- Announcing ncurses 6.2
+ Announcing ncurses 6.5
Overview
The ncurses distribution is available at ncurses' homepage:
- ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/ or
+ https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/ or
https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/ .
- It is also available via anonymous FTP at the GNU distribution site
+ It is also available at the GNU distribution site
- ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
+ https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
Release Notes
- These notes are for ncurses 6.2, released February 12, 2020.
+ These notes are for ncurses 6.5, released April 27, 2024.
This release is designed to be source-compatible with ncurses 5.0
- through 6.1; providing extensions to the application binary interface
+ through 6.4; 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 robustness
+ issues. The release notes also mention some other bug-fixes, but are
+ focused on new features and improvements to existing features since
+ ncurses 6.4 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().
-
- 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.
+ These are new features:
+ * The low-level terminfo and termcap interfaces are used both by the
+ higher-level curses library, as well as by many applications.
+ The functions which convert parameterized terminal capability
+ strings for output to the terminal (tiparm and tparm) analyze the
+ capability string to determine which parameters are strings (i.e.,
+ addresses), versus numbers (not addresses).
+ The library's analysis of a capability string may differ from the
+ calling application's design if environment variables are used to
+ point to an invalid terminal database. This is a longstanding
+ problem with all implementations of terminfo, dating from the
+ early 1980s.
+ Two new functions address this problem: by providing a function
+ which allows the calling application to tell ncurses how many
+ string-parameters to expect:
+ + tiscan_s helps applications check formatting capabilities
+ that would be passed to tiparm_s.
+ + tiparm_s provides applications a way to tell ncurses what the
+ expected parameters are for a capability.
+ * The ncurses library supports a compile-time feature (enabled with
+ the configure --enable-check-size option) which simplifies
+ initialization with terminals which do not negotiate window
+ (screen) size. This is done in setupterm, by providing for using
+ ANSI cursor-position report (in user6/user7 terminfo capabilities)
+ to obtain the screen size if neither environment variables or
+ ioctl is used.
+ The ncurses test-program with options "-E -T" demonstrates this
+ feature.
+ * add functions to query tty-flags in SCREEN
+
+ This release drops compatibility with obsolete versions of tack, e.g.,
+ pre-1.08
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.
-
- 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.
-
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
+ * In addition to the new, safer function tiparm_s, ncurses adds
+ checks to make the older tiparm, tparm and tgoto functions safer:
+ + the terminfo functions tiparm and tparm ensure that the
+ capability string comes from the terminal description which
+ ncurses loads, rather than from random data which the
+ application happens to have.
+ + the tgoto function disallows capabilities which its analysis
+ shows will attempt to use string parameters.
+ + ncurses uses internal functions which correspond to tiparm,
+ and tgoto which ensure that the capability strings which are
+ passed to these functions come from the loaded terminal
+ description.
+ * improve check in lib_tparm.c, ensuring that a char* fits into a
+ TPARM_ARG
+ * modify _nc_syserr_abort to use _nc_env_access, rather than only
+ checking root uid
+ * improve thread lock in lib_trace.c
+ * modify flushinp to use file descriptors in SCREEN, rather than
+ from TERMINAL, and check if they are for a terminal, like SVr4
+ * modify mcprint to use file descriptor in SCREEN, for consistency
+ * modify internal function _nc_read_file_entry to show relevant
+ filename in warnings
+ * improve checks in internal function convert_string for corrupt
+ terminfo entry
+ * review/improve handling of out-of-memory conditions
+ * limit delays to 30 seconds, i.e., padding delays in terminfo, as
+ well as napms and delay_output functions
+ * fix reallocation loop for vsnprintf in _nc_sprintf_string by
+ copying the va_list variable
+ * modify delscreen to limit the windows which it creates to just
+ those associated with the screen
+ * modify endwin to return an error if it is called again without an
+ intervening screen update
+ * modify wenclose to handle pads
+ * eliminate use of PATH_MAX in lib_trace.c
+ * provide for any CCHARW_MAX greater than 1
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.
+ * correct loop termination condition in waddnstr and waddnwstr
+ * improve parsing in internal function _nc_msec_cost, allowing a
+ single decimal point
+ * amend parameter check for entire string versus specific length in
+ winsnstr and wins_nwstr to match Solaris; make similar correction
+ to wins_nwstr
+ * correct internal function wadd_wch_literal when adding a
+ non-spacing character to a double-width character
+ * correct definition of Charable macro for non-wide ncurses library
+ .
Program improvements
- Several improvements were made to the utility programs:
-
- clear
-
- + 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
+ Several improvements were made to the utility programs. Some were done
+ to make the infocmp option "-u" option help refactor the terminal
+ database.
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.
+ + add limit checks for processing extended capabilities with
+ the "-u" option
+ + correct initial alignment of extended capabilities, so that
+ the "-u" option can be used for more than two terminal types
+ + modify "-u" option to not report cancels for strings which
+ were already cancelled in a use'd chunk.
+ + correct an assignment "-u" for detecting if a boolean is
+ unset in a base entry and set in a use'd chunk, i.e., if it
+ was cancelled.
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.
-
- 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.
-
- 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.
+ + correct limit-check when dumping tc/use clause via "-I"
+ + check return value of _nc_save_str, in special case where
+ extended capabilities are processed but the terminal
+ description was not initialized
+ + modify check for multiply defined aliases to report problems
+ within the current runtime rather than for conflicts with
+ pre-existing terminal descriptions.
+ + disallow using $TERMINFO or $HOME/.terminfo when "-o" option
+ is used
+
+ tput and tset
+
+ + add "-v" option to tput, to show warnings
+ + modify reset command to avoid altering clocal if the terminal
+ uses a modem
+ + modify reset feature to avoid 1-second sleep if running in a
+ pseudo-terminal
Examples
Along with the library and utilities, improvements were made to the
- ncurses-examples. Most of this activity aimed at improving the
- 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.
-
- 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.
+ ncurses-examples:
+ * modify test_tparm to account for extended capabilities
+ * corrected mouse mask in test/testcurs.c
+ * modify test/clip_printw.c to optionally test non-wrapped updates
+ * modify test/test_mouse.c to use curses api for raw/noraw
+ * modify test/clip_printw.c to optionally test non-wrapped updates
+
+ There is one new demo/test programs:
+
+ test/test_endwin.c
+ This program shows the return-status from endwin with different
+ combinations of endwin (repeated), initscr, newterm.
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
+ * ansi+apparrows
+ * contour
+ * linux+kbs for terminals which imitate xterm's behavior with Linux
+ * rio, rio-direct
+ * mostlike
+ * ms-vt100-16color, winconsole
+ * vt100+noapp, vt100+noapp+pc, xterm+app+pc, xterm+decedit from
+ xterm #389
+ * putty+cursor to reflect amending of modified cursor-keys in 2021
+ * wezterm
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.
-
- while others affected specific descriptions. These were retested, to
- take into account changes by their developers:
-
- terminator, st
-
- 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
-
- interix
-
- + trim unnecessary setf/setb
-
- linux-16color
-
- + accommodate Linux console driver incompatibility introduced
- in early 2018
-
- nsterm-256color:
-
- + add nsterm-build309 to replace nsterm-256color, assigning the
- latter as an alias of nsterm, to make mouse work with
- nsterm-256color
-
- regent40:
-
- + renumber function-keys to match manual
-
- 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
-
- vi200:
-
- + add acsc string, including right/down-arrow
-
- wy50:
-
- + corrected acsc
-
- wy50 and wy60:
-
- + add shifted function-keys as kF1 to kF16
-
- xterm+x11hilite:
-
- + eliminate unused p5 parameter.
-
- 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
+ updates to several descriptions, using the infocmp "-u" option in a
+ script to determine which building-block entries could be used to
+ replace multiple capability settings (and trim redundant information).
+
+ Other changes include:
+ * document XF, kxIN and kxOUT
+ * add note on sun regarding wscons/cmdtool/shelltool
+ * remove DECCOLM+DECSCLM from foot
+ * add xterm+focus to foot+base
+ * add ecma+strikeout to putty
+ * use CSI 3J in vte-2017
+ * use oldxterm+sm+1006 in vte-2014
+ * modify xgterm to work around line-drawing bug
+ * add xterm focus mode 1004 to xterm+focus as fe/fd capabilities,
+ like vim.
+ * add xterm+focus to alacritty+common
+ * add XR/xr, to work with vim, and use RV/rv to denote DA2 and its
+ response
+ * add XF flag to xterm+focus so that termcap applications can be
+ aware of terminals which may support focus in/out
+ * use xterm+focus in xterm-p370 and tmux
+ * remove xterm+sm+1006 from tmux
+ * NetBSD-related fixes for x68k and wsvt25
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.
+ + add assignment in CF_MAN_PAGES to fill in value for
+ TERMINFO_DIRS in ncurses, terminfo and tic manpages.
+ + clarify interaction of -R option versus -C, -I and -r in
+ infocmp manpage.
+ + correct manpage description of panel_hidden.
+ + improve manpage description for addch versus unctrl format
+ used for non-printable characters.
+ + improve manpages discussing file descriptors in low-level
+ functions.
+ + improve description of search rules for terminal descriptions
+ in terminfo manpage.
+ + modify dist.mk to avoid passing developer's comments in
+ manpages into the generated html documentation.
+ + modify test-package "ncurses6-doc" to use manpage-aliases,
+ which in turn required a change to the configure script to
+ factor in the extra-suffix option when deriving alias names.
* 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.
+ + add information about "ttycap", termcap's forerunner, to
+ tset.1
+ + document limitations of tparm, and error-returns in
+ curs_terminfo.3x
+ + document limitations of tgoto, and error-returns in
+ curs_termcap.3x
* 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.
+ + This release has many changes to improve the formatting and
+ style of the manpages.
+ + Manpages now use consistent section-naming, page headers and
+ footers (including the modification date for each page).
+ + Table layout has been revised.
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.
-
Interesting bug-fixes
- While there were many bugs fixed during development of ncurses 6.2,
- 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 changes to tparm, tgoto which improve the design of the low-level
+ interfaces are interesting, but are not bug-fixes per se.
Configuration changes
Major changes
- There are no major changes. Several new options were added to ease
- integration of packages with systems using different versions of GNAT
- and ncurses. Also, improvements were made to configure checks.
+ These are the major changes (aside from introducing tiparm_s):
+ * use wide-character (ncursesw) by default
+ * use opaque typedefs by default
+
+ However, most of the work on configure scripts was done to reduce
+ warnings within the configure script:
+ * intrusive warnings from GNU grep regarding fgrep and egrep
+ * fatal errors in compile-checks, arising from recent "Modern C"
+ efforts by some developers which caused longstanding configure
+ checks to fail.
+ After repairing the configure script, none of that activity
+ affected ncurses because stricter warnings are used routinely in
+ development.
+
+ Other improvements made to configure checks include
+ * use string-hacks in alloc_entry.c, alloc_type.c and hardscroll.c,
+ overlooked due to compiler changes in recent OpenBSD releases
+ * revise progs.priv.h to provide for NC_ISATTY reuse
+ * configure check for MB_LEN_MAX provides warning as needed
+ * trim a space after some "-R" options, fixing builds for
+ applications built using clang and ncurses on Solaris
+ * work around misconfiguration of MacPorts gcc13, which exposes
+ invalid definition of MB_LEN_MAX in gcc's fallback copy of
+ limits.h
+ * modified experimental Windows driver works with xterm mouse
+ protocol
Configuration options
- There are a few new/modified configure options:
+ There are a few new configure options:
+
+ --disable-setuid-environ
+ Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment
+ variables are not available when running via a setuid/setgid
+ application. These are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow
+ the search path for the terminfo or termcap entry to be
+ customized.
+
+ A setuid/setgid application inherits its environment variables
+ from the current user, in contrast to sudo which may limit the
+ environment variables that ncurses uses.
- --with-config-suffix
- helps work around a filename conflict with Debian packages
- versus test-packages.
+ --enable-check-size
+ Compile-in feature to detect screensize for terminals which do
+ not advertise their screensize, e.g., serial terminals.
- --with-ada-libname
- allows one to rename the "AdaCurses" library (at least one
- packager prefers a lowercase name).
+ --with-abi-altered=NUM
+ Override the displayed (rather than compiled-in) ABI. Only
+ packagers who have created configurations where the ABI differs
+ from ncurses should be interested in this option.
- --with-fallbacks
- now ensures there is a value, and adds the fallback information
- to top-level Makefile summary.
+ --with-strip-program=XXX
+ When stripping executables during install, use the specified
+ program rather than "strip" overriding program chosen by the
+ install program for stripping executables.
- --with-pcre2
- check for pcre-posix library to help with MinGW port.
+ These configure options are modified:
- --with-tic-path and
+ --with-pkg-config-libdir[=DIR]
+ The optional DIR parameter can now be "auto" to automatically
+ use pkg-config's library directory.
- --with-infocmp-path
- help work around problems building fallback source using
- pre-6.0 tic/infocmp.
+ The default is $(libdir).
- --with-versioned-syms
- option value can now be a relative pathname.
+ --with-xterm-kbs[=XXX]
+ The default is "auto" which tells the configure script to
+ choose BS or DEL according to platform defaults.
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/use configure check for clock_gettime, to supersede
+ gettimeofday.
+ * modify configure script check for pkg-config library directory to
+ take into account an older version 0.15.0 which used
+ PKG_CONFIG_PATH but not PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR
+ * allow for MinGW32-/64-bit configurations to use _DEFAULT_SOURCE
+ * modify CF_XOPEN_SOURCE macro's amend default case to avoid
+ undefining _XOPEN_SOURCE if _POSIX_C_SOURCE is defined
+ * updated configure script macro CF_XOPEN_SOURCE, for uClibc-ng
+ * modify version-check for gcc/g++, now works for msys2
+ * build-fixes related to configure-options and/or platform:
+ + fix for --enable-fvisibility
+ + fix for unusual values of --with-rel-version
+ + fix for unusual values of --with-abi-version
+ + fix for --disable-tcap-names
+ + fix for termcap in nc_access.h
+ * other configure-script improvements:
+ + recent msys2 headers work with _DEFAULT_SOURCE; amend check
+ + use $ac_includes_default in most cases where stdlib.h should
+ work
+ + use #error consistently vs "make an error"
+ + add configure macro for gettimeofday vs inline check
Here are some of the other portability fixes:
- * added dummy "check" rule in top-level and test-Makefile to
- simplify building test-packages for ArchLinux.
- * dropped library-dependency on psapi for MinGW port, since
- win_driver.c defines PSAPI_VERSION to 2, making it use
- GetProcessImageFileName from kernel32.dll
- * made build-fixes for configuration using --program-suffix with
- Ada95, noticed with MacOS but applicable to other platforms
- without libpanelw, etc.
- * modified ncurses/Makefile.in to fix a case where Debian/testing
- changes to the ld --as-needed configuration broke ncurses-examples
- test packages.
- * used _WIN32/_WIN64 in preference to __MINGW32__/__MINGW64__
- symbols to simplify building with Microsoft Visual C++, since the
- former are defined in both compiler configurations.
+ * modify configure scripts/makefiles to omit KEY_RESIZE if the
+ corresponding SIGWINCH feature is disabled
+ * increase MB_CUR_MAX to 16, matching glibc's MB_LEN_MAX
+ * add BSD erase2 to characters handled by tset/reset
+ * use getauxval when available, to improve setuid/setgid checks
+ * set dwShareMode in calls to CreateConsoleScreenBuffer
+ * use CreateFile with "CONIN$", "CONOUT$" rather than GetStdHandle
+ to obtain a handle on the actual console, avoiding redirection in
+ the MinGW/Win32 configurations
+ * modify MinGW driver to return KEY_BACKSPACE when an unmodified
+ VK_BACK virtual key is entered
+ * modify MinGW configuration to provide for running in MSYS/MSYS2
+ shells, assuming ConPTY support
_________________________________________________________________
Features of ncurses
The ncurses package is fully upward-compatible with SVr4 (System V
Release 4) curses:
* All of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are documented).
- * ncurses supports all of the for SVr4 curses features including
- keyboard mapping, color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and
- automatic recognition of keypad and function keys.
- * ncurses provides these SVr4 add-on libraries (not part of X/Open
- Curses):
- + the panels library, supporting a stack of windows with
- backing store.
- + the menus library, supporting a uniform but flexible
- interface for menu programming.
+ * ncurses supports the features of SVr4 curses including keyboard
+ mapping, color, form drawing with ACS characters, and automatic
+ recognition of keypad and function keys.
+ * ncurses provides work-alike replacements of SVr4 supplemental
+ libraries based on curses, but which were not specified by X/Open
+ Curses:
+ + the panel library, supporting a stack of windows with backing
+ store
+ + the menu library, supporting a uniform but flexible interface
+ for menu programming
+ the form library, supporting data collection through
- on-screen forms.
+ on-screen forms
* ncurses's terminal database is fully compatible with that used by
SVr4 curses.
- + ncurses supports user-defined capabilities which it can see,
+ + ncurses supports user-defined capabilities that it can see,
but which are hidden from SVr4 curses applications using the
same terminal database.
+ It can be optionally configured to match the format used in
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
- curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE
- level features, and most EXTENDED features). It includes many
- function calls not supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of
- all calls is documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only).
+ * The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/Open
+ Curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE
+ level features, and almost all EXTENDED features). It includes
+ many function calls not supported under SVr4 curses (but
+ portability of all calls is documented so you can use the SVr4
+ subset only).
* Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost
corner of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character
capability.
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
user's $HOME/.terminfo directory.
* 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
- prototype-checked) if the macro definition is disabled with
- #undef.
+ * X/Open Curses permits most functions it specifies to be made
+ available as macros as well. ncurses does this
+ + to improve performance, e.g., for operations composed of
+ simpler functions such as cursor movement following by adding
+ text to the screen,
+ + to simplify the implementation by reusing functions which use
+ common parameters, e.g., the standard screen stdscr, and
+ + to provide functions that return values via their parameters
+ Except for the last case, ncurses provides a non-macro
+ implementation of the function. If the macro definition is
+ disabled with #undef, or by defining NCURSES_NOMACROS the function
+ may be linked (and its calls will be checked against the
+ prototype).
* Extensive documentation is provided (see the Additional Reading
section of the ncurses FAQ for online documentation).
nvi
New vi uses ncurses.
- https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi
+ https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/the-berkeley-
+ vi-editor-home-page
ranger
A console file manager with VI key bindings in Python.
minicom
terminal emulator for serial modem connections
- https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/
+ https://salsa.debian.org/minicom-team/minicom
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).
Beta versions of ncurses are made available at
- ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/current/ and
+ https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/current/ and
https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/ .
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/ .
+ https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/6.4/ and
+ https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.4/ .
There is an archive of the mailing list here:
- http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses (also https)
+ https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses .
Related resources
* 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
terminal description file once maintained by Eric Raymond . Unlike the
older version, the termcap and terminfo data are provided in the same
file, which also provides several user-definable extensions beyond the
- X/Open specification.
+ X/Open Curses specification.
You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not
- covered in the terminfo file at Richard Shuford's archive . The
- collection of computer manuals at bitsavers.org has also been useful.
+ covered in the terminfo file in Richard Shuford's archive (original).
+ The collection of computer manuals at bitsavers.org has also been
+ useful.
* Overview
* Release Notes
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff