- Announcing ncurses 6.0
+ Announcing ncurses 6.2
Overview
curses in System V Release 4.0 (SVr4), and more. It uses terminfo
format, supports pads and color and multiple highlights and forms
characters and function-key mapping, and has all the other SVr4-curses
- enhancements over BSD curses. SVr4 curses is better known today as
- X/Open Curses.
+ enhancements over BSD curses. SVr4 curses became the basis of X/Open
+ Curses.
In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he
considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the keepers of unix
* It is used in almost every system based on the Linux kernel (aside
from some embedded applications).
* It is used as the system curses library on OpenBSD, FreeBSD and
- OSX.
+ MacOS.
* It is used in environments such as Cygwin and MinGW. The first of
these was EMX on OS/2 Warp.
* It is used (though usually not as the system curses) on all of the
* It should work readily on any ANSI/POSIX-conforming unix.
The distribution includes the library and support utilities, including
- * [1]captoinfo, a termcap conversion tool
- * [2]clear, utility for clearing the screen
- * [3]infocmp, the terminfo decompiler
- * [4]tabs, set tabs on a terminal
- * [5]tic, the terminfo compiler
- * [6]toe, list (table of) terminfo entries
- * [7]tput, utility for retrieving terminal capabilities in shell
+ * captoinfo, a termcap conversion tool
+ * clear, utility for clearing the screen
+ * infocmp, the terminfo decompiler
+ * tabs, set tabs on a terminal
+ * tic, the terminfo compiler
+ * toe, list (table of) terminfo entries
+ * tput, utility for retrieving terminal capabilities in shell
scripts
- * [8]tset, to initialize the terminal
+ * tset, to initialize the terminal
Full manual pages are provided for the library and tools.
- The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the GNU
- distribution site
+ The ncurses distribution is available at ncurses' homepage:
- [9]ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
+ ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/ or
+ https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/ .
- It is also available at
+ It is also available via anonymous FTP at the GNU distribution site
- [10]ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ .
+ ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
Release Notes
- These notes are for ncurses 6.0, released August 8, 2015.
+ These notes are for ncurses 6.2, released February 12, 2020.
This release is designed to be source-compatible with ncurses 5.0
- through 5.9; providing a new application binary interface (ABI).
- Although the source can still be configured to support the ncurses 5
- ABI, the intent of the release is to provide extensions which are
- generally useful, but binary-incompatible with ncurses 5:
- * Extend the cchar_t structure to allow more than 16 colors to be
- encoded.
- * Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th mouse
- button. That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel mouse with
- xterm or similar X terminal emulators.
-
- There are, of course, numerous other improvements, including
- * fixes made based on the Clang and Coverity static analyzers.
- * memory leak fixes using Valgrind
-
- The release notes mention some bug-fixes, but are focused on new
- features and improvements to existing features log since ncurses 5.9
- release.
-
- While the intent of the release is to provide a new stable ABI, there
- are other development activities which are summarized below.
- * The original release plan, e.g., for "5.10" was to improve the
- MinGW port. Ultimately that was completed (wide-character support,
- mouse, etc), but was deferred to focus on termcap support and
- performance issues. Also, pinpointing the problems with Console2
- took a while.
- * A review of termcap compatibility in 2011 led to several minor
- fixes in the library and improvements to utilities. To do this
- properly, a review of the various extent termcap implementations
- was needed.
- The [11]termcap library checker (tctest) (not part of ncurses) was
- one result. A followup review of performance using
- [12]ncurses-examples in 2014 led to additional improvements.
- * Output buffering provided a further, but worthwhile distraction. A
- bug report in 2012 regarding the use of signal handlers in
- ncurses) pointed out [13]a problem with the use of unsafe
- functions for handling SIGTSTP. Other signals could be addressed
- with workarounds; repairing SIGTSTP required a different approach.
- The solution required changing internal behavior of the library:
- how it handles output buffering.
- Now ncurses buffers its own output, independently of the standard
- output. A few applications relied upon the library's direct reuse
- of the standard output buffering; however that is unspecified
- behavior and has never been a recommended practice. Identifying
- these applications as well as refining the change to permit
- low-level applications to work consistently took time.
- * Since the introduction of the experimental support for 256 colors
- early in [14]2005 (released in [15]ncurses 5.5), there has been
- increased user interest. Almost all packagers continue providing
- the ncurses ABI 5 which cannot support 256 colors.
- * Symbol versioning, or the lack of it in ncurses, is the main
- reason why packagers would be reluctant to add a new ncurses ABI.
- This release provides the new ABI along with script-generated
- lists of versioned symbols which can be used for both ABI 5 and 6
- (with distinct names to keep the two separate). This took time to
- development, as reported in [16]Symbol versioning in ncurses.
+ through 6.1; 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.
Library improvements
- Output buffering
-
- X/Open curses provides more than one initialization function:
- * [17]initscr (the simplest) accepts no parameters.
- * [18]newterm accepts parameters for the stream input and output
- * [19]setupterm (the low-level function) accepts a parameter for the
- file descriptor of the output.
-
- They are documented in X/Open as if initscr calls newterm using stdout
- for output stream, and in turn newterm calls setupterm using
- fileno(stdout) for the file descriptor. As long as an implementation
- acts as if it does this, it conforms. In practice, implementations do
- what is implied. This creates a problem: the low-level setupterm
- function's file descriptor is unbuffered, while newterm implies
- buffered output. X/Open Curses says that all output is done through
- the file descriptor, and does not say how the output stream is
- actually used.
-
- Initially, ncurses used the file descriptor (obtained from the output
- stream passed to newterm) for changing the terminal modes, and relied
- upon the output parameter of newterm for buffered output. Later (to
- avoid using unsafe buffered I/O in signal handlers), ncurses was
- modified to use the file descriptor (unbuffered output) when cleaning
- up on receipt of a signal. Otherwise (when not handling a signal), it
- continued to use the buffered output.
-
- That approach worked reasonably well and as a side effect, using the
- same buffered output as an application might use for printf meant that
- no flushing was needed when switching between normal- and
- screen-modes.
-
- There were a couple of problems:
- * to get good performance, curses (not only ncurses, but SVr4 curses
- in general) set an output buffer using setbuf or similar function.
- There is no standard (or portable) way to turn that output buffer
- off, and revert to line-buffering. The [20]NCURSES_NO_SETBUF
- environment variable did make it optional.
- * to handle SIGTSTP (the "stop" signal), ncurses relied upon unsafe
- functions. That is, due to the complexity of the feature, it
- relied upon reusing existing functions which should not have been
- called via the signal handler.
-
- Conveniently, solving the second problem (by making ncurses do its own
- output buffering) also fixed the first one. But there were special
- cases to resolve: [21]low-level functions such as mvcur, putp, vidattr
- explicitly use the standard output. Those functions were reused
- internally, and required modification to distinguish whether they were
- used by the high-level or low-level interfaces.
-
- Finally, there may still be a few programs which should be modified to
- improve their portability, e.g., adding an
-
-fflush(stdout);
-
- when switching from "[22]shell" mode to "[23]program" (curses) mode.
- Those are fairly rare because most programmers have learned not to mix
- printf and [24]printw.
-
- Symbol versioning
-
- This release introduces symbol-versioning to ncurses because without
- it, the change of ABI would be less successful. A lengthy discussion
- will be presented in [25]Symbol versioning in ncurses. These notes
- summarize what has changed, and what can be done with the new release.
-
- Symbol-versioning allows the developers of a library to mark each
- public symbol (both data and functions) with an identifier denoting
- the library name and the version for which it was built. By doing
- this, users of the library have a way to help ensure that applications
- do not accidentally load an incompatible library. In addition, private
- symbols can be hidden entirely.
-
- This release provides sample files for the four principal
- configurations of ncurses libraries: ncurses, ncursesw, ncursest and
- ncursestw. Each sample is given in two forms:
-
- ".map"
- These list all public symbols, together with version names.
-
- ".sym"
- These list all public symbols, without version names.
-
- The sample files are generated by scripts which take into account a
- few special cases such as [26]tack to omit many of the ncurses private
- symbols (beginning with "_nc_"). Here are counts of globals versus
- locals:
-
- Config Symbols Globals Locals "_nc_"
- ncurses 976 796 180 332
- ncursesw 1089 905 184 343
- ncursest 979 804 175 358
- ncursestw 1098 914 184 372
-
- Although only four sample configurations are presented, each is formed
- by merging symbols from several combinations of configure-script
- options, taking into account advice from downstream packagers. Because
- they are formed by merging, the sample files may list a symbol which
- is not in a given package. That is expected. The samples have been
- tested and are working with systems (such as Fedora, FreeBSD and
- Debian) which fully support this feature. There are other systems
- which do not support the feature, and a few (such as Solaris) which
- provide incomplete support.
-
- The version-naming convention used allows these sample files to build
- distinct libraries for ABI 5 and 6. Version names consist of
- * configuration name, e.g., "NCURSESW" for the wide-character
- libraries
- * ABI version (if not 5)
- * library name for two special cases which have the same interface
- across configurations: "TINFO" and "TIC"
- * release version
- * patch date (for the release version)
-
- For example, running nm -D on the libraries in the ncurses6 test
- package shows these symbol-versions:
-
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TIC_5.0.19991023
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TIC_5.1.20000708
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TIC_5.5.20051010
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TIC_5.7.20081102
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TIC_5.9.20150530
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.0.19991023
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.1.20000708
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.2.20001021
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.3.20021019
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.4.20040208
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.5.20051010
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.6.20061217
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.7.20081102
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.8.20110226
-0000000000000000 A NCURSES6_TINFO_5.9.20150530
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.1.20000708
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.3.20021019
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.4.20040208
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.5.20051010
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.6.20061217
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.7.20081102
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.8.20110226
-0000000000000000 A NCURSESW6_5.9.20150530
-
- As a special case, this release (which makes the final change for ABI
- 5) is marked with release version 5.9 and patch date 20150530.
-
- Miscellaneous
-
- The new release has several improvements for performance and building.
- For instance:
- * several files in ncurses- and progs-directories were modified to
- allow const data used in internal tables to be put by the linker
- into the readonly text segment.
- * various improvements were made to building the Ada95 binding, both
- in simplifying the generated files as well as improving the way it
- uses gnatmake
-
- There are also new features in the libraries:
- * added [27]use_tioctl function
- * added [28]wgetdelay to retrieve _delay member of WINDOW if it
- happens to be opaque, e.g., in the pthread configuration.
- * added [29]A_ITALIC extension.
- * added form library extension [30]O_DYNAMIC_JUSTIFY option which
- can be used to override the different treatment of justification
- for static versus dynamic fields .
- * rewrote [31]putwin and [32]getwin, making an extended version
- which is capable of reading screen-dumps between the wide/normal
- ncurses configurations. These are text files, except for a magic
- code at the beginning:
-
-0 string \210\210 Screen-dump (ncurses)
-
- * several changes to mouse support include:
- + added decoder for xterm SGR 1006 mouse mode.
- + added experimental support for "%u" format to terminfo.
- + improved behavior of wheel-mice for xterm protocol: noting
- that there are only button-presses for buttons "4" and "5",
- so there is no need to wait to combine events into
- double-clicks .
-
- There are a few new configure options dealing with library
- customization:
- * add "--enable-ext-putwin" configure option to turn on the extended
- putwin/getwin. By default, this is enabled for ABI 6 and disabled
- with ABI 5.
- * add "--enable-string-hacks" option to control whether strlcat and
- strlcpy may be used. Because ncurses already does the requisite
- buffer-limit checks, this feature is mainly of interest to quiet
- compiler-warnings on a few systems.
- * add configure option "--with-tparm-arg" to allow [33]tparm's
- parameters to be something more likely to be the same size as a
- pointer, e.g., intptr_t (again, the default is set for ABI 6).
+ 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.
+
+ 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
+
+ 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.
Program improvements
- Utilities
-
- Most of the termcap-related changes based on development of [34]tctest
- (termcap library checker) are implemented in the tic and infocmp
- programs rather than affecting the library. As noted in the
- [35]discussion of tctest, ncurses's ability to translate between
- terminfo and termcap formats has been improved at different times, but
- subject to feedback from "real" termcap users. There are very few of
- those. Nowadays, virtually all termcap users are using ncurses (or
- NetBSD, with its own terminfo library) and their programs are actually
- using terminfo rather than termcap data.
-
- Still, there are a few. A comment about the translation of the ASCII
- NUL character prompted a review:
- * Both terminfo and termcap store string capabilities as
- NUL-terminated strings.
- * In terminfo, a \0 in a terminal description is stored as \200.
- * There are no (known) terminals which would behave differently when
- sent \0 or \200.
- * When translating to terminfo format (or displaying a printable
- version of an entry using infocmp), ncurses shows \200 as \0.
- * It has done this since 1998 (quoting from the NEWS file):
-
-[36]980103
-...
- + modify _nc_tic_expand() to generate \0 rather than \200.
-...
- + correct translation of terminfo "^@", to \200, like \0.
-
- * However, the _nc_tic_expand function (which optionally produces
- terminfo or termcap format) did not address this special case for
- termcap. Even the later 4.4BSD [37]cgetstr interprets a \0
- literally, ending that string (rather than using the terminfo
- improvement).
-
- As a result of the review, several improvements were made to ncurses
- translation to/from termcap format -- and improving the checks made in
- tic for consistency of entries. Most of these are not of general
- interest, except for two new command-line options for tic and infocmp:
- * the "-0" option generates termcap/terminfo source on a single
- line.
- * the "-K" option provides stricter BSD-compatibility for termcap
- output.
-
- Other user-visible improvements and new features include:
- * added "-D" option to tic and infocmp, to show the database
- locations that it could use.
- * added "-s" option to toe, to sort its output.
- * extended "-c" and "-n" options of infocmp to allow comparing more
- than two entries.
- * modified toe's report when "-a" and "-s" options are combined, to
- add a column showing which entries belong to a given database.
- * modified the clear program to take into account the "E3" extended
- capability to clear the terminal's scrollback buffer.
+ 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
+
+ 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.
+
+ 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.
Examples
- Along with the library and utilities, many improvements were made to
- the [38]ncurses-examples. Some were made to allow building (and
- comparison-testing) against NetBSD curses and PDCurses. Both lack some
- of the X/Open Curses features, necessitating customization. But this
- activity was useful because it showed some remaining performance
- issues (which have been resolved in this release).
-
- These changes were made to verify compatibility or compare performance
- of ncurses:
- * made workarounds for compiling test-programs with NetBSD curses,
- though it lacks some common functions such as [39]use_env.
- * added dots_termcap test-program
- * added dots_curses test-program, for comparison with the low-level
- examples.
- * added test_setupterm test-proram to demonstrate normal/error
- returns from the setupterm and restartterm functions.
- * added "-d", "-e" and "-q" options to the demo_terminfo and
- demo_termcap test-programs.
- * added "-y" option to demo_termcap and test/demo_terminfo
- test-programs to demonstrate behavior with/without extended
- capabilities.
- * modified demo_termcap and demo_terminfo test-programs to make
- their options more directly comparable, and add "-i" option to
- specify a terminal description filename to parse for names to
- lookup.
- * rewrote the tests for [40]mvderwin and test for recursive
- [41]mvwin in the movewindow test-program.
-
- These changes were made to help with the MinGW port:
- * added test-screens to the ncurses test-program to show
- 256-characters at a time, to help with MinGW port.
- * modified the view test-program to load UTF-8 when built with MinGW
- by using regular win32 API because the MinGW functions mblen and
- mbtowc do not work.
- * added "-s" option to the view test-program to allow it to start in
- single-step mode, reducing size of trace files when it is used for
- debugging MinGW changes.
-
- These changes were made to verify new extensions in ncurses:
- * added [42]form_driver_w entrypoint to wide-character forms
- library, as well as form_driver_w test-program.
- * modified ncurses test-program's b/B tests to display lines only
- for the attributes which a given terminal supports, to make room
- for an italics test.
- * modified ncurses test-program, adding "-E" and "-T" options to
- demonstrate use_env versus use_tioctl.
- * modified ncurses test-program's c/C tests to cycle through subsets
- of the total number of colors, to better illustrate
- 8/16/88/256-colors by providing directly comparable screens.
- * modified the ncurses test-program to also show position reports in
- 'a' test.
-
- These changes were made to make the examples more useful:
- * added scripts for building dpkg and rpm test-packages
- * modified the hanoi test-program to show the minimum number of
- moves possible for the given number of tiles.
- * modified the knight test-program to show the number of choices
- possible for each position in automove option, e.g., to allow user
- to follow Warnsdorff's rule to solve the puzzle.
+ 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.
Terminal database
- This release provides improvements to tic's "-c" checking option,
- which was used for example to
- * make sgr in several entries agree with other caps.
- * correct padding in some entries where earlier versions had
- miscounted the number of octal digits.
-
There are several new terminal descriptions:
- * [43]mlterm is now aliased to mlterm3
- * [44]nsterm is now derived from nsterm-256color
- * [45]putty-sco
- * [46]teken is FreeBSD's "xterm" console.
- * [47]terminator
- * [48]terminology
- * [49]tmux is derived from screen.
- * several screen.XXX entries support the respective variations for
- 256 colors.
- * [50]simpleterm is now 0.5
- * [51]vte is aliased to vte-2012
- * [52]vt520ansi
+
+ 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
+
+ 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):
- * E3, used in linux, putty and xterm-basic is tested in the
- [53]clear program to erase a terminal's scrollback.
- * TS is used in the [54]xterm+sl building block to help deprecate
- the misuse of tsl for xterm's title-string.
- * XT is used in some terminfo entries to improve usefulness for
- other applications than screen, which would like to pretend that
- xterm's title is a status-line.
- * xm is used in examples [55]xterm-1005 and [56]xterm-1006 to
- illustrate a way to make mouse handling more general
-
- A few terminals support italics and/or dim capabilities. In
- particular, screen does not. Documented that, and accommodated the
- terminals where this feature works with the A_ITALIC extension.
- * konsole, mlterm3 (italics)
- * nsterm (dim)
- * screen (dim)
- * vte (dim, italics)
- * xterm (dim, italics)
+ * 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
Documentation
* attempts to improve the description of features which users have
found confusing
* fills in overlooked descriptions of features which were described
- in the [57]NEWS file but treated sketchily in manual pages.
-
- In addition, the mechanism for producing HTML versions of the
- documentation has been improved:
- * use an improved version of [58]man2html to generate html manpages.
- * regenerated [59]NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html to fix some of the
- broken html emitted by docbook.
+ in the NEWS file but treated sketchily in manual pages.
+
+ In addition to providing background information to explain these
+ 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.
+ * 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.
+ * 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.
+
+ 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
- * Ada95 binding:
- + modify makefile rules to ensure that the PIC option is not
- used when building a static library
- + make Ada95 build-fix for big-endian architectures such as
- sparc. This undoes one of the fixes from [60]20110319, which
- added an "Unused" member to representation clauses, replacing
- that with pragmas to suppress warnings about unused bits.
- * Color and attributes:
- + parenthesize parameter of COLOR_PAIR and PAIR_NUMBER in
- curses.h in case it happens to be a comma-expression.
- + improve [61]20021221 workaround for broken acs, handling a
- case where that ACS_xxx character is not in the acsc string
- but there is a known wide-character which can be used.
- + modify [62]init_pair to accept -1's for color value after
- [63]assume_default_colors has been called.
- + add a check in [64]start_color to limit color-pairs to 256
- when extended colors are not supported.
- * Resizing the screen:
- + propagate error-returns from wresize, i.e., the internal
- increase_size and decrease_size functions through
- [65]resize_term.
- + add check for zero/negative dimensions for resizeterm and
- resize_term.
- + modify resizeterm to always push a KEY_RESIZE onto the fifo,
- even if screensize is unchanged. Modify library to push a
- KEY_RESIZE if there was a SIGWINCH, even if it does not call
- resizeterm). These changes eliminate the case where a
- SIGWINCH is received, but ERR is returned from wgetch or
- wgetnstr because the screen dimensions did not change.
- * Low-level interfaces
- + fix an old bug in the termcap emulation; "%i" was ignored in
- tparm because the parameters to be incremented were already
- on the internal stack.
- + change "%l" behavior in tparm to push the string length onto
- the stack rather than saving the formatted length into the
- output buffer.
- + modify name-comparison for tgetstr, etc., to accommodate
- legacy applications as well as to improve compatbility with
- BSD 4.2 termcap implementations (see note for [66]980725).
- * High-level interfaces
- + modify internal recursion in wgetch which handles cooked mode
- to check if the call to wgetnstr returned an error. This can
- happen when both nocbreak and nodelay are set, for instance
- (see note for [67]960418).
- + add a check in internal function waddch_nosync to ensure that
- tab characters are treated as control characters; some broken
- locales claim they are printable.
- + modify menu library to ensure that a menu's top-row is
- adjusted as needed to ensure that the current item is on the
- screen
- + fix special case where double-width character overwrites a
- single- width character in the first column.
+ 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.
Configuration changes
Major changes
- The ncurses 6.0 configure script makes changes to the default value of
- several configure options, depending on the --with-abi-version option
- (i.e., whether its value is "5" or "6"):
-
- --enable-const
- Feature introduced in [68]970405 supports the use of const
- where X/Open Curses should have, but did not. NetBSD curses
- does something similar with const.
-
- --enable-ext-colors
- Extends the cchar_t structure to allow more than 16 colors to
- be encoded. This applies only to the wide-character
- (--enable-widec) configuration.
-
- --enable-ext-mouse
- Modifies the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th
- mouse button. That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel mouse
- with xterm or similar X terminal emulators.
-
- --enable-ext-putwin
- Modifies the file-format written by putwin to use printable
- text rather than binary files, allowing getwin to read screen
- dumps written by differently-configured ncurses libraries. The
- extended getwin can still read binary screen dumps from the
- same configuration of ncurses. This does not change the ABI
- (the binary interface seen by calling applications).
-
- --enable-interop
- Modifies the FIELDTYPE structure used for the form library to
- make it more generic.
-
- --enable-lp64
- Allows an application to define _LP64 to declare chtype and
- mmask_t as simply "unsigned" rather than the configured types
- using the --with-chtype and --with-mmask_t options.
-
- --enable-sp-funcs
- Compile-in support for extended functions which accept a SCREEN
- pointer, reducing the need for juggling the global SP value
- with [69]set_term and [70]delscreen.
-
- --with-chtype=uint32_t
- Makes chtype explicitly a 32-bit unsigned value.
-
- --with-mmask_t=uint32_t
- Makes mmask_t explicitly a 32-bit unsigned value.
-
- --with-tparm-arg=intptr_t
- X/Open Curses declares [71]tparm using long for each of the
- parameters aside from the formatting string, presuming that
- long and char* are the same size. This configure option uses
- intptr_t which provides a better guarantee of the sizes.
-
- The configure script no longer checks for antique compilers; c89 is
- assumed as a minimum. There are a few features from later revisions
- which are used when available. The configure script makes checks to
- turn on useful warnings from clang, gcc and icc. You should be able to
- build ncurses 6.0 with any of the current (or not so current) C
- compilers available in 2015.
-
- The configure script, by the way, makes changes which do not work with
- systems whose /bin/sh is non-POSIX. This mainly affects Solaris (the
- other vendor unix systems have followed the POSIX guidelines for the
- past twenty years). If you must build on Solaris, its [72]xpg4
- binaries suffice, e.g.,
-
- #!/bin/sh
- WHAT=`hostname|sed -e 's/\..*//'`
- OUT=configure.out
- cat >>$OUT <<EOF/
- ** `date`
- ** node: $WHAT
- ** user: `id`
- ** conf: $*
- EOF/
-
- SHELL=/bin/sh
- if test -f /usr/xpg4/bin/sh
- then
- CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/xpg4/bin/sh
- export CONFIG_SHELL
- SHELL=$CONFIG_SHELL
- fi
-
- rm -f config.status config.cache
- TOP=$HOME/$WHAT
- $SHELL ./configure --verbose \
- --disable-echo \
- --disable-overwrite \
- --enable-warnings \
- --with-warnings \
- --prefix=$TOP $* 2>&1 | tee -a $OUT
-
- Other major changes to the configure script include:
- * ABI 6 is now the default, intending that the existing ABI 5 should
- build as before using the "--with-abi-version=5" option.
- * added --with-extra-suffix option to help with installing
- nonconflicting ncurses6 packages, e.g., avoiding header- and
- library-conflicts.
- NOTE: as a side-effect, this renames
-
- adacurses-config to adacurses5-config and
- adacursesw-config to adacursesw5-config
- * the configure script looks for gnatgcc if the Ada95 binding is
- built, in preference to the default gcc/cc. The script also
- ensures that the Ada95 binding is built with the level of
- optimization as the C libraries.
- * the configure script captures define's related to -D_XOPEN_SOURCE
- from the configure check and adds those to the *-config and *.pc
- files, to simplify use for the wide-character libraries.
+ 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.
Configuration options
- There are several new (or extended) configure options:
+ There are a few new/modified configure options:
- --disable-db-install
- Do not install the terminal database. This is used to omit
- features for packages, as done with --without-progs. The option
- simplifies building cross-compile support packages.
+ --with-config-suffix
+ helps work around a filename conflict with Debian packages
+ versus test-packages.
- --disable-gnat-projects
- This option is used for regression testing
+ --with-ada-libname
+ allows one to rename the "AdaCurses" library (at least one
+ packager prefers a lowercase name).
- --disable-lib-suffixes
- Suppress the "w", "t" or "tw" suffixes which normally would be
- added to the library names for the --enable-widec and
- --with-pthread options.
+ --with-fallbacks
+ now ensures there is a value, and adds the fallback information
+ to top-level Makefile summary.
- --with-cxx-shared
- When --with-shared is set, build libncurses++ as a shared
- library. This implicitly relies upon building with gcc/g++,
- since other compiler suites may have differences in the way
- shared libraries are built. libtool by the way has similar
- limitations.
+ --with-pcre2
+ check for pcre-posix library to help with MinGW port.
- --with-hashed-db
- Extended this configure option to simplify building with
- different versions of Berkeley database using FreeBSD ports.
+ --with-tic-path and
- --with-pc-suffix
- If ".pc" files are installed, optionally add a suffix to the
- files and corresponding package names to separate unusual
- configurations. If no option value is given (or if it is
- "none"), no suffix is added. This option is used in the test
- package for ncurses6.
+ --with-infocmp-path
+ help work around problems building fallback source using
+ pre-6.0 tic/infocmp.
- --with-xterm-kbs
- Configure xterm's terminfo entries to use either BS (^H, i.e.,
- ASCII backspace) or DEL (^?, or 127).
+ --with-versioned-syms
+ option value can now be a relative pathname.
Portability
- MinGW
-
- Most of the portability-related work since [73]ncurses 5.9 extended
- and improved the MinGW port introduced in [74]ncurses 5.8.
-
- The MinGW port can be readily cross-compiled:
- * modified configure script to allow creating dll's for MinGW when
- cross-compiling.
- * enforced Windows-style path-separator if cross-compiling,
- * added scripts for test-builds of cross-compiled packages for
- ncurses6 to MinGW.
- * added pc-files to the MinGW cross-compiling test-packages.
- * added script for building test-packages of binaries cross-compiled
- to MinGW using NSIS.
- * added nc_mingw.h to installed headers for MinGW port; this is
- needed for cross-compiling [75]ncurses-examples.
- * added test-packages for cross-compiling ncurses-examples using the
- MinGW test-packages.
-
- The MinGW-specific Windows driver accounts for several changes:
- * wide-character display is made usable by replacing MinGW's
- non-working wcrtomb and wctomb functions.
- * implemented some display features: [76]beep, [77]flash,
- [78]curs_set.
- * the driver handles repainting on endwin/refresh combination.
- * modified treatment of TERM variable for MinGW port to allow
- explicit use of the Windows console driver by checking if $TERM is
- set to "#win32console" or an abbreviation of that.
- * the Windows driver also matches the special TERM value "unknown"
- * the driver now returns characters for special keys, (like ansi.sys
- does), when keypad mode is off, rather than returning nothing at
- all.
- * the driver checks a new environment variable [79]NCURSES_CONSOLE2
- to optionally work around a deficiency in Console2 (and its
- descendent ConsoleZ) which hang when an application creates a
- console buffer.
-
- Finally, there are other improvements:
- * MinGW is one of the configurations where ncurses installs by
- default into /usr
- * configuration for cross-compiling uses AC_CHECK_TOOLS in
- preference to AC_PATH_PROGS when searching for ncurses*-config,
- e.g., in Ada95/configure and test/configure.
- * extend Windows support to work with MSYS2;
- + this works with a scenario where there is an ANSI-escape
- handler such as ansicon running in the console window.
- + wrap isatty calls with a macro, provide a corresponding set
- of support routines to address differences between MinGW and
- MSYS2.
- * ensure WINVER is defined in makefiles rather than using headers.
- * add check for the gnatprep "-T" option.
- * work around a bug introduced by [80]gcc 4.8.1 in MinGW which
- breaks "trace" feature.
- * add a driver-name method to each of the drivers.
-
- Other ports
-
- These changes affect certain platforms (ports):
- * the configure script knows how to build shared libraries with
- DragonFlyBSD and Interix.
- * support for AIX shared libraries is improved, tested with AIX 5.3,
- 6.1 and 7.1 with both gcc 4.2.4 and cc:
- + the shared-library suffix for AIX 5 and 6 is now ".so"
- + the -brtl option is used with AIX 5-7; it is needed to link
- with the shared libraries.
- * the configure --enable-pc-files option takes into account the
- [81]PKG_CONFIG_PATH variable.
- * the configure option --with-pkg-config-libdir provides control
- over the actual directory into which pc-files are installed.
- * the build scripts add explicit -ltinfo, etc., to the generated
- ".pc" file when ld option "--as-needed" is used, or when ncurses
- and tinfo are installed without using rpath.
- * the configure script disallows conflicting options
- "--with-termlib" and "--enable-term-driver".
- * the check for missing c++ compiler to work when no error is
- reported, and no variables set is improved (see note for
- [82]20021206).
- * the misc/gen_edit.sh script selects a "linux" entry which works
- with the current kernel rather than assuming it is always
- "linux3.0"
- * the test/configure script makes it simpler to override names of
- curses-related libraries, to help with linking with pdcurses in
- MinGW environment.
- * the configure-script/ifdef's allow the BSD OLD_TTY feature to be
- suppressed if the type of ospeed is configured using the option
- --with-ospeed to not be a short. By default, it is a short for
- termcap-compatibility.
- * the MKlib_gen.sh script works around a recent change in gcc 5
- (released [83]mid-2015) which essentially emits multiple #line
- statements for the same position in a file.
- * the configure script works with Minix3.2 (see [84]note on
- portability)
- * OS/2 redux:
- + the configure script supports OS/2 kLIBC.
- + the --with-lib-prefix option allows configuring for old/new
- flavors of OS/2 EMX.
- * improved configure-script checks for _XOPEN_SOURCE:
- + the definition works starting with Solaris 10.
- + the definition is suppressed for IRIX64, since its header
- files have a conflict versus _SGI_SOURCE.
+ 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.
+
+ 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.
_________________________________________________________________
Features of ncurses
types even when no terminfo tree or termcap file is accessible
(this may be useful for support of screen-oriented programs that
must run in single-user mode).
- * The [85]tic/[86]captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the
- ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and AT&T
- extension sets.
- * A BSD-like [87]tset utility is provided.
+ * The tic/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the ability to
+ translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and AT&T extension
+ sets.
+ * A BSD-like tset utility is provided.
* The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read terminfo
entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that
directory if it exists and the user has no write access to the
other entries in the same source file (as in System V) but also to
compiled entries in either the system terminfo directory or the
user's $HOME/.terminfo directory.
- * The table-of-entries utility [88]toe makes it easy for users to
- see exactly what terminal types are available on the system.
+ * 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.
- * Extensive documentation is provided (see the [89]Additional
- Reading section of the [90]ncurses FAQ for online documentation).
+ * Extensive documentation is provided (see the Additional Reading
+ section of the ncurses FAQ for online documentation).
Applications using ncurses
The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs
(including a few games). These are available separately as
- [91]ncurses-examples
+ ncurses-examples
The ncurses library has been tested with a wide variety of
applications including:
+ aptitude
+ FrontEnd to Apt, the debian package manager
+
+ https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude
+
cdk
Curses Development Kit
- [92]http://invisible-island.net/cdk/
+ https://invisible-island.net/cdk/
ded
directory-editor
- [93]http://invisible-island.net/ded/
+ https://invisible-island.net/ded/
dialog
the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the
basis for similar install/configure applications on many
systems.
- [94]http://invisible-island.net/dialog/
+ https://invisible-island.net/dialog/
lynx
the text WWW browser
- [95]http://lynx.isc.org/
-
- Midnight Commander
- file manager
-
- [96]http://www.midnight-commander.org/
+ https://lynx.invisible-island.net/
mutt
mail utility
- [97]http://www.mutt.org/
+ http://www.mutt.org/
ncftp
file-transfer utility
- [98]http://www.ncftp.com/
+ https://www.ncftp.com/
nvi
New vi uses ncurses.
- [99]https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi
+ https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi
+
+ ranger
+ A console file manager with VI key bindings in Python.
+
+ https://ranger.github.io/
tin
newsreader, supporting color, MIME
- [100]http://www.tin.org/
+ http://www.tin.org/
+
+ vifm
+ File manager with vi like keybindings
+
+ https://vifm.info/
as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
minicom
terminal emulator for serial modem connections
- [101]http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/
+ https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/
mosh
a replacement for ssh.
- [102]https://mosh.mit.edu/
+ https://mosh.mit.edu/
tack
terminfo action checker
- [103]http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html
+ https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html
tmux
terminal multiplexor
- [104]http://tmux.github.io/
+ https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki
vile
vi-like-emacs may be built to use the terminfo, termcap or
curses interfaces.
- [105]http://invisible-island.net/vile/
+ https://invisible-island.net/vile/
and finally, those which use only the termcap interface:
emacs
text editor
- [106]http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
+ https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
+
+ less
+ The most commonly used pager (a program that displays text
+ files).
+
+ http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/
screen
terminal multiplexor
- [107]http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/
+ https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/
vim
text editor
- [108]http://www.vim.org/
+ https://www.vim.org/
Development activities
Zeyd Ben-Halim started ncurses from a previous package pcurses,
written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S. Raymond continued development.
- Juergen Pfeifer wrote most of the form and menu libraries. Ongoing
- development work is done by [109]Thomas Dickey. Thomas Dickey also
- acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which holds
- the [110]copyright on ncurses.
+ Juergen Pfeifer wrote most of the form and menu libraries.
+
+ 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
+ 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).
Contact the current maintainers at
- [111]bug-ncurses@gnu.org
+ bug-ncurses@gnu.org
To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
- [112]bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org
+ bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org
containing the line:
This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development
and testing of this package.
- Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made
- available at
+ Beta versions of ncurses are made available at
+
+ ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/current/ and
+ https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/ .
+
+ Patches to the current release are made available at
- [113]ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ .
+ ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/6.1/ and
+ https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.1/ .
There is an archive of the mailing list here:
- [114]http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses (also
- [115]https)
+ http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses (also https)
Related resources
The release notes make scattered references to these pages, which may
be interesting by themselves:
- * [116]man2html
- * [117]ncurses licensing
- * [118]Symbol versioning in ncurses
- * [119]The MinGW port of ncurses
- * [120]tack - terminfo action checker
- * [121]tar versus portability
- * [122]tctest - termcap library checker
- * [123]Terminal Database
+ * ncurses licensing
+ * Symbol versioning in ncurses
+ * Comments on ncurses versus slang (S-Lang)
+ * tack - terminfo action checker
+ * tctest - termcap library checker
+ * Terminal Database
Other resources
The distribution provides a newer version of the terminfo-format
- terminal description file once maintained by [124]Eric Raymond .
- Unlike the older version, the termcap and terminfo data are provided
- in the same file, and provides several user-definable extensions
- beyond the X/Open specification.
+ 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.
You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not
- covered in the terminfo file at [125]Richard Shuford's archive .
-
- * [126]Overview
- * [127]Release Notes
- + [128]Library improvements
- o [129]Output buffering
- o [130]Symbol versioning
- o [131]Miscellaneous
- + [132]Program improvements
- o [133]Utilities
- o [134]Examples
- + [135]Terminal database
- + [136]Documentation
- + [137]Interesting bug-fixes
- + [138]Configuration changes
- o [139]Major changes
- o [140]Configuration options
- + [141]Portability
- o [142]MinGW
- o [143]Other ports
- * [144]Features of ncurses
- * [145]Applications using ncurses
- * [146]Development activities
- * [147]Related resources
- * [148]Other resources
-
-References
-
- 1. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html
- 2. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html
- 3. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/infocmp.1m.html
- 4. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tabs.1.html
- 5. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html
- 6. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html
- 7. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html
- 8. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html
- 9. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/
- 10. ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/
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- 12. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html
- 13. http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses/2012-07/msg00029.html
- 14. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20050101
- 15. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/announce-5.5.html
- 16. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html
- 17. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-initscr
- 18. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-newterm
- 19. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Initialization
- 20. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-NCURSES_NO_SETBUF
- 21. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html
- 22. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_kernel.3x.html#h3-reset_prog_mode_-reset_shell_mode
- 23. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_kernel.3x.html#h3-reset_prog_mode_-reset_shell_mode
- 24. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_printw.3x.html
- 25. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html
- 26. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html
- 27. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-use_tioctl
- 28. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_opaque.3x.html
- 29. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY
- 30. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_field_opts.3x.html
- 31. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-putwin_getwin
- 32. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-putwin_getwin
- 33. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Formatting-Output
- 34. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html
- 35. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html#my-better-translation
- 36. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t980103
- 37. https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/lib/libc/gen/getcap.c?revision=244092&view=markup#l784
- 38. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html
- 39. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-use_env
- 40. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_window.3x.html#h3-derwin
- 41. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_window.3x.html#h3-mvwin
- 42. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_driver.3x.html#h3-form_driver_w
- 43. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_M_L_T_E_R_M
- 44. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-nsterm
- 45. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-putty-sco
- 46. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-teken
- 47. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_T_E_R_M_I_N_A_T_O_R
- 48. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_T_E_R_M_I_N_O_L_O_G_Y
- 49. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-tmux
- 50. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_S_I_M_P_L_E_T_E_R_M
- 51. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vte
- 52. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt520ansi
- 53. http://aerie.jexium-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html
- 54. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_sl
- 55. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-1005
- 56. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-1006
- 57. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html
- 58. http://invisible-island.net/scripts/man2html.html
- 59. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html
- 60. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20110319
- 61. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20021221
- 62. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_color.3x.html#h3-Routine-Descriptions
- 63. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/default_colors.3x.html
- 64. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_color.3x.html#h3-Routine-Descriptions
- 65. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/resizeterm.3x.html
- 66. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t980725
- 67. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t960418
- 68. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t970405
- 69. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-set_term
- 70. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-delscreen
- 71. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Formatting-Output
- 72. http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/html/817-0552/fhkpy.html
- 73. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/announce-5.9.html
- 74. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/announce-5.8.html
- 75. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html
- 76. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_beep.3x.html
- 77. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_beep.3x.html
- 78. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_kernel.3x.html#h3-curs_set
- 79. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-NCURSES_CONSOLE2
- 80. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20877689/gcc-4-8-1-minggw-d-option-does-not-work-as-usual
- 81. http://linux.die.net/man/1/pkg-config
- 82. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20021206
- 83. https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-5/
- 84. http://invisible-island.net/autoconf/portability-test.html
- 85. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html
- 86. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html
- 87. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html
- 88. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html
- 89. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#additional_reading
- 90. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html
- 91. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html
- 92. http://invisible-island.net/cdk/
- 93. http://invisible-island.net/ded/
- 94. http://invisible-island.net/dialog/
- 95. http://lynx.isc.org/
- 96. http://www.midnight-commander.org/
- 97. http://www.mutt.org/
- 98. http://www.ncftp.com/
- 99. https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi
- 100. http://www.tin.org/
- 101. http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/
- 102. https://mosh.mit.edu/
- 103. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html
- 104. http://tmux.github.io/
- 105. http://invisible-island.net/vile/
- 106. http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
- 107. http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/
- 108. http://www.vim.org/
- 109. mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net
- 110. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html
- 111. mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org
- 112. mailto:bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org
- 113. ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/
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- 115. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses
- 116. http://invisible-island.net/scripts/man2html.html
- 117. http://invisible-island.nethttp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html
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- 119. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mingw.html
- 120. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html
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- 122. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html
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- 124. http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/
- 125. http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal
- 126. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h2-overview
- 127. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h2-release-notes
- 128. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h3-library
- 129. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h3-lib-setbuf
- 130. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h3-lib-versioning
- 131. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h3-lib-other
- 132. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h3-programs
- 133. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h4-utilities
- 134. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h4-examples
- 135. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h3-database
- 136. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h3-documentation
- 137. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h3-bug-fixes
- 138. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h3-config-config
- 139. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h4-config-major
- 140. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h4-config-options
- 141. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h3-portability
- 142. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h4-port-mingw
- 143. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h4-port-systems
- 144. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h2-features
- 145. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h2-who-uses
- 146. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h2-development
- 147. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h2-this-stuff
- 148. file:///usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-6.0-20150808/doc/html/announce.html#h2-other-stuff
+ covered in the terminfo file at Richard Shuford's archive . The
+ collection of computer manuals at bitsavers.org has also been useful.
+
+ * Overview
+ * Release Notes
+ + Library improvements
+ o New features
+ o Other improvements
+ + Program improvements
+ o Utilities
+ o Examples
+ + Terminal database
+ + Documentation
+ + Interesting bug-fixes
+ + Configuration changes
+ o Major changes
+ o Configuration options
+ + Portability
+ * Features of ncurses
+ * Applications using ncurses
+ * Development activities
+ * Related resources
+ * Other resources
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff