- Announcing ncurses 5.1
+ Announcing ncurses 5.2
The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of
curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format,
Release Notes
- This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0;
- very few applications will require recompilation, depending on the
- platform. These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses
- 5.0 release.
+ This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 and
+ 5.1; very few applications will require recompilation, depending on
+ the platform. These are the highlights from the change-log since
+ ncurses 5.1 release.
Interface changes:
- * made the extended terminal capabilities
- (configure --enable-tcap-names) a standard feature (though the
- configure script can disable it, it is built by default).
- * removed the trace() function and related trace support from the
- production library. This is the only interface change that may
- cause problems with existing applications linked to shared
- libraries, since not all platforms use the minor version number.
- * explicitly initialized to zero several data items which were
- implicitly initialized, e.g., cur_term. If not explicitly
- initialized, their storage type is C (common), and causes problems
- linking on some platforms.
- * modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict
- with C++ STL.
-
- New features:
- * added a new extension, assume_default_colors() to provide better
- control over the use of default colors. This is the principal
- visible difference between ncurses 5.1 and preceding versions. The
- new extension allows an application to specify what colors pair 0
- uses.
- NOTE: Pair 0 defaults to white on black unless you have invoked
- use_default_colors() or set it via assume_default_colors(). An
- application that calls start_colors() without setting the
- background color will consistently have a black background no
- matter what color your terminal's background actually is.
- * made several fixes to the terminfo-to-termcap conversion, and have
- been using the generated termcaps without further hand-tuning.
- This builds on the extension use_extended_names() by adding
- "obsolete" termcap strings to terminfo.src
- + modified tic so that if extended names (i.e.,
- configure --enable-tcap-names) are active, then tic -x will
- also write "obsolete" capabilities that are present in the
- terminfo source.
- + added screen's AX capability (for ECMA SGR 39 and 49) to
- applicable terminfo entries, use presence of this as a check
- for a small improvement in setting default colors.
- + add -a option to tic and infocmp, which retains commented-out
- capabilities during source translation/comparison, e.g.,
- captoinfo and infotocap.
- * implemented limited support for UTF-8, useful with XFree86 xterm:
- + if the configure --enable-widec option is given, append 'w'
- to names of the generated libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so) to
- avoid conflict with existing ncurses libraries.
- + add a simple UTF-8 output driver to the experimental
- wide-character support. If any of the environment variables
- LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE or LANG contain the string "UTF-8", this
- driver will be used to translate the output to UTF-8.
- + modified view.c to make a rudimentary viewer of UTF-8 text.
- * modify raw() and noraw() to clear/restore IEXTEN flag which
- affects stty lnext on systems such as FreeBSD
- * reordered tests during mouse initialization to allow for gpm to
- run in xterm, or for xterm to be used under OS/2 EMX. Also dropped
- test for $DISPLAY in favor of the terminfo capability kmous=\E[M
- or if $TERM environment variable contains "xterm".
- * added configure option --with-manpage-symlinks, which provides for
- fully indexing manpage entries by making symbolic links for the
- aliases.
- * changed unctrl() to render C1 characters (128-159) as ~@, ~A, etc.
- * add experimental configure option --enable-colorfgbg to check for
- $COLORTERM variable as set by rxvt/aterm/Eterm.
- * made the infocmp -F option less verbose.
- * dropped support for gnat 3.10 (gnat 3.12 is current).
+ * change type of ospeed variable back to short to match its use in
+ legacy applications. It was altered after ncurses 4.2 to speed_t
+ to repair a type mismatch which was introduced after 1.9.4 in
+ 1995. The principal users of termcap continued to use short, which
+ is not the same size.
+ NOTE: A few applications will have to be recompiled (about 1% of
+ the programs in a typical Linux distribution, 10% of the programs
+ that use ncurses). These are easy to identify with nm or strings.
+ * remove a private function _nc_can_clear_with(), which was built
+ with the configure --enable-expanded option but not used.
+ * add several private functions (prefixed with "_nc_") for tracing
+ chtype values in the debug library, and for better access and
+ buffer limit checking.
+
+ New features and improvements:
+ * rewrote tgoto() to make it better support existing termcap
+ applications which use hardcoded strings rather than obtain all of
+ their information from the termcap file. If the string does not
+ appear to be a terminfo string (i.e., does not refer to a "%p"
+ parameter, or terminfo-style padding), and termcap support is
+ configured, tgoto() will interpret it as termcap. Otherwise, as
+ before, it will use tparm().
+ * to ensure that the tgoto() changes work properly, added checks to
+ tic which report capabilities that do not reference the expected
+ number of parameters.
+ * new configure script options:
+ + option --disable-root-environ adds runtime checks which tell
+ ncurses to disregard $TERMINFO and similar environment
+ variables if the current user is root, or running
+ setuid/setgid.
+ + option --disable-assumed-color allows you to use the pre-5.1
+ convention of default colors used for color-pair 0 to be
+ configured (see assume_default_colors()).
+ + implement configure script options that transform installed
+ program names, e.g., --program-prefix, including the manpage
+ names and cross references.
+ + option --with-database allows you to specify a different
+ terminfo source-file to install. On OS/2 EMX, the default is
+ misc/emx.src, otherwise misc/terminfo.src
+ + option --with-default-terminfo-dir allows you to specify the
+ default terminfo database directory.
+ + option --with-libtool allows you to build with libtool.
+ NOTE: libtool uses a different notation for numbering shared
+ library versions from the existing ncurses configuration.
+ + option --with-manpage-tbl causes the manpages to be
+ preprocessed by tbl(1) prior to installation,
+ + option --without-curses-h causes the installation process to
+ install curses.h as ncurses.h and make appropriate changes to
+ headers and manpages.
+ * modified configure script options:
+ + change symbol used by the --install-prefix configure option
+ from INSTALL_PREFIX to DESTDIR (the latter has become common
+ usage although the name is misleading).
+ + modify ld -rpath options (e.g., Linux, and Solaris) to use an
+ absolute pathname for the build tree's lib directory,
+ avoiding confusion with directories relative to the current
+ one with the installed programs.
+ + modified misc/run_tic.in to use tic -o, to eliminate
+ dependency on $TERMINFO variable for installs.
+ * terminfo database:
+ + updated xterm terminfo entries to match XFree86 xterm patch
+ #146.
+ + added amiga-vnc, Matrix Orbital, and QNX qansi to
+ misc/terminfo.src.
+ + added os2 entry to misc/emx.src.
+ + add S0 and E0 extensions to screen's terminfo entry since
+ otherwise the FreeBSD port makes it pass termcap equivalents
+ to tgoto, which would be misinterpreted by older versions of
+ ncurses.
+ * improvements to program usability:
+ + modify programs to use curses_version() string to report the
+ version of ncurses with which they are compiled rather than
+ the NCURSES_VERSION string. The function returns the patch
+ level in addition to the major and minor version numbers.
+ + modify tput program so it can be renamed or invoked via a
+ link as 'reset' or 'init', producing the same effect as
+ tput reset or tput init.
+ + add error checking to infocmp's -v and -m options to ensure
+ that the option value is indeed a number.
+ * improved performance:
+ + replace a lookup table in lib_vidattr.c used to decode
+ no_color_video with a logic expression which is faster.
Major bug fixes:
- * modified infocmp -e, -E options to ensure that generated
- fallback.c type for Booleans agrees with term.h
- * documented a special case of incompatiblity between ncurses 4.2
- and 5.0, added a section for this in INSTALL.
- * corrected tests for file-descriptors in OS/2 EMX mouse support. A
- negative value could be used by FD_SET, causing the select() call
- to wait indefinitely.
- * made 'tput flash' work properly for xterm by flushing output in
- delay_output() when using napms(), and modifying xterm's terminfo
- to specify no padding character. Otherwise, xterm's reported baud
- rate could mislead ncurses into producing too few padding
- characters.
- * modified lib_addch.c to allow repeated update to the lower-right
- corner, rather than displaying only the first character written
- until the cursor is moved. Recent versions of SVr4 curses can
- update the lower-right corner, and behave this way.
- * modified echo() behavior of getch() to match Solaris curses for
- carriage return and backspace (reported by Neil Zanella).
- * corrected offsets used for subwindows in wresize()
- * modified configure script so AC_MSG_ERROR is temporarily defined
- to a warning in AC_PROG_CXX to make it recover from a missing C++
- compiler without requiring user to add --without-cxx option
- * corrected logic in lib_twait.c as used by lib_mouse.c for GPM
- mouse support when poll() is used rather than select().
- * made several fixes for buffer overflows, unchecked recursion,
- improvements in performance, etc. See the NEWS file for details.
+ * correct manlinks.sed script introduced in ncurses 5.1 to avoid
+ using ERE "\+", which is not understood by standard versions of
+ sed. This happens to work with GNU sed, but is not portable, and
+ was the initial motivation for this release.
+ * remove "hpux10.*" case from CF_SHARED_OPTS configure script macro.
+ This differed from the "hpux*" case by using reversed symbolic
+ links, which made the 5.1 version not match the configuration of
+ 5.0 shared libraries.
+ * guard against corrupt terminfo data:
+ + modify tparm() to disallow arithmetic on strings, analyze the
+ varargs list to read strings as strings and numbers as
+ numbers.
+ + modify tparm()'s internal function spop() to treat a null
+ pointer as an empty string.
+ + modify parse_format() in lib_tparm.c to ignore precision if
+ it is longer than 10000.
+ + rewrote limit checks in lib_mvcur.c using new functions
+ _nc_safe_strcat(), etc. Made other related changes to check
+ lengths used for strcat() and strcpy().
+ * corrections to screen optimization:
+ + added special case in lib_vidattr.c to reset underline and
+ standout for devices that have no sgr0 defined.
+ + change handling of non_dest_scroll_region in tty_update.c to
+ clear text after it is shifted in rather than before shifting
+ out. Also correct row computation.
+ + modify rs2 capability in xterm-r6 and similar entries where
+ cursor save/restore bracketed the sequence for resetting
+ video attributes. The cursor restore would undo that.
+ * UTF-8 support:
+ + when checking LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment
+ variables for UTF-8 locale, ignore those which are set to an
+ empty value, as per SUSV2.
+ + encode 0xFFFD in UTF-8 with 3 bytes, not 2.
+ + modify _nc_utf8_outch() to avoid sign-extension when checking
+ for out-of-range value.
+ * other library fixes:
+ + added checks for an empty $HOME environment variable, to
+ avoid retrieving terminfo descriptions from ./.terminfo .
+ + change functions _nc_parse_entry() and postprocess_termcap()
+ to avoid using strtok(), because it is non-reentrant.
+ + initialize fds[] array to 0's in _nc_timed_wait(); apparently
+ poll() only sets the revents members of that array when there
+ is activity corresponding to the related file.
+ + add a check for null pointer in Make_Enum_Type().
+ + fix a heap problem with the c++ binding.
+ + correct missing includes for <string.h> in several places,
+ including the C++ binding. This is not noted by gcc unless we
+ use the -fno-builtin option.
+ * several fixes for tic:
+ + add a check for empty buffers returned by fgets() in
+ comp_scan.c next_char() function, in case tic is run on a
+ non-text file (fixes a core dump).
+ + modify tic to verify that its inputs are really files, in
+ case someone tries to read a directory (or /dev/zero).
+ + correct an uninitialized parameter to open_tempfile() in
+ tic.c which made "tic -I" give an ambiguous error message
+ about tmpnam.
+ + correct logic in adjust_cancels(), which did not check both
+ alternatives when reclassifying an extended name between
+ boolean, number and string, causing an infinite loop in tic.
+ * using new checks in tic for parameter counts in capability
+ strings, found/fixed several errors both in the terminfo database
+ and in the include/Caps file.
+ + modified several terminfo capability strings, including the
+ definitions for setaf, setab, in include/Caps to indicate
+ that the entries are parameterized. This information is used
+ to tell which strings are translated when converting to
+ termcap. This fixes a problem where the generated termcap
+ would contain a spurious "%p1" for the terminfo "%p1%d".
+ + correct parameter counts in include/Caps for dclk as well as
+ some printer-specific capabilities: csnm, defc, scs, scsd,
+ smgtp, smglp.
+ * various fixes for install scripts used to support configure
+ --srcdir and --with-install-prefix.
+ * correct several mismatches between manpage filename and ".TH"
+ directives, renaming dft_fgbg.3x to default_colors.3x and
+ menu_attribs.3x to menu_attributes.3x.
+
+ Portability:
+ * configure script:
+ + newer config.guess, config.sub, including changes to support
+ OS/2 EMX. The configure script for OS/2 EMX still relies on a
+ patch since there is no (working) support for that platform
+ in the main autoconf distribution.
+ + make configure script checks on variables $GCC and $GXX
+ consistently compare against 'yes' rather than test if they
+ are nonnull, since either may be set to the corresponding
+ name of the C or C++ compiler.
+ + change configure script to use AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM rather
+ than AC_CANONICAL_HOST, which means that configure --target
+ will set a default program-prefix.
+ + modify the check for big-core to force a couple of memory
+ accesses, which may work as needed for older/less-capable
+ machines (if not, there's still the explicit configure
+ option).
+ + modify configure test for tcgetattr() to allow for old
+ implementations, e.g., on BeOS, which only defined it as a
+ macro.
+ + add configure check for filesystems (such as OS/2 EMX) which
+ do not distinguish between upper/lowercase filenames, use
+ this to fix tags rules in makefiles.
+ + add MKncurses_def.sh to generate fallback definitions for
+ ncurses_cfg.h, to quiet gcc -Wundef warnings, modified
+ ifdef's in code to consistently use "#if" rather than
+ "#ifdef".
+ + change most remaining unquoted parameters of test in
+ configure script to use quotes, for instance fixing a problem
+ in the --disable-database option.
+ + modify scripts so that "make install.data" works on OS/2 EMX.
+ + modify scripts and makefiles so the Ada95 directory builds on
+ OS/2 EMX.
+ * library:
+ + replaced case-statement in _nc_tracebits() for CSIZE with a
+ table to simplify working around implementations that define
+ random combinations of the related macros to zero.
+ + improved OS/2 mouse support by retrying as a 2-button mouse
+ if code fails to set up a 3-button mouse.
+ + added private entrypoint _nc_basename(), used to consolidate
+ related code in progs, as well as accommodating OS/2 EMX
+ pathnames.
+ + alter definition of NCURSES_CONST to make it non-empty.
+ + redefine 'TEXT' in menu.h for AMIGA, since it is reported to
+ have an (unspecified) symbol conflict.
+ * programs:
+ + modified progs/tset.c and tack/sysdep.c to build with sgttyb
+ interface if neither termio or termios is available. Tested
+ this with FreeBSD 2.1.5 (which does have termios - but the
+ sgttyb does work).
Features of Ncurses
5. http://dickey.his.com/ded/ded.html
6. http://dickey.his.com/dialog/dialog.html
7. http://lynx.isc.org/release/
- 8. file://localhost/usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-5.1-20000704/doc/html/www.gnome.org/mc/
+ 8. file://localhost/usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-5.2-20001021/doc/html/www.gnome.org/mc/
9. http://www.mutt.org/
10. http://www.ncftp.com/
11. http://www.bostic.com/vi/
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff