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<H1>Release Notes</H1>
-This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 through 5.4;
+This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 through 5.6;
very few applications will require recompilation, depending on the platform.
-These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.4 release.
+These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.6 release.
<p>
Interface changes:
<ul>
- <li>terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
- "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
-
- <li>terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
- still use ncurses 4.2).
-
- <li>modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing
- initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are
- still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old
- compilers.
-
- <li>modify parameter type in c++ binding for insch() and mvwinsch() to
- be consistent with underlying ncurses library (was char, is chtype).
-
- <li>change NCursesWindow::err_handler() to a virtual function.
-
- <li>form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data.
- Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the
- FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw,
- since that no longer points to an array of char. The
- set_field_buffer() and field_buffer() functions translate to/from
- the actual field data.
-
-
- <li>add symbol to curses.h which can be used to suppress include of
- stdbool.h, e.g.,
- <pre>
- #define NCURSES_ENABLE_STDBOOL_H 0
- #include <curses.h>
- </pre>
-
- <li>change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure
- that libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason
- for this is that the corresponding data which belongs to the
- upper-level ncurses library has a different size in each model.
-
- <li>winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
- wide-character configuration.
-
- <li>assume_default_colors() no longer requires that
- use_default_colors() be called first.
-
- <li>data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
-
- <li>slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
- multicolumn characters.
-
- <li>start_color() now returns OK if colors have
- already been started.
- start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
-
- <li>pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair()
- if it corresponds to the default-color.
-
- <li>unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond
- to an unsigned char.
+ <li>generate linkable stubs for some macros:
+ <br>
+ getattrs
</ul>
New features and improvements:
<ul>
<li>library
- <ul>
- <li>environment variable NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS supports
- miscellaneous terminal emulators which ignore alternate
- character set escape sequences when in UTF-8 mode.
+ <ul>
+ <li>new flavor of the ncurses library provides rudimentary
+ support for POSIX threads. Several functions are
+ reentrant, but most require either a window-level or
+ screen-level mutex.<br>
+ (This is <em>API</em>-compatible,
+ but not <em>ABI</em>-compatible with the normal library).
- <li>modify initialization of key lookup table so that if an extended
- capability (tic -x) string is defined, and its name begins with 'k',
- ncurses will automatically treat it as a key.
+ <li>add <code>NCURSES_OPAQUE</code> symbol to curses.h, will
+ use to make structs opaque in selected configurations.
- <li>change GPM initialization, using dl library to load it
- dynamically at runtime.
-
- <li>form, menu and panel libraries support debug-tracing.
-
- </ul>
-
- <li>add NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html by Pradeep Padala
- (see http://tldp.org/HOWTO/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO/).
-
- <li>programs:
+ <li>add <code>NCURSES_EXT_FUNCS</code> and
+ <code>NCURSES_EXT_COLORS</code> symbols to curses.h to make
+ it simpler to tell if the extended functions and/or colors
+ are declared.
- <li>infocmp:
- <ul>
- <li>The -i option now matches 8-bit controls against its table
- entries, e.g., so it can analyze the xterm-8bit entry.
+ <li>add wresize() to C++ binding
- <li>add "-x" option to infocmp like tic's "-x", for use in "-F"
- comparisons. This modifies infocmp to only report extended
- capabilities if the -x option is given, making this more
- consistent with tic. Some scripts may break, since infocmp
- previous gave this information without an option.
+ <li>eliminate fixed-buffer vsprintf() calls in C++ binding.
- </ul>
+ <li>add several functions to C++ binding which wrap C functions
+ that pass a WINDOW* parameter.
- <li>tic:
+ <li>adapt mouse-handling code from menu library in form-library
- <ul>
+ <li>improve tracing for form library, showing created forms,
+ fields, etc.
- <li>modify termcap-parsing to retain 2-character aliases at the
- beginning of an entry if the "-x" option is used in tic.
+ <li>make $NCURSES_NO_PADDING feature work for termcap interface .
- <li>filter out long extended names when translating to termcap
- format. Only two characters are permissible for termcap
- capability names.
+ <li>add check to trace-file open, if the given name is a
+ directory, add ".log" to the name and try again.
- <li>correct translation of "%%" in terminfo format to termcap,
- e.g., using "tic -C".
+ <li>several new manpages: curs_legacy.3x, curs_memleaks.3x,
+ curs_opaque.3x and curs_threads.3x
+ </ul>
- <li>modify the "-c -v" options to ignore delays when comparing
- strings. Also modify it to ignore a canceled sgr string,
- e.g., for terminals which cannot properly combine attributes
- in one control sequence.
+ <li>programs:
+ <ul>
+ <li>modified three test-programs to demonstrate the threading
+ support in this version: ditto, rain, worm.
+
+ <li>several new test-programs: demo_panels, dots_mvcur,
+ inch_wide, inchs, key_name, key_names, savescreen,
+ savescreen.sh test_arrays, test_get_wstr, test_getstr,
+ test_instr, test_inwstr and test_opaque.
+
+ <li>add <code>adacurses-config</code> to the Ada95 install.
+
+ <li>modify tic <code>-f</code> option to format spaces as
+ <code>\s</code> to prevent them from being lost when that
+ is read back in unformatted strings.
+
+ <li>The <code>tack</code> program is now distributed separately
+ from ncurses.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>terminal database
+ <ul>
+ <li>added entries:
+ <ul>
+ <li><code>Eterm-256color</code>,
+ <code>Eterm-88color</code> and
+ <code>rxvt-88color</code>
+ <li><code>aterm</code>
+ <li><code>konsole-256color</code>
+ <li><code>mrxvt</code>
+ <li><code>screen.mlterm</code>
+ <li><code>screen.rxvt</code>
+ <li><code>teraterm4.59</code> is now the primary primary
+ teraterm entry, renamed original to
+ <code>teraterm2.3</code>
+ <li><code>9term</code> terminal
+ <li>Newbury Data entries
+ </ul>
+ <li>updated/improved entries:
+ <ul>
+ <li><code>gnome</code> to version 2.22.3
+ <li><code>h19</code>, <code>z100</code>
+ <li><code>konsole</code> to version 1.6.6
+ <li><code>mlterm</code>, <code>mlterm+pcfkeys</code>
+ <li><code>xterm</code>, and building-blocks for function-keys
+ to <a href="http://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.log.html#xterm_230">xterm patch #230</a>.
+ </ul>
+ </ul>
+</ul>
+Major bug fixes:
+<ul>
+ <li>add logic to tic for cancelling strings in user-defined
+ capabilities
+ (this is <em>needed</em> for
+ current <code>konsole</code> terminfo entry).
- <li>add a check for improperly ended strings, i.e., where a
- following line begins in column 1.
+ <li>modify <code>mk-1st.awk</code> so the generated makefile rules for
+ linking or installing shared libraries do not first remove the
+ library, in case it is in use, e.g., <code>libncurses.so</code> by
+ <code>/bin/sh</code>.
- <li>add a check in tic for terminfo entries having an sgr0 but no
- sgr string. This confuses Tru64 and HPUX curses when combined
- with color, e.g., making them leave line-drawing characters in
- odd places.
+ <li>correct check for notimeout() in wgetch().
- <li>add check (with debug configuration) that provides about the
- runtime changes that would be made to sgr0 for termcap
- applications.
+ <li>fix a sign-extension bug in infocmp's repair_acsc() function.
- </ul>
+ <li>change winnstr() to stop at the end of the line.
- <li>tset:
+ <li>make Ada95 demo_panels() example work.
- <ul>
+ <li>fix for adding a non-spacing character at the beginning of a line.
- <li>add -c and -w options to allow user to suppress ncurses'
- resizing of the terminal emulator window in the special case
- where it is not able to detect the true size.
+ <li>fill in extended-color pair to make colors work
+ for wide-characters using extended-colors.
- </ul>
+ <li>improve refresh of window on top of multi-column characters,
+ taking into account split characters on left/right window
+ boundaries.
-</ul>
-Major bug fixes:
-<ul>
+ <li>modify <code>win_wchnstr()</code> to ensure that only a base cell
+ is returned for each multi-column character.
- <li>improve logic in tgetent() which adjusts the termcap "me" string
- to work with ISO-2022 string used in xterm-new.
- This is a feature that was incompletely implemented in ncurses 5.3.
- ncurses attempts to provide termcap clients with the portion of
- the sgr0 (termcap "me") string that does not reset line-drawing.
+ <li>improve <code>waddch()</code> and <code>winsch()</code> handling of
+ EILSEQ from <code>mbrtowc()</code> by using <code>unctrl()</code>
+ to display illegal bytes rather than trying to append further bytes
+ to make up a valid sequence.
- <li>cells in the WINDOW which are continuations of a multicolumn
- character are encoded differently, making repainting more
- reliable.
+ <li>restore <code>curs_set()</code> state after
+ <code>endwin()</code>/<code>refresh()</code>
- <li>amend change to setupterm() in ncurses 5.4 (20030405) which would
- reuse the value of cur_term if the same output was selected. This
- now reuses it only when setupterm() is called from tgetent(),
- which has no notion of separate SCREENs. Note that tgetent() must
- be called after initscr() or newterm() to use this feature.
+ <li>modify <code>keyname()</code> to use "^X" form only if
+ <code>meta()</code> has been called, or if <code>keyname()</code>
+ is called without initializing curses, e.g., via
+ <code>initscr()</code> or <code>newterm()</code>.
- <li>make setcchar() now works when its wchar_t* parameter is
- pointing to a string which contains more data than can be converted.
+ <li>modify <code>unctrl()</code> to check codes in 128-255 range versus
+ <code>isprint()</code>.
+ If they are not printable, and locale was set, use a "M-" or "~"
+ sequence.
- <li>win_wchnstr() now works for more than one cell.
+ <li>improve <code>resizeterm()</code> by moving ripped-off lines, and
+ repainting the soft-keys.
- <li>resizeterm() now processes all levels of window hierarchy.
+ <li>modify form library to accept control characters such as newline
+ in set_field_buffer(), which is compatible with Solaris.
- <li>disable GPM mouse support when $TERM happens to be prefixed with
- "xterm". Gpm_Open() would otherwise assert that it can deal with
- mouse events in this case.
+ <li>use <code>NCURSES_MOUSE_MASK()</code> in definition of
+ <code>BUTTON_RELEASE()</code>, etc., to make those work properly
+ with the <code>--enable-ext-mouse</code> configuration
- <li>add SP->_screen_acs_map[], used to ensure that mapping of missing
- line-drawing characters is handled properly. For example, ACS_DARROW
- is absent from xterm-new, and it was coincidentally displayed the
- same as ACS_BTEE.
+ <li>correct some functions in Ada95 binding which were using return
+ value from C where none was returned.
+ <li>reviewed/fixed issues reported by Coverity and Klocwork tools.
</ul>
Portability:
<ul>
<li>new options:
<dl>
- <dt>--enable-largefile
- <dd>set compiler and linker flags to use largefile support.
-
- <dt>--enable-ext-colors
- <dd>Allow encoding of 256 foreground
- and background colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
- xterm-88color terminfo entries.
- This requires ABI 6 because it changes the size of cchar_t.
-
- <dt>--enable-ext-mouse
- <dd>This defines NCURSES_MOUSE_VERSION 2, and modifies the encoding of
- mouse events to support wheel mice, which may transmit buttons
- 4 and 5. This works with xterm and similar terminal
- emulators.
- This requires ABI 6 because it changes the encoding of
- mouse events.
-
- <dt>--with-chtype
- <dd>overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of chtype
- <dt>--with-mmask-t
- <dd>overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of mmask_t
-
- <dt>--without-xterm-new
- <dd>Installs "xterm-old" as the "xterm" entry of the terminfo
- database.
+ <dt>--disable-big-strings
+ <dd>control whether static string tables are generated as single
+ large strings (to improve startup performance), or as array
+ of individual strings.
+
+ <dt>--disable-relink
+ <dd>control whether shared libraries are relinked (during install)
+ when rpath is enabled.
+
+ <dt>--disable-tic-depends
+ <dd>make explicit whether tic library depends on ncurses/ncursesw
+ library.
+
+ <dt>--enable-mixed-case
+ <dd>override the configure script's check if the filesystem
+ supports mixed-case filenames.
+ This allows one to control how the terminal database
+ maps to the filesystem.
+ For filesystems that do not support mixed-case, the library
+ uses generate 2-character (hexadecimal) codes for the
+ lower-level of the filesystem terminfo database
+
+ <dt>--enable-reentrant
+ <dd>builds a different flavor of the ncurses library (ncursest)
+ which improves reentrant use of the
+ library by reducing global and static variables
+ (see the "--with-pthread" option for the threaded support).
+
+ <dt>--enable-weak-symbols
+ <dd>use weak-symbols for linking to the POSIX thread library,
+ and use the same soname for the ncurses shared library
+ as the normal library (caveat: the ABI is for the threaded
+ library, which makes global data accessed via functions).
+
+ <dt>--with-pthread
+ <dd>build with the POSIX thread library (tested with AIX,
+ Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, HPUX, IRIX64, Solaris, Tru64).
+
+ <dt>--with-ticlib
+ <dd>build/install the tic-support functions in a separate library
</dl>
- <li>The --with-termlib option now accepts a value which sets
- the name of the terminfo library. This would allow a packager to
- build libtinfow.so renamed to coincide with libtinfo.so
-
- <li>fixes/improvements for cross-compiling:
-
- <ul>
- <li>suppress $suffix in misc/run_tic.sh when cross-compiling.
- This allows cross-compiles to use the host's tic program to
- handle the "make install.data" step.
-
- <li>correct BUILD_CPPFLAGS substitution in ncurses/Makefile.in, to allow
- cross-compiling from a separate directory tree.
-
- </ul>
-
- </ul>
-
- <li>library:
- <ul>
-
- <li>add ifdef's for _LP64 in curses.h to avoid using wasteful
- 64-bits for chtype and mmask_t, but add configure option
- --disable-lp64 in case anyone used that configuration.
-
- <li>modify C++ binding to use some C internal functions to make it
- compile properly on Solaris (and other platforms).
-
- <li>remove check in newwin() that prevents allocating windows that
- extend beyond the screen (Solaris does this).
-
- <li>check for <code>nl_langinfo(CODESET)</code>, use it if available.
- This replaces ad hoc tests of environment variables to
- check if the terminal is setup for UTF-8 encoding.
- Applications which do not call <code>setlocale()</code>
- should be corrected, to make them work properly with
- UTF-8 encoding.
- <br>
- <strong>In particular, applications which assume (and
- do not call <code>setlocale()</code>) that
- Latin-1 codes are printable will no longer work in
- a UTF-8 locale since the ad hoc check of environment
- variables to see if the locale was UTF-8 is not used
- when <code>nl_langinfo(CODESET)</code> is available.</strong>
-
- <li>use setlocale() to query the program's current locale rather
- than using getenv(). This supports applications which rely
- upon legacy treatment of 8-bit characters when the locale is
- not initialized.
-
- </ul>
+ <li>improved options:
+ <dl>
+
+ <dt>--enable-ext-colors
+ <dd>requires the wide-character configuration.
+
+ <dt>--with-chtype
+ <dd>ignore option value "unsigned" is always added to
+ the type in curses.h; do the same for --with-mmask-t.
+
+ <dt>--with-dmalloc
+ <dd>build-fix for redefinition of <code>strndup</code>.
+
+ <dt>--with-hashed-db
+ <dd>accepts a parameter which is the install-prefix of a given
+ Berkeley Database.
+
+ <dt>--with-hashed-db
+ <dd>the $LIBS environment variable overrides the search for the db
+ library.
+
+ <dt>--without-hashed-db
+ <dd>assumed when "--disable-database" is used.
+
+ </dl>
+
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>other configure/build issues:
+ <ul>
+ <li>build-fixes for LynxOS
+ <li>modify shared-library rules to allow FreeBSD 3.x to use rpath.
+ <li>build-fix for FreeBSD "contemporary" TTY interface.
+ <li>build-fixes for AIX with libtool.
+ <li>build-fixes for Darwin and libtool.
+ <li>modify BeOS-specific ifdef's to build on Haiku.
+ <li>corrected gcc options for building shared libraries on Solaris
+ and IRIX64.
+ <li>change shared-library configuration for OpenBSD, make rpath work.
+ <li>build-fixes for using libutf8, e.g., on OpenBSD 3.7
+ <li>add "-e" option in ncurses/Makefile.in when generating source-files
+ to force earlier exit if the build environment fails unexpectedly.
+ <li>add support for shared libraries for QNX.
+ <li>change delimiter in <code>MKlib_gen.sh</code> from '%' to '@', to
+ avoid substitution by IBM xlc to '#' as part of its extensions to
+ digraphs.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>library:
+ <ul>
+ <li>rewrite wrapper for <code>wcrtomb()</code>, making it work on
+ Solaris. This is used in the form library to determine the length
+ of the buffer needed by <code>field_buffer</code>.
+ <li>add/use configure script macro CF_SIG_ATOMIC_T, use the corresponding
+ type for data manipulated by signal handlers.
+ <li>set locale in misc/ncurses-config.in since it uses a range
+ <li>disable GPM mouse support when $TERM does not happen to contain
+ "linux", since Gpm_Open() no longer limits its assertion to terminals
+ that it might handle, e.g., within "screen" in xterm.
+ <li>reset mouse file-descriptor when unloading GPM library.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>test programs:
+ <ul>
+ <li>update test programs to build/work with various UNIX curses for
+ comparisons.
+ </ul>
</ul>
<H1>Features of Ncurses</H1>
<UL>
<LI>The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN curses
specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE level features,
-but not all EXTENDED features). Most EXTENDED-level features not directly
-concerned with wide-character support are implemented, including many
-function calls not supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of all
+and most EXTENDED features).
+It includes many function calls not supported under SVr4 curses
+(but portability of all
calls is documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only).
<LI>Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner
of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character capability.
<LI>Ada95 and C++ bindings.
-<LI>Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and OS/2 console windows.
+<LI>Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm
+and FreeBSD and OS/2 console windows.
<LI>Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package.
<LI>The function <CODE>wresize()</CODE> allows you to resize windows, preserving
their data.
you to better control the use of function keys,
e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE,
or by defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key code.
-<LI>Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 xterm.
+<LI>Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm, when configured
+using the <code>--enable-ext-colors</code> option.
+<LI>Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and modern xterm.
<LI>Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a
cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's
or System V's.
<br>
<DT> pinfo
<DD> Lynx-like info browser.
-<A HREF="http://dione.ids.pl/~pborys/software/pinfo/">http://dione.ids.pl/~pborys/software/pinfo/</A>
+<A HREF="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/</A>
<DT> tin
<DD> newsreader, supporting color, MIME
<A HREF="http://www.tin.org/">http://www.tin.org/</A>
-<DT> vh-1.6
-<DD> Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html">http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html</A>
</DL>
as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
<DL>
<DT> minicom
<DD> terminal emulator
<br>
-<A HREF="http://www.netsonic.fi/~walker/minicom.html">http://www.netsonic.fi/~walker/minicom.html</A>
+<A HREF="http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">
+http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/</A>
<DT> vile
<DD> vi-like-emacs
<br>
<H2>Other Related Resources</H2>
The distribution provides a newer version of the terminfo-format
-terminal description file maintained by
+terminal description file once maintained by
<A HREF="http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/">Eric Raymond</A> .
Unlike the older version, the termcap and terminfo data are provided
-in the same file.<P>
+in the same file, and provides several user-definable extensions
+beyond the X/Open specification.<P>
You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
not covered in the terminfo file at
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff