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<H1>Release Notes</H1>
-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.
<p>
Interface changes:
<ul>
- <li>made the extended terminal capabilities
- (<code>configure --enable-tcap-names</code>)
- a standard feature (though the configure script can disable it,
- it is built by default).
-
- <li>removed the <code>trace()</code> 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.
-
- <li>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.
-
- <li>modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict with
- C++ STL.
+ <li>change type of <code>ospeed</code> variable back to
+ <code>short</code> to match its use in legacy applications. It was
+ altered after ncurses 4.2 to <code>speed_t</code> to repair a type
+ mismatch which was introduced after 1.9.4 in 1995. The principal
+ users of termcap continued to use <code>short</code>, which is
+ not the same size.
+ <p>
+ <em>NOTE</em>: 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 <code>nm</code> or <code>strings</code>.
+
+ <li>remove a private function <code>_nc_can_clear_with()</code>, which
+ was built with the configure --enable-expanded option but not used.
+
+ <li>add several private functions (prefixed with "_nc_") for tracing
+ <code>chtype</code> values in the debug library, and for better
+ access and buffer limit checking.
</ul>
-New features:
+New features and improvements:
<ul>
- <li>added a new extension, <code>assume_default_colors()</code> 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.
- <p>
- <em>NOTE</em>: Pair 0 defaults to white on black unless
- you have invoked <code>use_default_colors()</code> or set it via
- <code>assume_default_colors()</code>. An application that calls
- <code>start_colors()</code> without setting the background color
- will consistently have a black background no matter what color your
- terminal's background actually is.
-
- <li>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 <code>use_extended_names()</code> by
- adding "obsolete" termcap strings to terminfo.src
+ <li>rewrote <code>tgoto()</code> 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, <code>tgoto()</code>
+ will interpret it as termcap. Otherwise, as before, it will use
+ <code>tparm()</code>.
+
+ <li>to ensure that the <code>tgoto()</code> changes work properly,
+ added checks to <code>tic</code> which report capabilities that do
+ not reference the expected number of parameters.
+
+ <li>new configure script options:
<ul>
- <li>modified <code>tic</code> so that if extended names (i.e.,
- configure --enable-tcap-names) are active, then <code>tic -x</code>
- will also write "obsolete" capabilities that are present in the
- terminfo source.
-
- <li>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.
-
- <li>add -a option to tic and infocmp, which retains commented-out
- capabilities during source translation/comparison, e.g., captoinfo
- and infotocap.
+ <li>option <code>--disable-root-environ</code> adds runtime checks
+ which tell ncurses to disregard $TERMINFO and similar environment
+ variables if the current user is root, or running setuid/setgid.
+
+ <li>option <code>--disable-assumed-color</code> allows you to use the
+ pre-5.1 convention of default colors used for color-pair 0 to be
+ configured (see assume_default_colors()).
+
+ <li>implement configure script options that transform installed
+ program names, e.g., <code>--program-prefix</code>, including the
+ manpage names and cross references.
+
+ <li>option <code>--with-database</code> 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
+
+ <li>option <code>--with-default-terminfo-dir</code> allows you to
+ specify the default terminfo database directory.
+
+ <li>option <code>--with-libtool</code> allows you to build with
+ <code>libtool</code>. <p> <em>NOTE</em>: <code>libtool</code>
+ uses a different notation for numbering shared library versions
+ from the existing ncurses configuration.
+
+ <li>option <code>--with-manpage-tbl</code> causes the manpages to be
+ preprocessed by tbl(1) prior to installation,
+
+ <li>option <code>--without-curses-h</code> causes the installation
+ process to install curses.h as ncurses.h and make appropriate
+ changes to headers and manpages.
</ul>
- <li>implemented limited support for UTF-8, useful with XFree86 xterm:
+ <li>modified configure script options:
<ul>
- <li>if the <code>configure --enable-widec</code> option is
- given, append 'w' to names of the generated libraries (e.g.,
- libncursesw.so) to avoid conflict with existing ncurses libraries.
- <li>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.
- <li>modified view.c to make a rudimentary viewer of UTF-8 text.
+ <li>change symbol used by the <code>--install-prefix</code> configure
+ option from <code>INSTALL_PREFIX</code> to <code>DESTDIR</code>
+ (the latter has become common usage although the name is
+ misleading).
+
+ <li>modify <code>ld -rpath</code> 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.
+
+ <li>modified <code>misc/run_tic.in</code> to use
+ <code>tic -o</code>, to eliminate dependency on
+ <code>$TERMINFO</code> variable for installs.
</ul>
- <li>modify <code>raw()</code> and <code>noraw()</code> to clear/restore
- IEXTEN flag which affects <code>stty lnext</code> on systems such as FreeBSD
+ <li>terminfo database:
+ <ul>
+ <li>updated xterm terminfo entries to match XFree86 xterm patch #146.
- <li>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 <code>$DISPLAY</code> in favor of the terminfo capability
- <code>kmous=\E[M</code> or
- if <code>$TERM</code> environment variable contains "xterm".
+ <li>added amiga-vnc,
+ Matrix Orbital, and
+ QNX qansi to misc/terminfo.src.
- <li>added configure option <code>--with-manpage-symlinks</code>, which
- provides for fully indexing manpage entries by making symbolic links
- for the aliases.
+ <li>added os2 entry to misc/emx.src.
- <li>changed <code>unctrl()</code> to render C1 characters (128-159) as
- <code>~@</code>, <code>~A</code>, etc.
+ <li>add S0 and E0 extensions to <code>screen</code>'s terminfo entry
+ since otherwise the FreeBSD port makes it pass termcap equivalents
+ to <code>tgoto</code>, which would be misinterpreted by older
+ versions of ncurses.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>improvements to program usability:
+ <ul>
+ <li>modify programs to use <code>curses_version()</code> 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.
- <li>add experimental configure option --enable-colorfgbg to check for
- $COLORTERM variable as set by rxvt/aterm/Eterm.
+ <li>modify <code>tput</code> program so it can be renamed or invoked via a link as
+ 'reset' or 'init', producing the same effect as <code>tput reset</code> or <code>tput init</code>.
- <li>made the <code>infocmp -F</code> option less verbose.
+ <li>add error checking to infocmp's -v and -m options to ensure that
+ the option value is indeed a number.
+ </ul>
- <li>dropped support for gnat 3.10 (gnat 3.12 is current).
+ <li>improved performance:
+ <ul>
+ <li>replace a lookup table in lib_vidattr.c used to decode
+ <code>no_color_video</code> with a logic expression which is faster.
+ </ul>
</ul>
Major bug fixes:
<ul>
- <li>modified infocmp -e, -E options to ensure that generated fallback.c
- type for Booleans agrees with term.h
+ <li>correct <code>manlinks.sed</code> script introduced in ncurses 5.1
+ to avoid using ERE "\+", which is not understood by standard versions
+ of <code>sed</code>. This happens to work with GNU <code>sed</code>,
+ but is not portable, and was the initial motivation for this release.
+
+ <li>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.
+
+ <li>guard against corrupt terminfo data:
+ <ul>
+ <li>modify <code>tparm()</code> to disallow arithmetic on strings,
+ analyze the varargs list to read strings as strings and numbers as
+ numbers.
+
+ <li>modify <code>tparm()</code>'s internal function
+ <code>spop()</code> to treat a null pointer as an empty string.
+
+ <li>modify <code>parse_format()</code> in lib_tparm.c to ignore
+ precision if it is longer than 10000.
+
+ <li>rewrote limit checks in lib_mvcur.c using new functions
+ <code>_nc_safe_strcat()</code>, etc. Made other related changes to
+ check lengths used for <code>strcat()</code> and
+ <code>strcpy()</code>.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>corrections to screen optimization:
+ <ul>
+ <li>added special case in lib_vidattr.c to reset underline and
+ standout for devices that have no sgr0 defined.
+
+ <li>change handling of <code>non_dest_scroll_region</code> in
+ tty_update.c to clear text after it is shifted in rather than before
+ shifting out. Also correct row computation.
+
+ <li>modify <code>rs2</code> capability in xterm-r6 and similar entries
+ where cursor save/restore bracketed the sequence for resetting video
+ attributes. The cursor restore would undo that.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>UTF-8 support:
+ <ul>
+ <li>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.
- <li>documented a special case of incompatiblity between ncurses 4.2 and
- 5.0, added a section for this in INSTALL.
+ <li>encode 0xFFFD in UTF-8 with 3 bytes, not 2.
- <li>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.
+ <li>modify <code>_nc_utf8_outch()</code> to avoid sign-extension when
+ checking for out-of-range value.
+ </ul>
- <li>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.
+ <li>other library fixes:
+ <ul>
+ <li>added checks for an empty <code>$HOME</code> environment
+ variable, to avoid retrieving terminfo descriptions from
+ <code>./.terminfo</code> .
- <li>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.
+ <li>change functions <code>_nc_parse_entry()</code> and
+ <code>postprocess_termcap()</code> to avoid using
+ <code>strtok()</code>, because it is non-reentrant.
- <li>modified echo() behavior of getch() to match Solaris curses for
- carriage return and backspace (reported by Neil Zanella).
+ <li>initialize <code>fds[]</code> array to 0's in
+ <code>_nc_timed_wait()</code>; apparently <code>poll()</code> only
+ sets the <code>revents</code> members of that array when there is
+ activity corresponding to the related file.
- <li>corrected offsets used for subwindows in <code>wresize()</code>
+ <li>add a check for null pointer in <code>Make_Enum_Type()</code>.
- <li>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
+ <li>fix a heap problem with the c++ binding.
- <li>corrected logic in lib_twait.c as used by lib_mouse.c for GPM mouse
- support when poll() is used rather than select().
+ <li>correct missing includes for <string.h> in several places,
+ including the C++ binding. This is not noted by gcc unless we use
+ the <code>-fno-builtin</code> option.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>several fixes for tic:
+ <ul>
+ <li>add a check for empty buffers returned by <code>fgets()</code> in
+ comp_scan.c <code>next_char()</code> function, in case
+ <code>tic</code> is run on a non-text file (fixes a core dump).
+
+ <li>modify <code>tic</code> to verify that its inputs are really files,
+ in case someone tries to read a directory (or
+ <code>/dev/zero</code>).
+
+ <li>correct an uninitialized parameter to <code>open_tempfile()</code>
+ in tic.c which made "tic -I" give an ambiguous error message about
+ <code>tmpnam</code>.
+
+ <li>correct logic in <code>adjust_cancels()</code>, which did not check
+ both alternatives when reclassifying an extended name between
+ boolean, number and string, causing an infinite loop in
+ <code>tic</code>.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>using new checks in <code>tic</code> for parameter counts in
+ capability strings, found/fixed several errors both in the
+ terminfo database and in the include/Caps file.
+ <ul>
+ <li>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".
+
+ <li>correct parameter counts in include/Caps for dclk as well as some
+ printer-specific capabilities: csnm, defc, scs, scsd, smgtp, smglp.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>various fixes for install scripts used to support configure
+ <code>--srcdir</code> and <code>--with-install-prefix</code>.
+
+ <li>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.
+</ul>
+
+Portability:
+<ul>
+ <li>configure script:
+ <ul>
+ <li>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.
+
+ <li>make configure script checks on variables <code>$GCC</code> and
+ <code>$GXX</code> 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.
+
+ <li>change configure script to use AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM rather than
+ AC_CANONICAL_HOST, which means that <code>configure --target</code>
+ will set a default program-prefix.
+
+ <li>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).
+
+ <li>modify configure test for <code>tcgetattr()</code> to allow for
+ old implementations, e.g., on BeOS, which only defined it as a
+ macro.
+
+ <li>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.
+
+ <li>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".
+
+ <li>change most remaining unquoted parameters of <code>test</code> in
+ configure script to use quotes, for instance fixing a problem in the
+ <code>--disable-database</code> option.
+
+ <li>modify scripts so that "make install.data" works on OS/2 EMX.
+
+ <li>modify scripts and makefiles so the Ada95 directory builds on
+ OS/2 EMX.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>library:
+ <ul>
+ <li>replaced case-statement in <code>_nc_tracebits()</code> for CSIZE
+ with a table to simplify working around implementations that define
+ random combinations of the related macros to zero.
+
+ <li>improved OS/2 mouse support by retrying as a 2-button mouse if code
+ fails to set up a 3-button mouse.
+
+ <li>added private entrypoint <code>_nc_basename()</code>, used to
+ consolidate related code in progs, as well as accommodating OS/2 EMX
+ pathnames.
+
+ <li>alter definition of NCURSES_CONST to make it non-empty.
+
+ <li>redefine 'TEXT' in menu.h for AMIGA, since it is reported to have
+ an (unspecified) symbol conflict.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>programs:
+ <ul>
+ <li>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).
+ </ul>
- <li>made several fixes for buffer overflows, unchecked recursion,
- improvements in performance, etc. See the NEWS file for details.
</ul>
<H1>Features of Ncurses</H1>
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff