improved loop limits in _nc_scroll_window handle a case where
- the scrolled data is a pad which is taller than the window.
+ * modify lib_mouse.c to check for out-of-range button numbers,
+ convert those to position reports.
+ * add sp-funcs for erasewchar, killwchar.
Other improvements
These are revised features:
- * used "const" in some prototypes rather than NCURSES_CONST where
- X/Open Curses was updated to do this, e.g., wscanw, newterm, the
- terminfo interface. Also use "const" for consistency in the
- termcap interface, which was withdrawn by X/Open Curses in Issue 5
- (2007). As of Issue 7, X/Open Curses still lacks "const" for
- certain return values, e.g., keyname.
- * modified wbkgd and wbkgrnd to improve compatibility with SVr4
- curses, changing the way the window rendition is updated when the
- background character is modified
- * improved terminfo write/read by modifying the fourth item of the
- extended header to denote the number of valid strings in the
- extended string table (see term(5)).
- * modified the initialization checks for mouse so that the
- xterm+sm+1006 block will work with terminal descriptions not
- mentioning xterm.
+ * modify wgetnstr, wgetn_wstr to improve compatibility with SVr4
+ curses in its treatment of interrupt and quit characters
These were done to limit or ultimately deprecate features:
- * deprecated safe-sprintf, since the vsnprintf function, which does
- what was needed, was standardized long ago.
- * marked vwprintw and vwscanw as deprecated; recommend using
- vw_printw and vw_scanw, respectively.
- * added deprecation warnings for internal functions called by older
- versions of tack.
- * removed unused _nc_import_termtype2 function.
+ * mark wgetch-events feature as deprecated.
+ + prevent KEY_EVENT from appearing in curses.h unless the
+ configure option --enable-wgetch-events is used.
+ + modify MKkey_defs.sh to hide ncurses' definition of
+ KEY_EVENTS to reduce Visual Studio C++ redefinition warnings.
+ * reduce build-warnings by excluding ncurses-internals from
+ deprecation warnings.
These are improvements to existing features:
- * check parameter of set_escdelay, return ERR if negative.
- * check parameter of set_tabsize, return ERR if not greater than
- zero
- * correct a status-check in _nc_read_tic_entry() so that if reading
- a hex/b64 $TERMINFO, and the $TERM does not match, fall-through to
- the compiled-in search list.
- * amend check for repeat_char to handle a case where setlocale() was
- called after initscr
- * move macro for is_linetouched inside NCURSES_NOMACROS ifndef.
- * use _nc_copy_termtype2 rather than direct assignment in setupterm,
- in case it is called repeatedly using fallback terminfo
- descriptions
- * improve workaround for Solaris wcwidth versus line-drawing
- characters
- * add checks in repair_subwindows to keep the current position and
- scroll-margins inside the resized subwindow.
- * correct a buffer-limit in write_entry.c for systems that use
- caseless filenames.
- * improved build-time utility report_offsets:
- + add categories, e.g., "w" for wide-character, "t" for threads
- to make the report more readable. Reorganized the structures
- reported to make the categories more apparent.
- + add NCURSES_GLOBALS and NCURSES_PRESCREEN to report to show
- how similar the different libtinfo configurations are.
- * modified some header files to ensure that those include necessary
- files except for the previously-documented cases
- * added some traces in initialization to show whether a fallback
- entry is used.
- * made minor optimization to reduce calls to _nc_reserve_pairs
+ * drop symbols GCC_PRINTF and GCC_SCANF from <curses.h>, to simplify
+ use.
+ * apply gcc format attribute to prototypes which use a va_list
+ parameter rather than a "..." variable-length parameter list.
+ * modify <term.h> so that it is not necessary to include <curses.h>
+ before <term.h>.
+ * provide for wide-characters as background character in wbkgrnd
+ * improve parameter-checking for tparm, adding function _nc_tiparm()
+ to handle the most-used case, which accepts only numeric
+ parameters.
+ * use return-value from vsnprintf to reallocate as needed to allow
+ for buffers larger than the screen size.
+ * add another fflush(stdout) in _nc_flush to handle time-delays in
+ the middle of strings such as flash when the application uses
+ low-level calls rather than curses.
These are corrections to existing features:
- * fix a special case in PutAttrChar where a cell is marked as
- alternate-character set, but the terminal does not actually
- support the given graphic character. This would happen in an older
- terminal such as vt52, which lacks most line-drawing capability.
- * corrected flag for "seq" method of db 1.8.5 interface, needed by
- toe on some of the BSDs.
- * modify comparison in make_hash.c to correct a special case in
- collision handling for Caps-hpux11
- * add extended_slk_color{,_sp} symbols to the appropriate
- package/*.{map,sym} files
- * modify lib_setup to avoid calling pthread_self() without first
- verifying that the address is valid, i.e., for weak symbols
- * add a couple of broken-linker symbols to the list of versioned
- symbols to help with link-time optimization versus weak symbols.
+ * add a check to guard against repeat_char emitting digits which
+ could be interpreted as BSD-style padding when --enable-bsdpad is
+ configured.
+ * check for screen size-change in scr_init and scr_restore, in case
+ a screen dump does not match the current screen dimensions
Program improvements
Several improvements were made to the utility programs:
- clear
+ tabs
- + improved logic for clearing with the E3 extension, in case
- the terminal scrolls content onto its saved-lines before
- actually clearing the display, by clearing the saved-lines
- after clearing the display
-
- infocmp
-
- + omit filtering of "OTxx" names which are used for obsolete
- capabilities, when the output is sorted by long-names. This
- change helps when making a table of the short/long capability
- names.
+ + implement "+m" option
tic
- + added check for consistent alternate character set
- capabilities.
- + added check for paired indn/rin.
- + added check for terminals with parm_dch vs parm_ich.
- + added check for the case where setf/setb are given using
- different strings, but provide identical results to
- setaf/setab.
- + corrected check for ich1.
- + changed a too-large terminal entry from a fatal error to a
- warning.
+ + add check for duplicate "use=" clauses.
+ + add check to report instances where tparm would detect an
+ error in an expression.
+ + add user-defined capabilities from mintty to Caps-ncurses,
+ for checking consistency.
+ + improve warning when oc/op do not mention SGR 39/49 for xterm
+ compatible XT flag.
+ + improve checks for number of parameters of smglp, smgrp,
+ smgtp, and smgbp.
+ + improve "-c" option to validate the number and type of
+ parameters and compare against expected number/type before
+ deciding which set of parameter-lists to use in tparm calls.
+ + improve check for errors detected in tparm.
+ + improve format of output, to ensure that the messages contain
+ only printable text.
+ + modify to eliminate unnecessary "\" to escape ":" in terminfo
+ format.
+ + remove check that assumes that none or both parameterized and
+ non-parameterized margin-setting capabilities are present.
toe
- + ignores any hex/b64 $TERMINFO value in the list of terminfo
- databases.
-
- tset
-
- + replace check in reset command for obsolete "pt" capability
- using tbc and hts capabilities as clues
- + modify reset to allow for tabstops at intervals other than 8.
- + change reset's behavior for margins to simply clear
- soft-margins if possible, rather than clearing and then
- setting them according to the terminal's width.
+ + modify output of "toe -as" to show first description found
+ rather than the last.
+ + add a check to ensure that a "termcap file" is text rather
+ than binary.
tput
- + add "x" to getopt string so that "tput -x clear" works.
-
- Several changes were made to the generated ncurses*config scripts and
- the analogous ".pc" files to reduce differences between the
- configurations they report:
- * modified the ncurse*-config and pc-files to more closely match for
- the -I and -l options.
- * filtered out linker-specs from the --libs report.
- * amended the ncurses*-config and pc-files to take into account the
- rpath hack which differed between those files.
- * modified generated ncurses*config and ncurses.pc, ncursesw.pc,
- etc., to list helper libraries such as gpm for static linking.
+ + modify to allow multiple commands per line.
+ + improve parameter-checking by analyzing all extended string
+ capabilities, e.g., as used in the Cs and Ms capabilities of
+ the tmux description.
+ + make warning messages consistently using alias names when
+ those are used, rather than the underlying program's name.
+ + improve usage message for aliases such as clear, by
+ eliminating tput-specific portions.
+ + modify initialization to avoid opening /dev/tty for cases
+ other than reset/init, e.g., for clear.
Examples
test-packages. A few changes are more generally useful, e.g., for the
main ncurses test-program, and for analyzing traces using the
tracemunch script:
- * improve recovery from error when reading command-character in
- test/ncurses.c, showing the relevant error message and not exiting
- on EINTR.
- * improve tracemunch, by keeping track of TERMINAL* values, and if
- tracing was first turned on after initialization, attempt to show
- distinct screen, window and terminal names anyway.
- * modify tracemunch to accept filename parameters in addition to use
- as a pipe/filter.
- * update tracemunch to work with perl 5.26.2, which changed the
- rules for escaping regular expressions.
- * add some checks in tracemunch for undefined variables.
- * modify TurnOn/TurnOff macros (in lib_vidattr.c and lib_vid_attr.c)
- to avoid expansion of "CUR" in trace.
+ * add "-r" option to the dots test-programs, to help with scripting
+ a performance comparison.
+ * build-fix for test_opaque, for configurations without opaque
+ curses structs, e.g., ncurses 5.7.
+ * improve tracemunch logic for "RUN" compaction.
+ * improve tracemunch's coverage of form/menu/panel libraries.
+ * improve tracemunch's checking/reporting the type for the first
+ parameter, e.g., "WINDOW*" rather than "#1".
+ * modify tracemunch and the panel library to show readable traces
+ for panel- and user-pointers.
There are other new demo/test programs and reusable examples:
- color_content
- Demonstrate the color_content and extended_color_content
- functions.
-
- demo_tabs
- A simple demo of tabs in curses.
-
- dump_window
- A portable curses screen-dump, used to compare ncurses screen
- contents with Solaris.
-
- pair_content
- Demonstrate the pair_content and extended_pair_content
- functions.
-
- report_hashing
- Check hash-tables used for terminfo and termcap names.
-
- parse_rgb
- Sample implementation of the ncurses RGB extension from
- user_caps.5, used in picsmap and savescreen programs.
-
- A variety of improvements were made to existing programs, both new
- features as well as options added to make the set of programs more
- consistent.
- * add "-l" option to test/background, to dump screen contents in a
- form that lets different curses implementations be compared.
- * add "@" command to test/ncurses F-test, to allow rapid jump to
- different character pages.
- * added enum, regex examples to test/demo_forms
- * amend Scaled256() macro in test/picsmap.c to cover the full range
- 0..1000
- * corrected pathname used in Ada95 sample programs for explain.txt,
- to work with test-packages, and used an awk script to split the
- resulting pathname when it would be too long for a single line.
- * ignore interrupted system-call in test/ncurses's command-line,
- e.g., if the terminal were resized.
- * improved ifdef's for TABSIZE variable, to help with AIX/HPUX
- ports.
+ back_ground
+ to exercise the wide-character background functions.
+
+ move_field
+ to demonstrate move_field, and a stub for a corresponding demo
+ of dup_field.
+
+ test_tparm
+ for checking tparm changes.
Terminal database
There are several new terminal descriptions:
- alacritty, domterm, kitty, mintty, mintty-direct, ms-terminal,
- n7900, nsterm-build309, nsterm-direct, screen5, ti703, ti707,
- ti703-w, ti707-w vscode, vscode-direct, xterm-mono, xterm.js
+ absolute, att610+cvis, foot, foot-direct, hp98550-color,
+ hpterm-color2, hterm, hterm-256color, linux-s, putty+keypad,
+ putty+screen, putty-screen, screen.linux-s, scrt/securecrt,
+ tmux-direct, vt220+cvis, vt220+cvis8, vt220+pcedit, vt220+vtedit,
+ vt220-base, vt52+keypad, xterm+256color2, xterm+88color2,
+ xterm-direct16, xterm-direct256, xterm+nofkeys, and
+ xterm+nopcfkeys.
There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some were
updates to several descriptions:
- * use ansi+rep in a dozen places
- * add rs1 to konsole, mlterm
- * improve several flash capabilities with trailing mandatory delays
- * drop ich1 from rxvt-basic, Eterm and mlterm to improve
- compatibility with old non-curses programs
- * add/use xterm+keypad in xterm-new
- * use xterm+sl-twm for consistency, nine places
- * improve xm example in xterm+x11mouse and xterm+sm_1006.
+ * correct use-ordering in some xterm-direct flavors
+ * fix some sgr inconsistencies in d230c, ibm6153, ibm6154,
+ ncrvt100an
+ * improve vt50h and vt52 based on DECScope manual
+ * use hp+arrows in a few places
+ * use hp+pfk-cr in a few places
+ * use vt220+cvis in st, terminology, termite since they ignore
+ blinking-cursor detail in att610+cvis
while others affected specific descriptions. These were retested, to
take into account changes by their developers:
- terminator, st
+ kitty+common, mlterm3, ms-terminal
while these are specific fixes based on reviewing documentation, user
reports, or warnings from tic:
- adds200:
-
- + fix typo
-
- gnome-256color
-
- + base entry on "gnome", not "vte", for consistency
+ aaa+dec, aaa+rv
+ correct rmacs/smacs
- interix
+ aaa+rv
+ correct sgr
- + trim unnecessary setf/setb
+ icl6404
+ correct csr
- linux-16color
+ kitty
+ use att610+cvis, xterm+tmux and ansi+enq
- + accommodate Linux console driver incompatibility introduced
- in early 2018
+ konsole-base
+ re-enable "bel"
- nsterm-256color:
+ linux2.6
+ fix pound-sign mapping in acsc
- + add nsterm-build309 to replace nsterm-256color, assigning the
- latter as an alias of nsterm, to make mouse work with
- nsterm-256color
+ linux3.0
+ modify to reflect default mapping of shift-tab by kbd 1.14
- regent40:
+ pccons
+ fill in some missing pieces, to make it comparable to the vt220
+ entry
- + renumber function-keys to match manual
+ putty
+ use vt100+fnkeys, add rep
- regent60:
-
- + add cd (clr_eos)
- + corrected acsc
- + add shifted function-keys
-
- tvi950:
-
- + added function-key definitions to agree with Televideo 950
- manual
- + corrected acsc
- + remove bogus kf0
- + add bel
-
- tvi955:
-
- + fix typo
+ screen
+ use vt100+enq
- vi200:
+ terminator
+ corrected tsl capability
- + add acsc string, including right/down-arrow
+ ti916
+ correct cup
- wy50:
+ tmux
+ change kbs to ^?
- + corrected acsc
+ vt220
+ use vt220+cvis
- wy50 and wy60:
+ vt420+lrmm
+ add smglp and smgrp
- + add shifted function-keys as kF1 to kF16
+ vt420
+ use vt420+lrmm
- xterm+x11hilite:
+ xterm-new
+ add nel
- + eliminate unused p5 parameter.
+ xterm-vt52
+ use vt52+keypad
A few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal capabilities):
- * use xterm+sm+1006 (aka "SGR 1006 mouse") for konsole-base and
- putty
- * add Smol/Rmol user-defined capability to tmux and vte-2018
- * add Smulx user-defined capability to tmux, vte-2018
+ * add shifted Linux console keys in linux+sfkeys entry for
+ screen.linux
+ * add Smulx to alacritty
+ * add kbeg to xterm+keypad to accommodate termcap applications
+ * add extensions in xterm+tmux and ecma+strikeout to ms-terminal,
+ but cancel the non-working Cr and Ms capabilities
Documentation
features and show how they evolved, there are corrections,
clarifications, etc.:
* Corrections:
- + correct error-returns listed in manual pages for a few form
- functions
- + corrected prototypes in several manpages using script to
- extract those in compilable form.
- + fix typo in term.5, improve explanation of format
- * Clarify in manual pages that vwprintw and vwscanw are obsolete.
- They have not been part of X/Open Curses since 2007.
+ + make opts extension for getcchar work as documented for
+ ncurses 6.1, adding "-g" flag to demo_new_pair to illustrate.
+ + modify tset "-q" option to refrain from modifying terminal
+ modes, to match the documentation.
* New/improved history and portability sections:
- + curs_addch.3x gives some background for ACS symbols.
- + curs_getcchar.3x explains a difference between ncurses and
- X/Open Curses.
- + curs_getstr.3x gives historical/portability background for
- the length parameter of wgetnstr.
- + curs_slk.3x lists a few differences between SVr4 curses and
- X/Open Curses for soft-keys.
- + curs_terminfo.3x explains that the initial implementation of
- terminfo in SVr2 was mostly replaced by other developers in
- SVr3.
- + infocmp.1 explains that the initial version of terminfo had
- no tool for decompiling descriptions. That came later, with
- SVr3, with a different developer.
- + tabs.1 tells more than you wanted to know about the tool.
- + tic.1 explains that the initial version of terminfo had a
- rudimentary tool (based on termcap) for compiling entries.
- The tool used with Unix was developed by others for SVr3.
- + toe.1 explains the origin of this tool.
- * Improvements for user_caps.5:
- + mention meml, memu and box1
- + expanded description of XM
- + add a clarification regarding the RGB capability.
- + mention user_caps.5 in the tic and infocmp manual pages.
+ + improve documentation for tparm and static/dynamic variables.
+ + add history note to curs_scanw.3x for <stdarg.h> and
+ <varargs.h>
+ + add history note to curs_printw.3x for <stdarg.h> and
+ <varargs.h>
+ + add portability note to ncurses.3x regarding <stdarg.h>
+ + add historical notes to tput, curses-terminfo and
+ curses-color manpages based on source-code for SVr2, SVr3 and
+ SVr4.
+ + improve history section for tset manpage based on the 1BSD
+ tarball, which preceded BSD's SCCS checkins by more than
+ three years.
* Other improvements:
- + curs_add_wch.3x adds note about Unicode terminology for the
- line-drawing characters.
- + curs_color.3x improves discussion of error returns and
- extensions.
- + curs_mouse.3x explains how the kmous and XM capabilities are
- used for xterm-mouse input.
- + curs_refresh.3x improves documentation regarding the virtual
- and physical screens.
- + curs_util.3x mentions a difference between SVr4 and X/Open
- Curses for unctrl.h
- + curs_variables.3x improves description of the init_tabs
- capability and TABSIZE variable.
- + ncurses.3x improves documentation regarding feature-test
- macros in curses.h
- + resizeterm.3x about top-level windows which touch the
- screen's borders.
- + tput.1 clarifies how tput determines the terminal size.
+ + explain in ncurses.3x that functions in the tinfo library do
+ not rely upon wide-characters.
+ + improve manual page for panel library, extending the
+ portability section as well as documenting error-returns.
+ + add section on margins to terminfo.5, adapted from X/Open
+ Curses.
+ + improve man/term.5 section on legacy storage format.
+ + add a note in terminfo.5 explaining that no-parameter strings
+ such as sgr0 or cnorm should not be used with tparm.
+ + improve description of BSD-style padding in curs_termcap.3x
+ + improve discussion of padding versus tparm and tputs in
+ man/curs_terminfo.3x
+ + add a note in manual page to explain ungetch vs unget_wch.
+ + improve description of error-returns in waddch and waddnstr
+ manual pages.
There are no new manual pages (all of the manual page updates are to
existing pages).
Some of the improvements are more subtle, relating to the way the
- information is presented. For instance, the generated terminfo.5 file
- uses a different table layout, allowing it to use space on wide
- terminals more effectively.
+ information is presented. For instance, hyphenation is suppressed in
+ the HTML files generated from manual pages because an upgrade to groff
+ gave noticeably poorer results, interfering with the process of
+ creating links between the resulting webpages.
Interesting bug-fixes
- While there were many bugs fixed during development of ncurses 6.2,
+ While there were many bugs fixed during development of ncurses 6.3,
only a few (the reason for this release) were both important and
interesting. Most of the bug-fixes were for local issues which did not
affect compatibility across releases. Since those are detailed in the
NEWS file no elaboration is needed here.
- The interesting bugs were in tic/infocmp's handling of user-defined
- capabilities. These were not recent bugs. Initially it was a simple
- problem:
- * The user-defined capabilities can be any type (boolean, number or
- string), but once given a type all uses of the name must conform
- to that type--unless some special support for a particular
- multi-typed name is built into ncurses.
- * One of simpleterm's contributors copied some definitions for using
- tmux's user-defined capabilities in late in 2016.
-
-diff --git a/st.info b/st.info
-@@ -185,7 +185,10 @@ st| simpleterm,
- tsl=\E]0;,
- xenl,
- vpa=\E[%i%p1%dd,
--
-+# Tmux unofficial extensions, see TERMINFO EXTENSIONS in tmux(1)
-+ Se,
-+ Ss,
-+ Tc,
-
- st-256color| simpleterm with 256 colors,
- use=st,
-
- * Later, in (referring to a version from mid-2017), a user asked to
- have it updated in ncurses.
- * However, it had an error from the change in late 2016. The
- terminal description made what tmux expected to be string actually
- a boolean.
- Over the years, there were problems with each of simpleterm's
- terminal descriptions. I repaired those, and usually dealt with
- the problem.
- * The difference in this case was that when compiling the terminal
- database, tic may have in memory the definitions for more than one
- terminal description (so that it can resolve "use=" clauses).
- Seeing two different types for the same name, in certain
- situations it would incorrectly merge the symbol tables for the
- two terminal descriptions.
- * On simpleterm's side, their bug was finally fixed in late 2019,
- three years after the bug was created.
-
- For ncurses, the elapsed time to fix this bug was less than three
- years. Someone reported a problem with the terminal description a few
- weeks after releasing ncurses 6.1 (in tmux #1264), and the terminal
- description was updated that week (ncurses patch 20180224):
-
-20180224
- + modify _nc_resolve_uses2() to detect incompatible types when merging
- a "use=" clause of extended capabilities. The problem was seen in a
- defective terminfo integrated from simpleterm sources in 20171111,
- compounded by repair in 20180121.
- + correct Ss/Ms interchange in st-0.7 entry (tmux #1264) -TD
-
- The larger part of that change added a check to prevent a simple merge
- of terminal descriptions where the same user-defined name was used
- with different types. But it raised some questions:
- * Was there a reliable way to manage terminal descriptions which
- used the same extended name in different ways?
- * Should ncurses provide a registry of well-known extended names,
- with their types?
-
- Since the correction to terminfo.src could have been readily adopted
- by packagers, there was nothing more to be done from ncurses'
- standpoint on that part. But improving ncurses to prevent issues like
- that is the reason for making a release.
-
- Nothing more (constructive) was mentioned with regard to simpleterm.
- But a few problems were found in the handling of user-defined
- capabilities:
- * Forward-references to user-defined capabilities in a "use=" clause
- did not allocate new data for each use. In tic, successive
- compilation of terminal entries could add user-defined
- capabilities to the wrong terminal entry.
- This was not noticed before, since xterm's terminal descriptions
- were the main users of the feature, and almost all of the uses of
- the building-blocks which contained user-defined capabilities were
- backward-references.
- * There is one (documented) case where ncurses 6.1 supports a
- user-defined capability that could be any type (i.e., "RGB"). The
- check added in February 2018 to guard against mismatches did not
- handle all of the combinations needed.
-
- Both of these issues dated from the original implementation of
- user-defined capabilities. Fixing them does not change the terminal
- database, but a older tic without the fixes will not be able to handle
- terminfo sources which rely upon those fixes. Starting in June 2019,
- the download link for the terminfo source file was capped at that
- date. The development sources have an up-to-date copy of the file, for
- people with a legitimate need for it.
-
- The "-c" (check) option of tic is not very useful if it cannot offer
- advice on parameters needed for user-defined capabilities. The various
- Caps files were reorganized to reduce redundancy, and in the common
- portion (Caps-ncurses), a registry of user-defined capabilities is
- provided for use by tic. While users can still define their own custom
- capabilities, tic will not offer any advice when their parameters do
- not match.
-
- In ncurses 6.2, tic makes a special check to allow any type for RGB,
- but its being able to do this relies upon fixes made in the ncurses
- library in mid-2019.
+ The interesting bugs were:
+ * modify wbkgd and wbkgrnd to avoid storing a null in the background
+ character, because it may be used in cases where the corresponding
+ 0x80 is not treated as a null.
+ This was a regression introduced in ncurses 6.2 (reported on the
+ mailing list), for which the workaround was to specify a blank for
+ the background character.
+ * remove output-related checks for nl/nonl (also reported on the
+ mailing list).
+ * improve tparm implementation of %P and %g, more closely matching
+ SVr4 terminfo. Those denote static and dynamic variables in
+ terminfo expressions.
+ Exactly what those terms meant was never documented before in any
+ implementation of curses, aside from source code. Unlike the other
+ two fixes, the problem was discovered while studying OpenBSD's
+ version of tset.
Configuration changes
There are a few new/modified configure options:
- --with-config-suffix
- helps work around a filename conflict with Debian packages
- versus test-packages.
+ --enable-fvisibility
+ new configure option and check for gcc -fvisibility=hidden
+ feature
- --with-ada-libname
- allows one to rename the "AdaCurses" library (at least one
- packager prefers a lowercase name).
+ --enable-leaks
+ corrected to allow turning leak-checking off later in a set of
+ options.
- --with-fallbacks
- now ensures there is a value, and adds the fallback information
- to top-level Makefile summary.
+ --enable-stdnoreturn
+ new configure option makes the _Noreturn keyword optional to
+ ease transition.
- --with-pcre2
- check for pcre-posix library to help with MinGW port.
+ --disable-pkg-ldflags
+ revised option also controls whether $LDFLAGS from the build is
+ provided in "-config" and ".pc" files.
- --with-tic-path and
+ --disable-root-access
+ add configure option which tells ncurses to disallow most
+ file-opens by setuid processes.
- --with-infocmp-path
- help work around problems building fallback source using
- pre-6.0 tic/infocmp.
+ --disable-wattr-macros
+ changed default to help packagers who reuse wide ncursesw
+ header file with non-wide ncurses library.
- --with-versioned-syms
- option value can now be a relative pathname.
+ --with-pkg-config-libdir
+ revised option uses the actual search path from pkg-config or
+ pkgconf using the output from --debug.
+
+ --with-ada-libname
+ --with-form-libname
+ --with-menu-libname
+ --with-panel-libname
+ new several --with-xxx-libname options, to help with pkgsrc
Portability
Many of the portability changes are implemented via the configure
script:
- * ignore $TERMINFO as a default value in configure script if it came
- from the infocmp -Q option.
- * distinguish gcc from icc and clang when the --enable-warnings
- option is not used, to avoid unnecessary warnings about
- unrecognized inline options
- * consistently prepend new libraries as they are found during
- configuration, rather than relying upon the linker to resolve
- order dependencies of libraries.
- * modified configure scripts to reduce relinking/ranlib during
- library install :
- + use "install -p" when available, to avoid need for ranlib of
- static libraries.
- + scripts which use "--disable-relink;" add a 1-second sleep to
- work around tools which use whole-second timestamps, e.g., in
- utime rather than the actual file system resolution.
- * add configure check for getenv to work around implementation shown
- in Emscripten which overwrites the previous return value on each
- call.
- Use that to optionally suppress START_TRACE macro, whose call to
- getenv may not work properly
- * change target configure level for _XOPEN_SOURCE to 600 to address
- use of vsscanf and setenv.
- * reduce use of _GNU_SOURCE for current glibc where _DEFAULT_SOURCE
- combines with _XOPEN_SOURCE
- Allow for Cygwin's newlib when checking for the _DEFAULT_SOURCE
- symbol.
- MidnightBSD is now checked for the _XOPEN_SOURCE-related
- definitions.
- * If the check for va_copy or __va_copy fails,
- + configure now tries copying the pointers for va_list, or as
- an array.
- + alternatively, it checks for __builtin_va_copy(), which could
- be used with AIX xlc in c89 mode.
- * several changes to support a port to Ultrix 3.1:
- + check if "b" binary feature of fopen works
- + check for missing feature of locale.h
- + add fallback for strstr() in test-programs
- + add fallback for STDOUT_FILENO in test-programs
- * The test/configure script (used for ncurses-examples) is improved:
- + work around non-ncurses termcap.h file, e.g., in Slackware.
- + check for TABSIZE variable.
- + checks for the X11/Intrinsic.h header, accommodate recent
- MacOS changes which largely emptied /usr/include.
+ * add a special case in the configure script to work around one of
+ the build-time breakages reported for OpenBSD 6 here:
+
+ https://www.mail-archive.com/bugs@openbsd.org/msg13200.html
+ * modify configure check for libtool to prevent accidental use of an
+ OpenBSD program which uses the same name.
+ * modify configuration checks for build-time tic/infocmp to use
+ AC_CHECK_TOOL. That can still be overridden by --with-tic-path and
+ --with-infocmp-path when fallbacks are used, but even if not using
+ fallbacks, the improved check may help with cross-compiling.
+ * relax modification-time comparison in CF_LINK_FUNCS to allow it to
+ accept link() function with NFS filesystems which change the mtime
+ on the link target, e.g., several BSD systems.
+ * modify configure check for c89/c99 aliases of clang to use its
+ -std option instead, because some platforms, in particular macOS,
+ do not provide workable c89/c99 aliases.
+ * modify CF_NCURSES_CONFIG to work around Xcode's c99 "-W" option,
+ which conflicts with conventional use for passing linker options.
+ * modify configure scripts to filter out redefinitions of
+ _XOPEN_SOURCE, e.g., for NetBSD which generally supports 500, but
+ 600 is needed for ncursesw.
Here are some of the other portability fixes:
- * added dummy "check" rule in top-level and test-Makefile to
- simplify building test-packages for ArchLinux.
- * dropped library-dependency on psapi for MinGW port, since
- win_driver.c defines PSAPI_VERSION to 2, making it use
- GetProcessImageFileName from kernel32.dll
- * made build-fixes for configuration using --program-suffix with
- Ada95, noticed with MacOS but applicable to other platforms
- without libpanelw, etc.
- * modified ncurses/Makefile.in to fix a case where Debian/testing
- changes to the ld --as-needed configuration broke ncurses-examples
- test packages.
- * used _WIN32/_WIN64 in preference to __MINGW32__/__MINGW64__
- symbols to simplify building with Microsoft Visual C++, since the
- former are defined in both compiler configurations.
+ * change configure-check and source-code for gcc's noreturn
+ attribute to assume it is a prefix rather than suffix, matching
+ c11's _Noreturn convention.
+ * modify mk-1st.awk to account for extra-suffix configure option.
+ * build-fix for termsort module when configured with termcap.
+ * modify configure script and makefiles to support ".PHONY" make
+ program feature.
+ * amend libtool configuration to add dependency for install.tic,
+ etc., in ncurses/Makefile on the lower-level libraries.
+ * modify Ada95 source-generation utility to write to a file given as
+ parameter rather than to the standard output, allowing builds with
+ MinGW.
+ * amend tic/infocmp check to allow for the respective tool's
+ absence.
+ * build-fixes for gnat 10.1.1, whose gnatmake drops integration with
+ gprbuild.
+ * correct configure version-check/warning for g++ to allow for 10.x
_________________________________________________________________
Features of ncurses
curses.
* The ncurses utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo
entries for use with less capable curses/terminfo versions such as
- the HP/UX and AIX ports.
+ the HP-UX and AIX ports.
The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4:
* The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN
use of function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, or by
defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key
code.
+ * Support for direct-color terminals, such as modern xterm.
* Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm.
* Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and modern xterm.
* Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a
* The table-of-entries utility toe makes it easy for users to see
exactly what terminal types are available on the system.
* The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro entry point
- have a corresponding function which may be linked (and will be
+ has a corresponding function which may be linked (and will be
prototype-checked) if the macro definition is disabled with
#undef.
* Extensive documentation is provided (see the Additional Reading
mosh
a replacement for ssh.
- https://mosh.mit.edu/
+ https://mosh.org/
tack
terminfo action checker
Ongoing development work is done by Thomas E. Dickey. Thomas E. Dickey
has acted as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which
- holds a copyright on ncurses for releases 4.2 through 6.1. Following
+ held a copyright on ncurses for releases 4.2 through 6.1. Following
the release of ncurses 6.1, effective as of release 6.2, copyright for
ncurses reverted to Thomas E. Dickey (see the ncurses FAQ for
additional information).
Patches to the current release are made available at
- ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/6.1/ and
- https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.1/ .
+ ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/6.2/ and
+ https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.2/ .
There is an archive of the mailing list here:
* ncurses licensing
* Symbol versioning in ncurses
* Comments on ncurses versus slang (S-Lang)
+ * Comments on OpenBSD
* tack - terminfo action checker
* tctest - termcap library checker
* Terminal Database
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff