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<h2><a name="h2-overview" id="h2-overview">Overview</a></h2>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> (new curses) library
- is a free software emulation of 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
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> (new curses)
+ library is a free software emulation of 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.</p>
+ enhancements over BSD curses. SVr4 curses became the basis of
+ X/Open Curses.</p>
<p>In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared
that he considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the
- keepers of <em class="small-caps">unix</em> releases such as
- BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em>.</p>
+ keepers of <span class="main-name">unix</span> releases such as
+ BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span>.</p>
- <p>Since 1995, <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> has been
+ <p>Since 1995, <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> has been
ported to many systems:</p>
<ul>
first of these was EMX on OS/2 Warp.</li>
<li>It is used (though usually not as the <em>system</em>
- curses) on all of the vendor <em class="small-caps">unix</em>
- systems, e.g., AIX, HP-UX, IRIX64, SCO, Solaris, Tru64.</li>
+ curses) on all of the vendor <span class=
+ "main-name">unix</span> systems, e.g., AIX, HP-UX, IRIX64, SCO,
+ Solaris, Tru64.</li>
<li>It should work readily on any ANSI/POSIX-conforming
- <em class="small-caps">unix</em>.</li>
+ <span class="main-name">unix</span>.</li>
</ul>
<p>The distribution includes the library and support utilities,
<ul>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo</a>,
- a termcap conversion tool</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ captoinfo</span></a>, a termcap conversion tool</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html">clear</a>,
- utility for clearing the screen</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html"><span class="part-name">
+ clear</span></a>, utility for clearing the screen</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/infocmp.1m.html">infocmp</a>,
- the terminfo decompiler</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/infocmp.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ infocmp</span></a>, the terminfo decompiler</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tabs.1.html">tabs</a>,
- set tabs on a terminal</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tabs.1.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tabs</span></a>, set tabs on a terminal</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html">tic</a>,
- the terminfo compiler</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tic</span></a>, the terminfo compiler</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html">toe</a>,
- list (table of) terminfo entries</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ toe</span></a>, list (table of) terminfo entries</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html">tput</a>,
- utility for retrieving terminal capabilities in shell
- scripts</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tput</span></a>, utility for retrieving terminal capabilities
+ in shell scripts</li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html">tset</a>,
- to initialize the terminal</li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tset</span></a>, to initialize the terminal</li>
</ul>
<p>Full manual pages are provided for the library and tools.</p>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> distribution is
- available via anonymous FTP at the GNU distribution site</p>
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> distribution is
+ available at <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>' <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">homepage</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
- "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/</a> .</p>
- </blockquote>It is also available at
+ "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a>
+ or<br>
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/</a> .</p>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <p>It is also available via anonymous FTP at the GNU distribution
+ site</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
- "ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a> .</p>
+ "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/</a> .</p>
</blockquote>
<h2><a name="h2-release-notes" id="h2-release-notes">Release
Notes</a></h2>
- <p>These notes are for <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>
- @VERSION@, released <strong>August 8, 2015</strong>.</p>
+ <p>These notes are for <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
+ @VERSION@, released <strong>January 27, 2018</strong>.</p>
<p>This release is designed to be source-compatible with
- <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> 5.0 through 5.9; providing a
- new application binary interface (ABI). Although the source can
- still be configured to support the <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> 5 ABI, the intent of the release is to
- provide extensions which are generally useful, but
- binary-incompatible with <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>
- 5:</p>
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 5.0 through 6.0; providing
+ extensions to the application binary interface (ABI). Although
+ the source can still be configured to support the <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> 5 ABI, the intent of the release is to
+ provide extensions to the <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
+ <strong>6</strong> ABI:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>Extend the <code>cchar_t</code> structure to allow more
- than 16 colors to be encoded.</p>
+ <p>improve integration of <span class="part-name">tput</span>
+ and <span class="part-name">tset</span></p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th
- mouse button. That allows one to use <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> with a wheel mouse with xterm or
- similar X terminal emulators.</p>
+ <p>provide support for extended numeric capabilities.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>There are, of course, numerous other improvements,
- including</p>
+ <p>There are, of course, numerous other improvements, listed in
+ this announcement.</p>
+
+ <p>The release notes also mention some bug-fixes, but are focused
+ on new features and improvements to existing features since
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 6.0 release.</p>
+
+ <h3><a name="h3-library" id="h3-library">Library
+ improvements</a></h3>
+
+ <h4><a name="h4-new-library" id="h4-new-library">New
+ features</a></h4>
+
+ <p>The improved integration of <span class=
+ "part-name">tput</span> and <span class="part-name">tset</span>
+ made only small changes to the libraries. However, supporting
+ extended numeric capabilities required a few changes:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>fixes made based on the Clang and Coverity static
- analyzers.</p>
+ <p>The <code>TERMINAL</code> structure in
+ <code><term.h></code> is now opaque. Doing that allowed
+ making the structure larger, to hold the extended numeric
+ data.</p>
+
+ <p>A few applications required changes during development of
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses 6.1</span> because those
+ applications misused the members of that structure, e.g.,
+ directly modifying it rather than using <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_kernel.3x.html#h3-def_prog_mode_-def_shell_mode">
+ def_prog_mode</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>memory leak fixes using Valgrind</p>
- </li>
- </ul>
+ <p>Having made <code>TERMINAL</code> opaque (and because none
+ of the library functions use anything except a pointer to
+ <code>TERMINAL</code>), it was possible to increase the size
+ of the structure, adding to the end.</p>
- <p>The release notes mention some bug-fixes, but are focused on
- new features and improvements to existing features log since
- <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> 5.9 release.</p>
+ <p>Existing applications which were linked to the
+ <span class="part-name">ncurses 6.0</span> high-level
+ (<em>ncurses</em>, <em>ncursesw</em>) and low-level
+ (<em>tinfo</em>, <em>tinfo</em>) libraries should not require
+ re-linking since the binary interface did not change, nor did
+ the structure offsets with <code>TERMINAL</code> change.</p>
- <p>While the intent of the release is to provide a new stable
- ABI, there are other development activities which are summarized
- below.</p>
+ <p>A few applications use the inner <code>TERMTYPE</code>
+ structure's offsets to refer to terminfo capabilities within
+ that structure. Again, those do not require modification
+ because their offsets within <code>TERMINAL</code> did not
+ change.</p>
+ </li>
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>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 <code>Console2</code> took a while.</p>
+ <p>When configured for wide-characters, i.e.,
+ “ncursesw” the <code>TERMINAL</code> structure is
+ extended.</p>
+
+ <p>The new data in <code>TERMINAL</code> holds the same
+ information as <code>TERMTYPE</code>, but with larger numbers
+ (“int” versus “short”). It is named
+ <code>TERMTYPE2</code>.</p>
+
+ <p>The library uses this structure internally in preference
+ to <code>TERMTYPE</code>, referring to <code>TERMTYPE</code>
+ only to initialize it for applications that use the
+ capabilities defined in <code><term.h></code></p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>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.</p>
+ <p>When configured for 8-bit (narrow) characters, the
+ <code>TERMTYPE2</code> structure is not used.</p>
+ </li>
- <p>The <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html">termcap
- library checker (tctest)</a> (not part of <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em>) was one result. A followup review
- of performance using <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>
- in 2014 led to additional improvements.</p>
+ <li>The updated application binary interface is 6.1.20171230
+ (used for new <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html">versioned
+ symbols</a>), although the interface changes were developed
+ several months previously.</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>The motivation for making this extension came from noticing
+ that <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html#bsd42-numeric-caps">
+ termcap applications</a> could (though not <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-slang.html#cause_numbers">
+ realistically</a>) use larger numbers than would fit in 16-bits,
+ and the fact that the number of color pairs for a 256-color xterm
+ could not be expressed in terminfo (i.e., 32767 versus 65536).
+ Also, a few terminals support direct-colors, which could use the
+ extension.</p>
+
+ <p>Generally speaking, applications that use internal details of
+ a library are unsupported. There was exactly one exception for
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>: the <span class=
+ "main-name">tack</span> program <em>used</em> the internal
+ details of <code>TERMINAL</code>, because it provides an
+ ncurses-specific feature for interactively modifying a terminfo
+ description and writing the updated description to a text-file.
+ It was possible to not only separate <span class=
+ "main-name">tack</span> from these <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html#portable">internal
+ details of <span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a>, but to
+ generalize it so that the program works with Unix curses
+ (omitting the ncurses-specific feature). That was released as
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack/CHANGES.html#index-t20170726">
+ <span class="main-name">tack</span> 1.08</a> in July
+ 2017.</p>
+
+ <p>While making changes to <span class="main-name">tack</span> to
+ eliminate its dependency upon <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> internals, the publicly-visible
+ details of those internals were reviewed, and some symbols were
+ moved to private header files, while others were marked
+ explicitly as <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> internals.
+ Future releases of <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> may
+ eliminate some of those symbols (such as those used by
+ <span class="main-name">tack</span> 1.07) because they are
+ neither part of the API or the ABI.</p>
+
+ <p>Using the <code>TERMTYPE2</code> extended numeric
+ capabilities, it is possible to support both color pair values
+ and color values past 32767. Taking compatibility into account,
+ developers readily understand that neither function signatures
+ nor structure offsets change. Also, existing functions have to
+ operate with the extended numbers. Most of that work is internal
+ to the library. For the external interfaces, a hybrid approach
+ was used:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>X/Open Curses defined function prototypes such as
+ <code>wattr_set</code> with an unused parameter, for
+ “future” use. After 25 years, the future is here:
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> uses the parameter to
+ augment color pair values as described in the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html#h2-EXTENSIONS">
+ manual page</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>Output buffering provided a further, but worthwhile
- distraction. A bug report in 2012 regarding the use of signal
- handlers in <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>) pointed out
- <a href=
- "http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses/2012-07/msg00029.html">
- a problem</a> with the use of unsafe functions for handling
- <code>SIGTSTP</code>. Other signals could be addressed with
- workarounds; repairing <code>SIGTSTP</code> required a
- different approach. The solution required changing internal
- behavior of the library: how it handles output buffering.</p>
-
- <p>Now <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> 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
- <em>unspecified</em> 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.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>Since the introduction of the experimental support for 256
- colors early in <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20050101">2005</a>
- (released in <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/announce-5.5.html">ncurses
- 5.5</a>), there has been increased user interest. Almost all
- packagers continue providing the ncurses ABI 5 which cannot
- support 256 colors.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>
- <p>Symbol versioning, or the lack of it in ncurses, is the
- main reason why packagers would be reluctant to add a new
- ncurses ABI.</p>
-
- <p>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
- <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html">Symbol
- versioning in <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em></a>.</p>
+ <p>Other functions such as those defining color pairs did not
+ have a corresponding <em>reserved</em> parameter. For those,
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> defines extended
+ versions such as <code>init_extended_pair</code> (versus
+ <code>init_pair</code>), <code>init_extended_color</code>
+ (versus <code>init_color</code>).</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <h3><a name="h3-library" id="h3-library">Library
- improvements</a></h3>
+ <p>Additionally, to improve performance other changes (and
+ extensions) are provided in this release:</p>
- <h3><a name="h3-lib-setbuf" id="h3-lib-setbuf">Output
- buffering</a></h3>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>Several new functions simplify management of large sets of
+ color pairs: <code>reset_color_pairs</code>,
+ <code>alloc_pair</code>, <code>find_pair</code> and
+ <code>free_pair</code>.</p>
+ </li>
- <p>X/Open curses provides more than one initialization
- function:</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>New "RGB" extension capability for direct-color support is
+ used to improve performance of
+ <code>color_content</code>.</p>
+ </li>
- <ul>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-initscr">
- initscr</a> (the simplest) accepts no parameters.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>The internal <code>colorpair_t</code> is now a struct,
+ eliminating an internal 8-bit limit on colors</p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-newterm">
- newterm</a> accepts parameters for the stream input and
- output</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>Allocation for <code>SCREEN</code>'s color-pair table
+ starts small, grows on demand up to the limit given in the
+ terminal description.</p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Initialization">
- setupterm</a> (the low-level function) accepts a parameter for
- the <em>file descriptor</em> of the output.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p><code>setcchar</code> and <code>getcchar</code> now treat
+ a negative color-pair as an error.</p>
+ </li>
</ul>
- <p>They are documented in X/Open <em>as if</em>
- <code>initscr</code> calls <code>newterm</code> using
- <code>stdout</code> for output stream, and in turn
- <code>newterm</code> calls <code>setupterm</code> using
- <code>fileno(stdout)</code> for the file descriptor. As long as
- an implementation acts <em>as if</em> it does this, it conforms.
- In practice, implementations do what is implied. This creates a
- problem: the low-level <code>setupterm</code> function's file
- descriptor is unbuffered, while <code>newterm</code> 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.</p>
-
- <p>Initially, <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> used the file
- descriptor (obtained from the output stream passed to
- <code>newterm</code>) for changing the terminal modes, and relied
- upon the output parameter of <code>newterm</code> for buffered
- output. Later (to avoid using unsafe buffered I/O in signal
- handlers), <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> 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.</p>
-
- <p>That approach worked reasonably well and as a side effect,
- using the same buffered output as an application might use for
- <code>printf</code> meant that no flushing was needed when
- switching between normal- and screen-modes.</p>
-
- <p>There were a couple of problems:</p>
+ <h4><a name="h4-fixes-library" id="h4-fixes-library">Other
+ improvements</a></h4>
+
+ <p>These are new or revised features:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>to get good performance, curses (not only <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em>, but SVr4 curses in general) set an
- output buffer using <code>setbuf</code> or similar function.
- There is no standard (or portable) way to turn that output
- buffer off, and revert to line-buffering. The <code><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-NCURSES_NO_SETBUF">
- NCURSES_NO_SETBUF</a></code> environment variable did make it
- optional.</p>
+ <p>modify <code>c++/etip.h.in</code> to accommodate
+ deprecation of throw and throws in c++17</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>to handle <code>SIGTSTP</code> (the “stop”
- signal), <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> 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.</p>
+ <p>add new function <code>unfocus_current_field</code></p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <p>Conveniently, solving the second problem (by making <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> do its <em>own</em> output buffering)
- also fixed the first one. But there were special cases to
- resolve: <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html"><em>
- low-level</em></a> 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.</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>add option to preserve leading whitespace in form
+ fields</p>
+ </li>
- <p>Finally, there may still be a few programs which should be
- modified to improve their portability, e.g., adding an</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>add a macro for <code>is_linetouched</code> and adjust the
+ function's return value to make it possible for most
+ applications to check for an error-return.</p>
+ </li>
- <blockquote>
- <pre class="code-block">
-fflush(stdout);
-</pre>
- </blockquote>
+ <li>
+ <p>add build-time utility <code>report_offsets</code> to help
+ show when the various configurations of tinfo library are
+ compatible or not.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
- <p>when switching from “<a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_kernel.3x.html#h3-reset_prog_mode_-reset_shell_mode">shell</a>”
- mode to “<a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_kernel.3x.html#h3-reset_prog_mode_-reset_shell_mode">program</a>”
- (curses) mode. Those are fairly rare because most programmers
- have learned not to mix <code>printf</code> and <code><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_printw.3x.html">printw</a></code>.</p>
-
- <h3><a name="h3-lib-versioning" id="h3-lib-versioning">Symbol
- versioning</a></h3>
-
- <p>This release introduces symbol-versioning to <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> because without it, the change of ABI
- would be less successful. A lengthy discussion will be presented
- in <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html">Symbol
- versioning in <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em></a>. These
- notes summarize what has changed, and what can be done with the
- new release.</p>
-
- <p>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.</p>
-
- <p>This release provides sample files for the four principal
- configurations of <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> libraries:
- <code>ncurses</code>, <code>ncursesw</code>,
- <code>ncursest</code> and <code>ncursestw</code>. Each sample is
- given in two forms:</p>
+ <p>These were done to limit or ultimately deprecate features:</p>
- <blockquote>
- <dl>
- <dt>“<code>.map</code>”</dt>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>drop two symbols obsoleted in 2004:
+ <code>_nc_check_termtype</code>, and
+ <code>_nc_resolve_uses</code></p>
+ </li>
- <dd>These list all public symbols, together with version
- names.</dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>move <code>_nc_tracebits</code>, <code>_tracedump</code>
+ and <code>_tracemouse</code> to <code>curses.priv.h</code>,
+ since they are not part of the suggested ABI6.</p>
+ </li>
- <dt>“<code>.sym</code>”</dt>
+ <li>
+ <p>mark some structs in form/menu/panel libraries as
+ potentially opaque without modifying API/ABI.</p>
+ </li>
- <dd>These list all public symbols, without version
- names.</dd>
- </dl>
- </blockquote>
+ <li>
+ <p>ifdef'd header-file definition of <code>mouse_trafo</code>
+ with <code>NCURSES_NOMACROS</code></p>
+ </li>
- <p>The sample files are <em>generated</em> by scripts which take
- into account a few special cases such as <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">tack</a> to omit
- many of the <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> private symbols
- (beginning with “<code>_nc_</code>”). Here are
- counts of globals versus locals:</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>remove initialization-check for calling <code>napms</code>
+ in the term-driver configuration; none is needed.</p>
+ </li>
- <blockquote>
- <table border="1" summary="Total global and local symbols">
- <tr>
- <th>Config</th>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <code>trace</code> to avoid overwriting existing
+ file</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
- <th>Symbols</th>
+ <p>These are improvements to existing features:</p>
- <th>Globals</th>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <code>make_hash</code> to allow building with
+ address-sanitizer, assuming that <code>--disable-leaks</code>
+ is configured.</p>
+ </li>
- <th>Locals</th>
+ <li>
+ <p>move <code>SCREEN</code> field for <code>use_tioctl</code>
+ data before the ncursesw fields, and limit that to the
+ sp-funcs configuration to improve termlib compatibility</p>
+ </li>
- <th>"_nc_"</th>
- </tr>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify db-iterator:</p>
- <tr>
- <td>ncurses</td>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>ignore zero-length files in db-iterator; these are
+ useful for instance to suppress
+ <code>$HOME/.terminfo</code> when not wanted.</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">976</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <code>update_getenv</code> to ensure that
+ environment variables which are not initially set will be
+ checked later if an application happens to set them</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">796</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <code>_nc_outc_wrapper</code> to use the standard
+ output if the screen was not initialized, rather than
+ returning an error.</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">180</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve checks for low-level terminfo functions when the
+ terminal has not been initialized.</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">332</td>
- </tr>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <code>set_curterm</code> to update
+ <code>ttytype[]</code> data used by longname/p></p>
+ </li>
- <tr>
- <td>ncursesw</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <code>_nc_get_screensize</code> to allow for
+ <code>use_env</code> and <code>use_tioctl</code> state to be
+ per-screen when sp-funcs are configured, better matching the
+ behavior when using the term-driver configuration.</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">1089</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>remove an early-return from <code>_nc_do_color,</code>
+ which can interfere with data needed by <code>bkgd</code>
+ when <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> is configured
+ with extended colors</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">905</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>incorporate <code>A_COLOR</code> mask into
+ <code>COLOR_PAIR</code>, in case user application provides an
+ out-of-range pair number</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">184</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify logic for <code>endwin</code>-state to be able to
+ detect the case where the screen was never initialized, using
+ that to trigger a flush of <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses'</span> buffer for <code>mvcur</code>,
+ e.g., in the sample program <span class=
+ "part-name">dots_mvcur</span> for the term-driver
+ configuration.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
- <td align="right">343</td>
- </tr>
+ <p>These are corrections to existing features:</p>
- <tr>
- <td>ncursest</td>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>fixes for writing extended color pairs in
+ <code>putwin</code>.</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">979</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify no-leaks code for <code>lib_cur_term.c</code> to
+ account for the <code>tgetent</code> cache.</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">804</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>amend handling of the <code>repeat_char</code> capability
+ in <code>EmitRange</code> to avoid scope creep: translate the
+ character to the alternate character set when the alternate
+ character set is enabled, and do not use
+ <code>repeat_char</code> for characters past 255.</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">175</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve wide-character implementation of
+ <code>myADDNSTR</code> in <code>frm_driver.c</code>, which
+ was inconsistent with the normal implementation.</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">358</td>
- </tr>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <code>winnstr</code> and <code>winchnstr</code> to
+ return error if the output pointer is null, as well as adding
+ a null pointer check of the window pointer for better
+ compatibility with other implementations.</p>
+ </li>
- <tr>
- <td>ncursestw</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <code>setupterm</code> to save original tty-modes
+ so that <code>erasechar</code> works as expected. Also modify
+ <code>_nc_setupscreen</code> to avoid redundant calls to get
+ original tty-modes.</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">1098</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <code>wattr_set</code> and <code>wattr_get</code>
+ to return <code>ERR</code> if <em>win</em>-parameter is null,
+ as documented.</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">914</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>correct order of initialization for traces in
+ <code>use_env</code> and <code>use_tioctl</code> versus first
+ <code>_tracef</code> calls.</p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">184</td>
+ <li>
+ <p>correct parameters for <code>copywin</code> call in
+ <code>_nc_Synchronize_Attributes</code></p>
+ </li>
- <td align="right">372</td>
- </tr>
- </table>
- </blockquote>
+ <li>
+ <p>flush the standard output in <code>_nc_flush</code> for
+ the case where <code>SP</code> is zero, e.g., when called via
+ <code>putp</code>. This fixes a scenario where
+ “tput flash” did not work after changes in
+ 20130112.</p>
+ </li>
- <p>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
- <em>not</em> support the feature, and a few (such as Solaris)
- which provide incomplete support.</p>
-
- <p>The version-naming convention used allows these sample files
- to build distinct libraries for ABI 5 and 6. Version names
- consist of</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>amend internal use of <code>tputs</code> to consistently
+ use the number of lines affected, e.g., for insert/delete
+ character operations. While merging terminfo source early in
+ 1995, several descriptions used the
+ “<code>*</code>” proportional delay for these
+ operations, prompting a change in <code>doupdate</code>.</p>
+ </li>
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>configuration name, e.g.,
- “<code>NCURSESW</code>” for the wide-character
- libraries</p>
+ <p>correct return-value of extended <code>putwin</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>ABI version (if not 5)</p>
+ <p>double-width multibyte characters were not counted
+ properly in <code>winsnstr</code> and
+ <code>wins_nwstr</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>library name for two special cases which have the same
- interface across configurations:
- “<code>TINFO</code>” and
- “<code>TIC</code>”</p>
+ <p>amend fix for <code>_nc_ripoffline</code> from 20091031 to
+ make <code>test/ditto.c</code> work in threaded
+ configuration.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>release version</p>
+ <p>modify <code>_nc_viscbuf2</code> and
+ <code>_tracecchar_t2</code> to trace wide-characters as a
+ whole rather than their multibyte equivalents.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>patch date (for the release version)</p>
+ <p>minor fix in <code>wadd_wchnstr</code> to ensure that each
+ cell has nonzero width.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <p>For example, running <code>nm -D</code> on the libraries in
- the ncurses6 test package shows these symbol-versions:</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>move <code>PUTC_INIT</code> calls next to
+ <code>wcrtomb</code> calls, to avoid carry-over of error
+ status when processing Unicode values which are not
+ mapped.</p>
+ </li>
- <blockquote>
- <pre class="code-block">
-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
-</pre>
- </blockquote>
+ <li>
+ <p>add missing assignment in <code>lib_getch.c</code> to make
+ <code>notimeout</code> work</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <h3><a name="h3-programs" id="h3-programs">Program
+ improvements</a></h3>
- <p>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.</p>
+ <p>While reviewing user feedback, it became apparent that the
+ differences between <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html#h3-reset---reinitialization">
+ <span class="part-name">reset</span></a> (an alias for
+ <span class="part-name">tset</span>) and “<span class=
+ "part-name">tput reset</span>” were confusing:</p>
- <h3><a name="h3-lib-other" id=
- "h3-lib-other">Miscellaneous</a></h3>
+ <ul>
+ <li>one (<a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html">tset</a>)
+ updated the terminal modes, but used only part of the terminfo
+ capabilities for initialization, while</li>
+
+ <li>the other (<a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html"><span class="part-name">tput</span></a>)
+ used all of the terminal capabilities while neglecting the
+ terminal modes.</li>
+ </ul>
- <p>The new release has several improvements for performance and
- building. For instance:</p>
+ <p>On further investigation, it turned out that the differences
+ were largely an accident due to the way those programs had
+ evolved.</p>
+
+ <p>This release eliminates the unnecessary differences, using the
+ same approach for <span class="part-name">tput</span>'s
+ <em>init</em> (initialization), <em>reset</em> and <em>clear</em>
+ operations as the separate <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html#h3-reset---reinitialization">
+ reset</a> and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html"><span class="part-name">
+ clear</span></a> programs. Doing this does not change the
+ command-line options; existing scripts are unaffected.</p>
+
+ <p>These are the user-visible changes for the three programs
+ (<span class="part-name">tput</span>, <span class=
+ "part-name">tset</span> and <span class=
+ "part-name">clear</span>):</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>several files in ncurses- and progs-directories were
- modified to allow <code>const</code> data used in internal
- tables to be put by the linker into the readonly text
- segment.</p>
+ <p>add the terminal-mode parts of “<span class=
+ "part-name">reset</span>” (aka <span class=
+ "part-name">tset</span>) to the “<code>tput
+ reset</code>” command, making the two almost the same
+ except for window-size.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>various improvements were made to building the Ada95
- binding, both in simplifying the generated files as well as
- improving the way it uses <code>gnatmake</code></p>
+ <p>improve <span class="part-name">tput</span>'s check for
+ being called as “init” or “reset” to
+ allow for transformed names.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <p>There are also new features in the libraries:</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>add “clear” as a possible link/alias to
+ <span class="part-name">tput</span>.</p>
+ </li>
- <ul>
- <li>added <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-use_tioctl">
- use_tioctl</a> function</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>amend changes for <span class="part-name">tput</span> to
+ reset tty modes to “sane” if the program is run
+ as “reset”, like <span class=
+ "part-name">tset</span>. Likewise, ensure that <span class=
+ "part-name">tset</span> sends either reset- or
+ init-strings.</p>
+ </li>
<li>
- <p>added <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_opaque.3x.html">
- wgetdelay</a> to retrieve _delay member of WINDOW if it
- happens to be opaque, e.g., in the pthread configuration.</p>
+ <p>add <code>-x</code> option to <span class=
+ "part-name">clear</span>/<span class="part-name">tput</span>
+ to make the <code>E3</code> extension optional</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
- A_ITALIC</a> extension.</p>
+ <p>add functionality of
+ “<code>tset -w</code>” to <span class=
+ "part-name">tput</span>, like the
+ “<code>-c</code>” feature this is not optional in
+ <span class="part-name">tput</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added form library extension <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_field_opts.3x.html">
- O_DYNAMIC_JUSTIFY</a> option which can be used to override
- the different treatment of justification for static versus
- dynamic fields .</p>
+ <p>add options <code>-T</code> and <code>-V</code> to
+ <span class="part-name">clear</span> command for
+ compatibility with <span class="part-name">tput</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>rewrote <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-putwin_getwin">
- putwin</a> and <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-putwin_getwin">
- getwin</a>, making an extended version which is capable of
- reading screen-dumps between the wide/normal <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> configurations. These are text
- files, except for a <em>magic</em> code at the beginning:</p>
+ <p>drop long-obsolete “<code>-n</code>” option
+ from <span class="part-name">tset</span>.</p>
+ </li>
- <blockquote>
- <pre class="code-block">
-0 string \210\210 Screen-dump (ncurses)
-</pre>
- </blockquote>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <span class="part-name">tset</span>'s assignment to
+ <code>TERM</code> in its output to reflect the name by which
+ the terminal description is found, rather than the primary
+ name. That was an unnecessary part from the initial
+ conversion of <span class="part-name">tset</span> from
+ termcap to terminfo. The termcap library in 4.3BSD did this
+ to avoid using the short 2-character name</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>several changes to mouse support include:</p>
+ <p>remove a restriction in <span class=
+ "part-name">tput</span>'s support for termcap names which
+ omitted capabilities normally not shown in termcap
+ translations</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add usage message to <span class="part-name">clear</span>
+ command</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve usage messages for <span class=
+ "part-name">tset</span> and <span class=
+ "part-name">tput</span>.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>Other user-visible improvements and new features include:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <span class="part-name">tic</span>/<span class=
+ "part-name">infocmp</span> display of numeric values to use
+ hexadecimal when they are "close" to a power of two, making
+ the result more readable.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add “<code>-W</code>” option to <span class=
+ "part-name">tic</span>/<span class="part-name">infocmp</span>
+ to force long strings to wrap.</p>
<ul>
- <li>added decoder for xterm SGR 1006 mouse mode.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>This is in addition to the
+ “<code>-w</code>” option which attempts to
+ fit capabilities into a given line-length.</p>
+ </li>
- <li>added experimental support for
- “<code>%u</code>” format to terminfo.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>If “<code>-f</code>” option splits line,
+ do not further split it with
+ “<code>-W</code>”.</p>
+ </li>
- <li>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 .</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>Begin a new line when adding
+ “<code>use=</code>” after a wrapped line.</p>
+ </li>
</ul>
</li>
- </ul>
- <p>There are a few new configure options dealing with library
- customization:</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>add “<code>-q</code>” option to <span class=
+ "part-name">infocmp</span> to suppress the
+ “<code>Reconstructed from</code>” comment from
+ the header, and a corresponding option to <span class=
+ "part-name">tic</span> to suppress all comments from the
+ “<code>tic -I</code>” output.</p>
+ </li>
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>add “<code>--enable-ext-putwin</code>”
- configure option to turn on the extended putwin/getwin. By
- default, this is enabled for ABI 6 and disabled with ABI
- 5.</p>
+ <p>Sorted options in usage message for <span class=
+ "part-name">infocmp</span>, to make it simpler to see unused
+ letters.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>add “<code>--enable-string-hacks</code>”
- option to control whether strlcat and strlcpy may be used.
- Because <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> already does the
- requisite buffer-limit checks, this feature is mainly of
- interest to quiet compiler-warnings on a few systems.</p>
+ <p>Updated usage message for <span class=
+ "part-name">tic</span>, adding “<code>-0</code>”
+ option.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>add configure option
- “<code>--with-tparm-arg</code>” to allow <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Formatting-Output">
- tparm</a>'s parameters to be something more likely to be the
- same size as a pointer, e.g., <code>intptr_t</code> (again,
- the default is set for ABI 6).</p>
+ <p>add <span class="part-name">infocmp</span>/<span class=
+ "part-name">tic</span> “<code>-Q</code>” option,
+ which allows one to dump the compiled form of the terminal
+ entry, in hexadecimal or base64:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>A “<code>b64:</code>” prefix in the
+ <code>TERMINFO</code> variable tells the terminfo reader to
+ use base64 according to RFC-3548 as well as RFC-4648
+ url/filename-safe format.</li>
+
+ <li>A “<code>hex:</code>” prefix tells the
+ terminfo reader to accept hexadecimal data as generated by
+ “<code>infocmp -0qQ1</code>”.</li>
+ </ul>
</li>
</ul>
- <h3><a name="h3-programs" id="h3-programs">Program
- improvements</a></h3>
-
- <h4><a name="h4-utilities" id="h4-utilities">Utilities</a></h4>
-
- <p>Most of the termcap-related changes based on development of
- <a href="http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html">tctest
- (termcap library checker)</a> are implemented in the tic and
- infocmp programs rather than affecting the library. As noted in
- the <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html#my-better-translation">
- discussion</a> of <code>tctest</code>, <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em>'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 <em>termcap</em> users are
- using <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> (or NetBSD, with its
- own terminfo library) and their programs are actually using
- terminfo rather than termcap data.</p>
-
- <p>Still, there are a few. A comment about the translation of the
- ASCII <code>NUL</code> character prompted a review:</p>
+ <p>Other less-visible improvements and new features include:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>Both terminfo and termcap store string capabilities as
- <code>NUL</code>-terminated strings.</p>
+ <p>modify utility headers such as <code>tic.h</code> to make
+ it clearer which are externals that are used by <span class=
+ "main-name">tack</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>In terminfo, a <code>\0</code> in a terminal description
- is stored as <code>\200</code>.</p>
+ <p>add “<code>reset</code>” to list of programs
+ whose names might change in manpages due to
+ program-transformation configure options.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>There are no (known) terminals which would behave
- differently when sent <code>\0</code> or
- <code>\200</code>.</p>
+ <p>modify “<code>-T</code>” option of
+ <span class="part-name">clear</span> and <span class=
+ "part-name">tput</span> to call <code>use_tioctl</code> to
+ obtain the operating system's notion of the screensize if
+ possible.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>When translating to terminfo format (or displaying a
- printable version of an entry using infocmp), <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> shows <code>\200</code> as
- <code>\0</code>.</p>
+ <p>add check in <span class="part-name">tput</span> for
+ init/reset operands to ensure those use a terminal.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>It has done this since 1998 (quoting from the NEWS
- file):</p>
-
- <blockquote>
- <pre class="code-block">
-<a href=
-"http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t980103">980103</a>
-...
- + modify _nc_tic_expand() to generate \0 rather than \200.
-...
- + correct translation of terminfo "^@", to \200, like \0.
-</pre>
- </blockquote>
+ <p>modify programs <span class="part-name">clear</span>,
+ <span class="part-name">tabs</span>, <span class=
+ "part-name">tput</span> and <span class=
+ "part-name">tset</span> to pass the actual tty file
+ descriptor to setupterm rather than the standard output or
+ error, making padding work.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>However, the <code>_nc_tic_expand</code> function (which
- optionally produces terminfo or termcap format) did not
- address this special case for termcap. Even the later 4.4BSD
- <a href=
- "https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/lib/libc/gen/getcap.c?revision=244092&view=markup#l784">
- cgetstr</a> interprets a <code>\0</code> literally, ending
- <em>that</em> string (rather than using the terminfo
- improvement).</p>
+ <p>change <span class="part-name">tset</span>'s
+ initialization to allow it to get settings from the standard
+ input as well as <code>/dev/tty</code>, to be more effective
+ when output or error are redirected.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <p>As a result of the review, several improvements were made to
- <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> 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:</p>
-
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>the “<code>-0</code>” option generates
- termcap/terminfo source on a single line.</p>
+ <p>amend check in <span class="part-name">tput</span>,
+ <span class="part-name">tabs</span> and <span class=
+ "part-name">clear</span> to allow those to use the
+ database-only features in <span class="part-name">cron</span>
+ if a “<code>-T</code>” option gives a suitable
+ terminal name.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the “<code>-K</code>” option provides stricter
- BSD-compatibility for termcap output.</p>
+ <p>improve error message from <span class=
+ "part-name">tset</span>/<span class="part-name">reset</span>
+ when both stderr/stdout are redirected to a file or pipe.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>Other user-visible improvements and new features include:</p>
+ <p>Several of the less apparent features deal with translation of
+ terminfo to termcap (and the reverse), with corresponding checks
+ by <span class="part-name">tic</span>:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>added “<code>-D</code>” option to tic and
- infocmp, to show the database locations that it could
- use.</p>
+ <p>modify check in <code>fmt_entry</code> to handle a
+ cancelled reset string. Make similar fixes in other parts of
+ <code>dump_entry.c</code> and <code>tput.c</code></p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added “<code>-s</code>” option to toe, to sort
- its output.</p>
+ <p>correct read of terminfo entry in which all strings are
+ absent or explicitly cancelled. Before this fix, the result
+ was that all were treated as only absent.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>extended “<code>-c</code>” and
- “<code>-n</code>” options of infocmp to allow
- comparing more than two entries.</p>
+ <p>modify <span class="part-name">infocmp</span> to suppress
+ mixture of absent/cancelled capabilities that would only show
+ as “<code>NULL, NULL</code>”, unless the
+ “<code>-q</code>” option is used, e.g., to show
+ “<code>-, @</code>” or “<code>@,
+ -</code>”.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified toe's report when “<code>-a</code>”
- and “<code>-s</code>” options are combined, to
- add a column showing which entries belong to a given
- database.</p>
+ <p>correct a warning from <span class="part-name">tic</span>
+ about keys which are the same, to skip over missing/cancelled
+ values.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified the clear program to take into account the
- “<code>E3</code>” extended capability to clear
- the terminal's scrollback buffer.</p>
+ <p>add check in <span class="part-name">tic</span> for use of
+ bold, etc., video attributes in the color capabilities,
+ accounting whether the feature is listed in
+ <code>ncv</code>.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <h4><a name="h4-examples" id="h4-examples">Examples</a></h4>
+ <li>
+ <p>add check in <span class="part-name">tic</span> for
+ unnecessary use of “<code>2</code>” to denote a
+ shifted special key.</p>
+ </li>
- <p>Along with the library and utilities, many improvements were
- made to the <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>.
- 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).</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve check in <span class="part-name">tic</span> for
+ delays by also warning about beep/flash when a delay is not
+ embedded, or if those use the VT100 reverse video escape
+ without using a delay.</p>
+ </li>
- <p>These changes were made to verify compatibility or compare
- performance of <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>:</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve checks in <code>trim_sgr0</code>, comp_parse.c and
+ parse_entry.c, for cancelled string capabilities.</p>
+ </li>
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>made workarounds for compiling test-programs with NetBSD
- curses, though it lacks some common functions such as
- <a href="http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-use_env">
- use_env</a>.</p>
+ <p>add check in <span class="part-name">tic</span> for some
+ syntax errors of delays, as well as use of proportional
+ delays for non-line capabilities.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added dots_termcap test-program</p>
+ <p>add check in <span class="part-name">tic</span> for
+ conflict between <code>ritm</code>, <code>rmso</code>,
+ <code>rmul</code> versus <code>sgr0</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added dots_curses test-program, for comparison with the
- low-level examples.</p>
+ <p>add check in <code>_nc_parse_entry</code> for invalid
+ entry name, setting the name to
+ “<code>invalid</code>” to avoid problems storing
+ entries.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added test_setupterm test-proram to demonstrate
- normal/error returns from the setupterm and restartterm
- functions.</p>
+ <p>improve <code>_nc_tparm_analyze</code>, using that to
+ extend the checks made by <span class="part-name">tic</span>
+ for reporting inconsistencies between the expected number of
+ parameters for a capability and the actual.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added “<code>-d</code>”,
- “<code>-e</code>” and
- “<code>-q</code>” options to the demo_terminfo
- and demo_termcap test-programs.</p>
+ <p>remove <span class="part-name">tic</span> warning about
+ “<code>^?</code>” in string capabilities, which
+ was marked as an extension; however all Unix implementations
+ support this and X/Open Curses does not address it. On the
+ other hand, <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html#bsd42-ctl-question">
+ BSD termcap</a> did not support this feature (until the
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html#freebsd-ctl-question">
+ mid-1990s</a>).</p>
+
+ <p>in <code>_nc_infotocap</code>, added a check to ensure
+ that terminfo “<code>^?</code>” is not written to
+ termcap.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added “<code>-y</code>” option to demo_termcap
- and test/demo_terminfo test-programs to demonstrate behavior
- with/without extended capabilities.</p>
+ <p>modify <code>sscanf</code> calls in
+ <code>_nc_infotocap</code> for patterns
+ “<code>%{number}%+%c</code>” and
+ “<code>%'char'%+%c</code>” to check that the
+ final character is really “<code>c</code>”,
+ avoiding a case in icl6404 which cannot be converted to
+ termcap.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified demo_termcap and demo_terminfo test-programs to
- make their options more directly comparable, and add
- “<code>-i</code>” option to specify a terminal
- description filename to parse for names to lookup.</p>
+ <p>in <code>_nc_tic_expand</code> and
+ <code>_nc_infotocap</code>, improved string-length check when
+ deciding whether to use “<code>^X</code>” or
+ “<code>\xxx</code>” format for control
+ characters, to make the output of <span class=
+ "part-name">tic</span>/<span class="part-name">infocmp</span>
+ more predictable.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>rewrote the tests for <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_window.3x.html#h3-derwin">
- mvderwin</a> and test for recursive <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_window.3x.html#h3-mvwin">
- mvwin</a> in the movewindow test-program.</p>
+ <p>limited termcap “<code>%d</code>” width to 2
+ digits on input, and use “<code>%2</code>” in
+ preference to “<code>%02</code>” on output.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>correct terminfo/termcap conversion of
+ “<code>%02</code>” and
+ “<code>%03</code>” into
+ “<code>%2</code>” and
+ “<code>%3</code>”; the result repeated the last
+ character.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>These changes were made to help with the MinGW port:</p>
+ <h4><a name="h4-examples" id="h4-examples">Examples</a></h4>
+
+ <p>Along with the library and utilities, many improvements were
+ made to the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>.</p>
+
+ <p>These changes were made to demonstrate new extensions in
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>added test-screens to the ncurses test-program to show
- 256-characters at a time, to help with MinGW port.</p>
+ <p>add <span class="part-name">demo_new_pair</span> program,
+ to demonstrate <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/new_pair.3x.html#h3-alloc_pair">
+ <code>alloc_pair</code></a>, <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/new_pair.3x.html#h3-find_pair">
+ <code>find_pair</code></a> and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/new_pair.3x.html#h3-free_pair">
+ <code>free_pair</code></a> functions.</p>
+
+ <p>This program iterates over the possible color
+ combinations, allocating or initializing color pairs. For
+ best results, choose screen-width dividing evenly into the
+ number of colors. e.g.,</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <table summary="sample layouts for demo_new_pair">
+ <tr>
+ <td><code>32x64,32x128</code> </td>
+
+ <td>256 colors</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+ <td><code>24x44,24x88</code></td>
+
+ <td>88 colors</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+ <td><code>32x64,24x128</code></td>
+
+ <td>16 colors</td>
+ </tr>
+ </table>
+ </blockquote>
</li>
<li>
- <p>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.</p>
+ <p>add <span class="part-name">extended_color</span> program,
+ like the older <span class="part-name">color_set</span>
+ program, but using the extended color functions, with and
+ without the SP-functions interface.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added “<code>-s</code>” 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.</p>
+ <p>add <span class="part-name">picsmap</span> program to fill
+ in some testing issues not met by <span class=
+ "part-name">dots</span>, using this as the third example in a
+ comparison of the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-slang.html#compare_picsmap">
+ ncurses versus slang</a> libraries.</p>
+
+ <p>The program can directly read X bitmap and pixmap files,
+ displaying a picture. It can read other image files using
+ <span class="part-name">ImageMagick</span>'s <span class=
+ "part-name">convert</span> program to translate the image
+ into text.</p>
+
+ <p>For 16-, 88- and 256-color terminal descriptions,
+ <span class="part-name">picsmap</span> can load a palette
+ file which tells it which color palette entries to use. For
+ direct-colors, the terminal descriptions use the
+ <code>RGB</code> extension capability.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>These changes were made to verify new extensions in <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em>:</p>
+ <p>There are other new example programs and a few scripts:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>added <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_driver.3x.html#h3-form_driver_w">
- form_driver_w</a> entrypoint to wide-character forms library,
- as well as form_driver_w test-program.</p>
+ <p>add <span class="part-name">dots_xcurses</span> program to
+ illustrate a different approach used for extended colors
+ which can be contrasted with <span class=
+ "part-name">dots_curses</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>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.</p>
+ <p>add <span class="part-name">list_keys</span> program show
+ function keys for one or more terminal descriptions. It uses
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses'</span>s convention of
+ modifiers for special keys, based on xterm.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified ncurses test-program, adding
- “<code>-E</code>” and
- “<code>-T</code>” options to demonstrate use_env
- versus use_tioctl.</p>
+ <p>add <span class="part-name">padview</span> program, to
+ compare pads with direct updates in the <span class=
+ "part-name">view</span> program.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>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.</p>
+ <p>add <span class="part-name">sp_tinfo</span> program to
+ exercise the SP-functions extension of the low-level terminfo
+ library.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified the ncurses test-program to also show position
- reports in 'a' test.</p>
+ <p>add test-programs for <code>termattrs</code> and
+ <code>term_attrs</code> functions.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
-
- <p>These changes were made to make the examples more useful:</p>
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>added scripts for building dpkg and rpm test-packages</p>
+ <p>add <span class="part-name">test_sgr</span> program to
+ exercise all combinations of the sgr capability.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified the hanoi test-program to show the minimum number
- of moves possible for the given number of tiles.</p>
+ <p>add <span class="part-name">tput-colorcube</span> demo
+ script, imitating xterm's 88- and 256-color scripts using
+ <span class="part-name">tput</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>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.</p>
+ <p>add <span class="part-name">tput-initc</span> script to
+ demonstrate how <span class="part-name">tput</span> may be
+ used to initialize a color palette from a data file.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <h3><a name="h3-database" id="h3-database">Terminal
- database</a></h3>
+ <p>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.</p>
- <p>This release provides improvements to tic's
- “<code>-c</code>” checking option, which was used for
- example to</p>
+ <p>The <span class="part-name">ncurses</span> program is the
+ largest; a proportionately large number of changes were made to
+ it:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>make <code>sgr</code> in several entries agree with other
- caps.</p>
+ <p>modify a/A screens to make exiting on an escape character
+ depend on the start of keypad and timeout modes, to allow
+ better testing of function-keys.</p>
+
+ <p>add “<code>t</code>” toggle for
+ <code>notimeout</code> function.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>correct padding in some entries where earlier versions had
- miscounted the number of octal digits.</p>
+ <p>modify layout of b/B screens to allow for additional
+ annotation on the right margin; some terminals with partial
+ support did not display well.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <p>There are several new terminal descriptions:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_M_L_T_E_R_M">
- mlterm</a> is now aliased to mlterm3</li>
-
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-nsterm">
- nsterm</a> is now derived from nsterm-256color</li>
-
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-putty-sco">
- putty-sco</a></li>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify c/C screens to allow for extended color pairs.</p>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-teken">
- teken</a> is FreeBSD's "xterm" console.</li>
+ <p>add z/Z <em>zoom</em> feature to make extended color pairs
+ easier to test.</p>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_T_E_R_M_I_N_A_T_O_R">
- terminator</a></li>
+ <p>modify test-screens to take advantage of wide screens,
+ reducing the number of lines used for 88- and 256-colors.</p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_T_E_R_M_I_N_O_L_O_G_Y">
- terminology</a></li>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify “<code>d</code>” edit-color screen to
+ optionally read xterm color palette directly from terminal,
+ as well as handling <code>KEY_RESIZE</code> and
+ screen-repainting with control/L and control/R.</p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-tmux">
- tmux</a> is derived from screen.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>add examples to “<code>F</code>” screen for
+ <code>WACS_D_PLUS</code> and <code>WACS_T_PLUS</code>.</p>
+ </li>
- <li>several screen.XXX entries support the respective
- variations for 256 colors.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve “<code>g</code>” screen, correcting
+ ifdef which made the legend not reflect changes to keypad-
+ and scroll-modes. Added check for return-value of
+ <code>putwin</code>.</p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_S_I_M_P_L_E_T_E_R_M">
- simpleterm</a> is now 0.5</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>make “<code>s</code>” test easier to
+ understand which subtests are available</p>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vte">
- vte</a> is aliased to vte-2012</li>
+ <p>add a corresponding “<code>S</code>”
+ wide-character overlap test-screen.</p>
+ </li>
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt520ansi">
- vt520ansi</a></li>
+ <li>
+ <p>add “<code>v</code>” screen to show
+ <code>baudrate</code> and other values.</p>
+ </li>
</ul>
- <p>A few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal
- capabilities):</p>
+ <p>These changes were made to the other examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p><code>E3</code>, used in linux, putty and xterm-basic is
- tested in the <a href=
- "http://aerie.jexium-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html">clear</a>
- program to erase a terminal's scrollback.</p>
+ <p>modify <span class="part-name">blue</span> program to use
+ Unicode values for card-glyphs when available, as well as
+ improving the check for CP437 and CP850.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p><code>TS</code> is used in the <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_sl">
- xterm+sl</a> building block to help deprecate the misuse of
- <code>tsl</code> for xterm's title-string.</p>
+ <p>improve <span class="part-name">demo_menus</span> program,
+ allowing mouse-click on the menu-headers to switch the active
+ menu. This requires a new extension option
+ <code>O_MOUSE_MENU</code> to tell the menu driver to put
+ mouse events which do not apply to the active menu back into
+ the queue so that the application can handle the event.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p><code>XT</code> 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.</p>
+ <p>correct logic in <span class=
+ "part-name">demo_terminfo</span> program for
+ “<code>-f</code>” option</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p><code>xm</code> is used in examples <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-1005">
- xterm-1005</a> and <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-1006">
- xterm-1006</a> to illustrate a way to make mouse handling
- more general</p>
+ <p>modify <span class="part-name">ditto</span> program to
+ allow <code>$XTERM_PROG</code> environment variable to
+ override "xterm" as the name of the program to run in the
+ threaded configuration.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <p>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
- <code>A_ITALIC</code> extension.</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>add several options to the “<em>dots</em>”
+ test-programs.</p>
+ </li>
- <ul>
- <li>konsole, mlterm3 (italics)</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <span class="part-name">filter</span> program:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>illustrate an alternative to <code>getnstr</code>, that
+ polls for input while updating a clock on the right margin
+ as well as responding to window size-changes.</li>
+
+ <li>adapt logic used in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/dialog/"><span class=
+ "main-name">dialog</span></a> <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/dialog/manpage/dialog.html#h3-Common-Options">
+ “<code>--keep-tite</code>” option</a> for
+ <span class="part-name">filter</span> program as the "-a"
+ option. When set, <span class="part-name">filter</span>
+ attempts to suppress the alternate screen.</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
- <li>nsterm (dim)</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <span class="part-name">knight</span> program to
+ provide the "slow" solution for small screens using
+ “<code>R</code>”, noting that Warnsdorf's method
+ is easily done with “<code>a</code>”.</p>
+ </li>
- <li>screen (dim)</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify the <span class="part-name">savescreen</span>
+ program to add test patterns that exercise 88-, 256-, etc.,
+ colors.</p>
+ </li>
- <li>vte (dim, italics)</li>
+ <li>
+ <p>add options to <span class="part-name">test_arrays</span>,
+ for selecting termcap vs terminfo, etc.</p>
+ </li>
- <li>xterm (dim, italics)</li>
- </ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify the <span class="part-name">view</span>
+ program:</p>
- <h3><a name="h3-documentation" id=
- "h3-documentation">Documentation</a></h3>
+ <ul>
+ <li>expand tabs using the ncurses library rather than in
+ the test-program.</li>
- <p>As usual, this release</p>
+ <li>eliminate the “<code>-n</code>” option by
+ simply reading the whole file.</li>
+
+ <li>implement page up/down commands.</li>
+
+ <li>remove the very old <code>SIGWINCH</code> example; just
+ use <code>KEY_RESIZE</code>.</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>improves documentation by describing new features,</p>
+ <p>improve animation in <span class="part-name">xmas</span>
+ program by adding a time-delay in <code>blinkit</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>attempts to improve the description of features which
- users have found confusing</p>
+ <p>modify several test-programs which call
+ <code>use_default_colors</code> to consistently do this only
+ if the “<code>-d</code>” option is given.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>fills in overlooked descriptions of features which were
- described in the <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html">NEWS</a> file
- but treated sketchily in manual pages.</p>
+ <p>modify the install-rule for ncurses-examples to put the
+ data files in the data directory, e.g.,
+ <code>/usr/share/ncurses-examples</code>.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <p>In addition, the mechanism for producing HTML versions of the
- documentation has been improved:</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify several test programs to use new
+ <code>popup_msgs</code> function, adapted from the
+ help-screen used in the <code>edit_field</code> program.</p>
+ </li>
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>use an improved version of <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/scripts/man2html.html">man2html</a>
- to generate html manpages.</p>
+ <p>modify test data for xterm palettes to use the newer
+ color4/color12 values.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>regenerated <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html">
- NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html</a> to fix some of the broken
- html emitted by docbook.</p>
+ <p>improve the <span class="part-name">tracemunch</span>
+ script:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>show screenXX pointers and thread identifiers as
+ names.</li>
+
+ <li>chang address-parameters of <code>add_wch</code>,
+ <code>color_content</code> and <code>pair_content</code> to
+ dummy parameters.</li>
+ </ul>
</li>
</ul>
- <h3><a name="h3-bug-fixes" id="h3-bug-fixes">Interesting
- bug-fixes</a></h3>
+ <h3><a name="h3-database" id="h3-database">Terminal
+ database</a></h3>
+
+ <p>There are several new terminal descriptions:</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <p><code>dumb-emacs-ansi</code>, <code>dvtm</code>,
+ <code>dvtm-256color</code>, <code>fbterm</code>,
+ <code>iterm2</code>, <code>linux-m1</code> <em>minitel
+ entries</em>, <code>putty-noapp</code>, <code>viewdata</code>,
+ and <code>vt100+4bsd</code> <em>building-block</em>.</p>
+
+ <p><code>xterm+noalt</code>, <code>xterm+titlestack</code>,
+ <code>xterm+alt1049</code>, <code>xterm+alt+title</code>
+ <em>building blocks</em> and <code>xterm+direct</code>,
+ <code>xterm+indirect</code>, <code>xterm-direct</code>. from
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.log.html#xterm_331">xterm
+ patch #331</a>.</p>
+
+ <p>several other “<code>-direct</code>”
+ descriptions to address the differences of other terminal
+ emulators versus <code>xterm-direct</code>.</p>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <p>There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some
+ were updates to several descriptions:</p>
<ul>
- <li>
- <p>Ada95 binding:</p>
+ <li>use <code>xterm+sm+1006</code> in several terminal
+ descriptions which were validated as supporting the extended
+ mouse feature for their respective terminal emulators.</li>
+
+ <li>corrected <em>sgr</em>/<em>sgr0</em> strings in a few cases
+ reported by <span class="part-name">tic</span>, making those
+ correspond to the non-<em>sgr</em> settings where they differ,
+ but otherwise use ECMA-48 consistently.</li>
+
+ <li>add 0.1sec mandatory delay to <em>flash</em> capabilities
+ using the VT100 reverse-video control</li>
+ </ul>
+ <p>while others affected specific descriptions. These were
+ retested, to take into account new/undocumented changes by their
+ developers:</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <p><code>iterm</code>, <code>minitel</code>, <code>st</code>,
+ <code>viewdata</code>, <code>nsterm</code></p>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <p>while these are specific fixes based on user reports, or
+ warnings from <span class="part-name">tic</span>:</p>
+
+ <dl>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_A_N_S_I__S_Y_S__I_S_O_6429__E_C_M_A-48__Capabilities">
+ <code>ansi</code> <em>building blocks</em></a></dt>
+
+ <dd>
<ul>
- <li>
- <p>modify makefile rules to ensure that the PIC option is
- not used when building a static library</p>
- </li>
+ <li>restored <em>rmir</em>/<em>smir</em> in
+ <code>ansi+idc</code> to better match original
+ <code>ansiterm+idc</code>, add alias
+ <code>ansiterm</code></li>
+ </ul>
+ </dd>
- <li>
- <p>make Ada95 build-fix for big-endian architectures such
- as sparc. This undoes one of the fixes from <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20110319">
- 20110319</a>, which added an
- “<code>Unused</code>” member to
- representation clauses, replacing that with pragmas to
- suppress warnings about unused bits.</p>
- </li>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-icl6404">
+ <code>icl6402</code></a></dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>corrected missing comma-separator between string
+ capabilities in <code>icl6402</code> and
+ <code>m2-nam</code></li>
</ul>
- </li>
+ </dd>
- <li>
- <p>Color and attributes:</p>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-interix">
+ <code>interix</code></a></dt>
+ <dd>
<ul>
- <li>
- <p>parenthesize parameter of <code>COLOR_PAIR</code> and
- <code>PAIR_NUMBER</code> in curses.h in case it happens
- to be a comma-expression.</p>
- </li>
+ <li>updated using <span class="main-name">tack</span> and
+ SFU with Windows 7 Ultimate.</li>
- <li>
- <p>improve <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20021221">
- 20021221</a> workaround for broken acs, handling a case
- where that ACS_<em>xxx</em> character is not in the
- <code>acsc</code> string but there is a known
- wide-character which can be used.</p>
- </li>
+ <li>used <code>^?</code> for <em>kdch1</em></li>
+ </ul>
+ </dd>
- <li>
- <p>modify <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_color.3x.html#h3-Routine-Descriptions">
- init_pair</a> to accept -1's for color value after
- <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/default_colors.3x.html">
- assume_default_colors</a> has been called.</p>
- </li>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_Linux_consoles">
+ <code>linux</code></a></dt>
- <li>
- <p>add a check in <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_color.3x.html#h3-Routine-Descriptions">
- start_color</a> to limit color-pairs to 256 when extended
- colors are not supported.</p>
- </li>
+ <dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>made <code>linux3.0</code> entry the default
+ <strong><code>linux</code></strong> entry</li>
+
+ <li>modify <code>linux2.6</code> entry to improve
+ line-drawing so that the <code>linux3.0</code> entry can be
+ used in non-UTF-8 mode</li>
+
+ <li>omitted selection of ISO-8859-1 for G0 in enacs
+ capability from linux2.6 entry, to avoid conflict with the
+ user-defined mapping. The reset feature uses ISO-8859-1 in
+ any case.</li>
+
+ <li>modify <em>flash</em> capability for <code>linux</code>
+ and <code>wyse</code> entries to put the delay between the
+ reverse/normal escapes rather than after</li>
+
+ <li>modify <code>linux-16color</code> to not mask dim,
+ standout or reverse with the <em>ncv</em> capability</li>
</ul>
- </li>
+ </dd>
- <li>
- <p>Resizing the screen:</p>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_Open_B_S_D_consoles">
+ <code>pccon</code> <em>entries</em></a></dt>
+ <dd>
<ul>
- <li>
- <p>propagate error-returns from wresize, i.e., the
- internal increase_size and decrease_size functions
- through <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/resizeterm.3x.html">
- resize_term</a>.</p>
- </li>
+ <li>fixed some inconsistencies in the
+ <code><em>pccon*</em></code> entries</li>
- <li>
- <p>add check for zero/negative dimensions for
- <code>resizeterm</code> and <code>resize_term</code>.</p>
- </li>
+ <li>add bold to <code>pccon+sgr+acs</code> and
+ <code>pccon-base</code></li>
- <li>
- <p>modify <code>resizeterm</code> to always push a
- <code>KEY_RESIZE</code> onto the fifo, even if screensize
- is unchanged. Modify library to push a
- <code>KEY_RESIZE</code> if there was a SIGWINCH, even if
- it does not call <code>resizeterm</code>). These changes
- eliminate the case where a SIGWINCH is received, but ERR
- is returned from <code>wgetch</code> or
- <code>wgetnstr</code> because the screen dimensions did
- not change.</p>
- </li>
+ <li>add keys f12-f124 to <code>pccon+keys</code></li>
</ul>
- </li>
+ </dd>
- <li>
- <p>Low-level interfaces</p>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_Tmux">
+ <code>tmux</code></a></dt>
+ <dd>
<ul>
- <li>
- <p>fix an old bug in the termcap emulation;
- “<code>%i</code>” was ignored in
- <code>tparm</code> because the parameters to be
- incremented were already on the internal stack.</p>
- </li>
+ <li>corrected <em>sgr</em> string, which used
+ <code>screen</code>'s "standout" code rather than the
+ standard code.</li>
- <li>
- <p>change “<code>%l</code>” behavior in tparm
- to push the string length onto the stack rather than
- saving the formatted length into the output buffer.</p>
- </li>
+ <li>add settings corresponding to <code>xterm-keys</code>
+ option to reflect upcoming change to make that option
+ <em>"on"</em> by default</li>
- <li>
- <p>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 <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t980725">980725</a>).</p>
- </li>
+ <li>uncanceled <em>Ms</em></li>
</ul>
- </li>
+ </dd>
- <li>High-level interfaces
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_D_E_C__V_T100_and_compatibles">
+ <code>vt100</code></a></dt>
+ <dd>
<ul>
- <li>
- <p>modify internal recursion in <code>wgetch</code> which
- handles cooked mode to check if the call to
- <code>wgetnstr</code> returned an error. This can happen
- when both <code>nocbreak</code> and <code>nodelay</code>
- are set, for instance (see note for <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t960418">960418</a>).</p>
- </li>
+ <li>modify <code>vt100</code> <em>rs2</em> string to reset
+ vt52 mode and scrolling regions</li>
- <li>
- <p>add a check in internal function
- <code>waddch_nosync</code> to ensure that tab characters
- are treated as control characters; some broken locales
- claim they are printable.</p>
- </li>
+ <li>corrected <em>rs2</em> string for
+ <code>vt100-nam</code></li>
- <li>
- <p>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</p>
- </li>
+ <li>made minor fixes for <code>vt100+4bsd</code>, e.g.,
+ delay in <em>sgr</em> for consistency</li>
+ </ul>
+ </dd>
- <li>
- <p>fix special case where double-width character
- overwrites a single- width character in the first
- column.</p>
- </li>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_G_N_O_M_E__V_T_E_">
+ <code>vte</code></a></dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>moved SGR 24 and 27 from <code>vte-2014</code> to
+ <code>vte-2012</code></li>
+
+ <li>add a few capabilities fixed in recent <em>VTE</em>
+ development</li>
</ul>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_X_T_E_R_M">
+ <code>xterm</code></a></dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>add <em>rep</em> to <code>xterm-new</code>, available
+ since <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.log.html#xterm_32">
+ late 1996</a>.</li>
+
+ <li>modify <code>xterm+256color</code> and
+ <code>xterm+256setaf</code> to use correct number of color
+ pairs.</li>
+
+ <li>modify <em>rs1</em> for <code>xterm-16color</code>,
+ <code>xterm-88color</code> and <code>xterm-256color</code>
+ to reset palette using <em>oc</em> string as in
+ <code>linux</code> entry.</li>
+
+ <li>add <em>rs1</em> capability to
+ <code>xterm-256color</code></li>
+
+ <li>add <em>oc</em> capability to
+ <code>xterm+256color</code>, allowing palette reset for
+ <span class="main-name">xterm</span></li>
+
+ <li>add <em>op</em> to <code>xterm+256setaf</code></li>
+
+ <li>modify <code>xterm-r5</code>, <code>xterm-r6</code> and
+ <code>xterm-xf86-v32</code> to use <code>xterm+kbs</code>
+ to match <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.log.html#xterm_272">
+ xterm #272</a>, reflecting packager's changes</li>
+
+ <li>used ANSI reply for <em>u8</em> in
+ <code>xterm-new</code>, to reflect vt220-style responses
+ that could be returned.</li>
+
+ <li>made <code>xterm-pcolor</code> <em>sgr</em> consistent
+ with other capabilities</li>
+ </ul>
+ </dd>
+ </dl>
+
+ <p>A few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal
+ capabilities):</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>add <em>rmxx</em>/<em>smxx</em> ECMA-48 strikeout extension
+ to <code>tmux</code> and <code>xterm-basic</code></li>
+
+ <li>used <em>RGB</em> capability in new <em>*-direct</em>
+ entries to denote direct-color feature.</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <h3><a name="h3-documentation" id=
+ "h3-documentation">Documentation</a></h3>
+
+ <p>As usual, this release</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>improves documentation by describing new features,</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>attempts to improve the description of features which
+ users have found confusing</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>fills in overlooked descriptions of features which were
+ described in the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html">NEWS</a>
+ file but treated sketchily in manual pages.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <h3><a name="h3-config-config" id=
- "h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a></h3>
+ <p>In particular,</p>
- <h4><a name="h4-config-major" id="h4-config-major">Major
- changes</a></h4>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>Since the underlying features for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html#h2-HISTORY">
+ <span class="part-name">tset</span></a>, <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html#h2-HISTORY">
+ <span class="part-name">tput</span></a>, and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html#h2-HISTORY">
+ <span class="part-name">clear</span></a> have been better
+ integrated, the documentation now includes information on how
+ those tools evolved.</p>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> 6.0 configure script
- makes changes to the <em>default</em> value of several configure
- options, depending on the <code>--with-abi-version</code> option
- (i.e., whether its value is “5” or
- “6”):</p>
+ <p>In addition to explaining the improved integration of the
+ tools, the manual pages made it easier to see how the tools
+ are similar and how they are different.</p>
+ </li>
- <dl>
- <dt><code>--enable-const</code></dt>
+ <li>
+ <p>The <code>addch</code> manual page has additional
+ information on <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_addch.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
+ portability</a> and differences from other
+ implementations.</p>
+ </li>
- <dd>
- <p>Feature introduced in <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t970405">970405</a>
- supports the use of <code>const</code> where X/Open Curses
- should have, but did not. NetBSD curses does something
- similar with <code>const</code>.</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>The discussion of color-pairs in the <em>attributes</em>
+ manual page is improved in its <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html#h2-HISTORY">
+ history section</a>.</p>
+ </li>
- <dt><code>--enable-ext-colors</code></dt>
+ <li>
+ <p>The documentation of the <code>chtype</code>,
+ <code>cchar_t</code> types and the attribute values which can
+ be stored in those types, in particular the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html#h2-HISTORY">
+ history</a> and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
+ portability</a> sections of the <em>attributes</em> manual
+ page, has been improved.</p>
+ </li>
- <dd>
- <p>Extends the <code>cchar_t</code> structure to allow more
- than 16 colors to be encoded. This applies only to the
- wide-character (<code>--enable-widec</code>)
- configuration.</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve discussion of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_mouse.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
+ portability</a> in the <em>mouse</em> manual.</p>
+ </li>
- <dt><code>--enable-ext-mouse</code></dt>
+ <li>
+ <p>The <em>pad</em> manual page has a section on the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_pad.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
+ origin and portability</a> of pads.</p>
+ </li>
- <dd>
- <p>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.</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>Differences between SVr4 and X/Open Curses soft-keys are
+ discussed in a new section on <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_slk.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
+ portability</a>.</p>
+ </li>
- <dt><code>--enable-ext-putwin</code></dt>
+ <li>
+ <p>There are updated/improved notes on portability in the
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/resizeterm.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
+ resizeterm</a> and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/wresize.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
+ wresize</a> manual pages.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
- <dd>
- <p>Modifies the file-format written by <code>putwin</code> to
- use printable text rather than binary files, allowing
- <code>getwin</code> to read screen dumps written by
- differently-configured ncurses libraries. The extended
- <code>getwin</code> can still read binary screen dumps from
- the <em>same</em> configuration of ncurses. This does not
- change the ABI (the binary interface seen by calling
- applications).</p>
- </dd>
+ <p>In addition to providing background information to explain
+ these features and show how they evolved, there are corrections,
+ clarifications, etc.:</p>
- <dt><code>--enable-interop</code></dt>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>add note in the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_addch.3x.html#h3-ACS-Symbols">
+ <em>addch</em></a> manual about line-drawing when it depends
+ upon UTF-8.</p>
+ </li>
- <dd>
- <p>Modifies the <code>FIELDTYPE</code> structure used for the
- form library to make it more generic.</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve discussion of line-drawing characters in the
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_add_wch.3x.html">
+ <em>add_wch</em></a> manual.</p>
+ </li>
- <dt><code>--enable-lp64</code></dt>
+ <li>
+ <p>explain in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html#h2-DESCRIPTION">
+ <span class="part-name">clear</span></a>'s manual page that
+ it writes to the standard output.</p>
+ </li>
- <dd>
- <p>Allows an application to define <code>_LP64</code> to
- declare <code>chtype</code> and <code>mmask_t</code> as
- simply “<code>unsigned</code>” rather than the
- configured types using the <code>--with-chtype</code> and
- <code>--with-mmask_t</code> options.</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve description of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-endwin">
+ <em>endwin</em></a>.</p>
+ </li>
- <dt><code>--enable-sp-funcs</code></dt>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve discussion of field validation in the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_driver.3x.html">
+ <em>form driver</em></a> manual page.</p>
+ </li>
- <dd>
- <p>Compile-in support for extended functions which accept a
- SCREEN pointer, reducing the need for juggling the global SP
- value with <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-set_term">
- set_term</a> and <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-delscreen">
- delscreen</a>.</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>clarify the use of <code>wint_t</code> vs
+ <code>wchar_t</code> in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_get_wstr.3x.html#h2-RETURN-VALUE">
+ <em>get_wstr</em></a> manual page.</p>
+ </li>
- <dt><code>--with-chtype=uint32_t</code></dt>
+ <li>
+ <p>clarify in the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_getch.3x.html#h3-Predefined-key-codes">
+ <em>getch</em></a> manual that the keypad mode affects an
+ application's ability to read <code>KEY_MOUSE</code> codes,
+ but does not affect <code>KEY_RESIZE</code>.</p>
- <dd>
- <p>Makes <code>chtype</code> explicitly a 32-bit unsigned
- value.</p>
- </dd>
+ <p>trim some obsolete/incorrect wording about
+ <code>EINTR</code> from the <em>getch</em> manual page</p>
- <dt><code>--with-mmask_t=uint32_t</code></dt>
+ <p>improve manual pages for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_getch.3x.html#h3-Keypad-Mode">
+ <em>getch</em></a> and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_get_wch.3x.html#h2-DESCRIPTION">
+ <em>get_wch</em></a> to point out that they might return
+ user-defined values which have no predefined names in
+ <code><curses.h></code></p>
+ </li>
- <dd>
- <p>Makes <code>mmask_t</code> explicitly a 32-bit unsigned
- value.</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve description of the <code>-R</code> option in the
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/infocmp.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ infocmp</span></a> manual page</p>
+ </li>
- <dt><code>--with-tparm-arg=intptr_t</code></dt>
+ <li>
+ <p>clarify in the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/resizeterm.3x.html#h2-NOTES">
+ <em>resizeterm</em></a> manual page how
+ <code>KEY_RESIZE</code> is pushed onto the input stream.</p>
+ </li>
- <dd>
- <p>X/Open Curses declares <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Formatting-Output">
- tparm</a> using <code>long</code> for each of the parameters
- aside from the formatting string, presuming that
- <code>long</code> and <code>char*</code> are the same size.
- This configure option uses <code>intptr_t</code> which
- provides a better guarantee of the sizes.</p>
- </dd>
- </dl>
+ <li>
+ <p>document return value of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_extend.3x#h2-RETURN-VALUE">
+ <code>use_extended_names</code></a></p>
+ </li>
- <p>The configure script no longer checks for antique compilers;
- <code>c89</code> 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 <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> 6.0 with any of the current (or not so
- current) C compilers available in 2015.</p>
-
- <p>The configure script, by the way, makes changes which do not
- work with systems whose <code>/bin/sh</code> is non-POSIX. This
- mainly affects Solaris (the other vendor <em class=
- "small-caps">unix</em> systems have followed the POSIX guidelines
- for the past twenty years). If you must build on Solaris, its
- <a href=
- "http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/html/817-0552/fhkpy.html">xpg4</a>
- binaries suffice, e.g.,</p>
-
- <blockquote class="code-block">
- <!--{{atr2html-->
-
- <p style="font-family: monospace; font-size: 10pt;">
- <font color="#800000">#!/bin/sh</font><br>
- <font color="#008080">WHAT</font>=<strong><em><font color=
- "#800000">`</font></em></strong>hostname|sed -e <font color="#800080">'s/\..*//'</font><strong><em><font color="#800000">`</font></em></strong><br>
-
- <font color="#008080">OUT</font>=configure.out<br>
- <strong><font color=
- "#000080">cat</font></strong> >><font color=
- "#008080">$OUT</font> <font color=
- "#800080"><<EOF/</font><font color="#800080"><br>
- ** </font><strong><em><font color=
- "#800000">`</font></em></strong>date<strong><em><font color=
- "#800000">`</font></em></strong><font color="#800080"><br>
- ** node: </font><font color=
- "#008080">$WHAT</font><font color="#800080"><br>
- ** user: </font><strong><em><font color=
- "#800000">`</font></em></strong>id<strong><em><font color=
- "#800000">`</font></em></strong><font color="#800080"><br>
- ** conf: $*<br>
- EOF/</font><br>
- <br>
- <font color="#008080">SHELL</font>=/bin/sh<br>
- <strong><font color=
- "#000080">if</font></strong> <strong><font color=
- "#000080">test</font></strong> -f /usr/xpg4/bin/sh<br>
-
- <strong><font color="#000080">then</font></strong><br>
- <font color=
- "#008080">CONFIG_SHELL</font>=/usr/xpg4/bin/sh<br>
- <strong><font color="#000080">export</font></strong> CONFIG_SHELL<br>
-
- <font color=
- "#008080">SHELL</font>=<font color=
- "#008080">$CONFIG_SHELL</font><br>
- <strong><font color="#000080">fi</font></strong><br>
- <br>
- rm -f config.status config.cache<br>
- <font color="#008080">TOP</font>=<font color=
- "#008080">$HOME</font>/<font color="#008080">$WHAT</font><br>
- <font color=
- "#008080">$SHELL</font> ./configure --verbose \<br>
-
- --disable-echo \<br>
-
- --disable-overwrite \<br>
-
- --enable-warnings \<br>
-
- --with-warnings \<br>
-
- --prefix=<font color="#008080">$TOP</font> <font color="#008080">$*</font> <strong><font color="#008080">2</font></strong>>&<strong><font color="#008080">1</font></strong> | tee -a <font color="#008080">$OUT</font><br>
-
- <!--atr2html}}--></p>
- </blockquote>
+ <li>
+ <p>document differences in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_variables.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
+ <code>ESCDELAY</code></a> versus AIX's implementation in the
+ <em>variables</em> manual page.</p>
+ </li>
- <p>Other major changes to the configure script include:</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>The <code>_nc_free_tinfo</code> function is now documented
+ in the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_memleaks.3x.html">
+ <em>memory-leaks</em></a> manual page, because it could be
+ used in <span class="main-name">tack</span> for memory-leak
+ checking.</p>
+ </li>
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>ABI 6 is now the default, intending that the existing ABI
- 5 should build as before using the
- “<code>--with-abi-version=5</code>” option.</p>
+ <p>add a note to the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tic</span></a> manual page about -W versus -f options.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added <code>--with-extra-suffix</code> option to help with
- installing nonconflicting ncurses6 packages, e.g., avoiding
- header- and library-conflicts.</p>
+ <p>improve <em>terminfo manual</em> description of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Terminfo-Capabilities-Syntax">
+ terminfo syntax</a>.</p>
- <p><strong>NOTE:</strong> as a side-effect, this renames</p>
+ <p>improve terminfo manual page discussion of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Line-Graphics">
+ control- and graphics- characters</a>.</p>
- <blockquote>
- <p><code>adacurses-config</code> to
- <code>adacurses5-config</code> and<br>
- <code>adacursesw-config</code> to
- <code>adacursesw5-config</code></p>
- </blockquote>
+ <p>improve <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Color-Handling">
+ color-handling</a> section in terminfo manual page</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>clarify description in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
+ <span class="part-name">tput</span></a> manual page regarding
+ support for termcap names</p>
+
+ <p>update <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html#h3-Aliases">
+ <span class="part-name">tput</span></a> manual page to
+ reflect changes to manipulate terminal modes by sharing
+ functions with <span class="part-name">tset</span>.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>clarify in manual pages that the optional verbose option
+ level of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html#h2-OPTIONS">
+ <span class="part-name">tic</span></a> and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/infocmp.1m.html#h3-Other-Options">
+ <span class="part-name">infocmp</span></a> is available only
+ when <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> is configured for
+ tracing.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>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.</p>
+ <p>improve manual page description of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html"><em>tset/reset</em></a>
+ versus window-size.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>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.</p>
+ <p>improve description of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_termcap.3x.html#h3-FORMATTING-CAPABILITIES">
+ <em>tgoto</em></a> parameters</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <h4><a name="h4-config-options" id=
- "h4-config-options">Configuration options</a></h4>
+ <p>There are new manual pages:</p>
- <p>There are several new (or extended) configure options:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/user_caps.5.html"><em>
+ user_caps</em></a> documents the terminfo extensions used by
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>.</li>
- <dl>
- <dt><code>--disable-db-install</code></dt>
+ <li>
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/scr_dump.5.html"><em>
+ scr_dump</em></a> documents the screen-dump format.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
- <dd>
- <p>Do not install the terminal database. This is used to omit
- features for packages, as done with
- <code>--without-progs</code>. The option simplifies building
- cross-compile support packages.</p>
- </dd>
+ <p>Some of the improvements are more subtle, relating to the way
+ the information is presented:</p>
- <dt><code>--disable-gnat-projects</code></dt>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>Made minor fixes to manpage <em>NAME/SYNOPSIS</em>
+ sections to consistently use rule that either all functions
+ which are prototyped in <em>SYNOPSIS</em> are listed in the
+ <em>NAME</em> section, or the manual-page name is the sole
+ item listed in the <em>NAME</em> section. The latter is used
+ to reduce clutter, e.g., for the top-level library manual
+ pages as well as for certain feature-pages such as <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_sp_funcs.3x.html">
+ <em>SP-funcs</em></a> and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_threads.3x.html">
+ <em>threading</em></a>.</p>
+ </li>
- <dd>
- <p>This option is used for regression testing</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve manual pages for utilities with respect to POSIX
+ versus X/Open Curses.</p>
+ </li>
- <dt><code>--disable-lib-suffixes</code></dt>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve organization of the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html"><em>
+ attributes</em></a> and <a href=
+ "/ncurses/man/curs_color.3x.html"><em>color</em></a> manual
+ pages.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
- <dd>
- <p>Suppress the “w”, “t” or
- “tw” suffixes which normally would be added to
- the library names for the <code>--enable-widec</code> and
- <code>--with-pthread</code> options.</p>
- </dd>
+ <h3><a name="h3-bug-fixes" id="h3-bug-fixes">Interesting
+ bug-fixes</a></h3>
- <dt><code>--with-cxx-shared</code></dt>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <span class="part-name">toe</span> to not exit if
+ unable to read a terminal description, e.g., if there is a
+ permission problem.</p>
+ </li>
- <dd>
- <p>When <code>--with-shared</code> 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.</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>correct 20100515 change for weak signals versus
+ sigprocmask</p>
+ </li>
- <dt><code>--with-hashed-db</code></dt>
+ <li>work around Ada tool-breakage in Debian 9 and later by
+ invoking <code>gprconfig</code> to specify the C compiler to be
+ used by <code>gnatmake</code>, and conditionally suppressing
+ <code>Library_Options</code> line for static libraries.</li>
- <dd>
- <p>Extended this configure option to simplify building with
- different versions of Berkeley database using FreeBSD
- ports.</p>
- </dd>
+ <li>
+ <p>There were, as well, several bug-fixes to handle illegal
+ input for <span class="part-name">tic</span>. Because those
+ did not correspond to useful terminal descriptions, most
+ users are unaffected.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
- <dt><code>--with-pc-suffix</code></dt>
+ <h3><a name="h3-config-config" id=
+ "h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a></h3>
- <dd>
- <p>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.</p>
- </dd>
+ <h4><a name="h4-config-major" id="h4-config-major">Major
+ changes</a></h4>
- <dt><code>--with-xterm-kbs</code></dt>
+ <p>This release provides a new binary format for terminal
+ descriptions that use extended numeric capabilities. Applications
+ built with the wide-character <em>ncursesw</em> library can use
+ these extended numbers.</p>
- <dd>
- <p>Configure xterm's terminfo entries to use either BS
- (<code>^H</code>, i.e., ASCII backspace) or DEL
- (<code>^?</code>, or 127).</p>
- </dd>
- </dl>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>This includes utilities such as <span class=
+ "part-name">tic</span> and <span class=
+ "part-name">infocmp</span>, because (as noted in <a href=
+ "#h4-new-library"><em>New features</em></a>), the feature
+ relies upon an extension to the low-level <em>tinfo</em>
+ library.</p>
+ </li>
- <h3><a name="h3-portability" id=
- "h3-portability">Portability</a></h3>
+ <li>
+ <p>A few software packagers use a configuration option of
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> which allows the
+ low-level <em>tinfo</em> library to be shared between the
+ high-level <em>ncurses</em> and <em>ncursesw</em> libraries.
+ This new feature was designed to work in that configuration
+ as well.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>Other applications (i.e., using the 8-bit <em>ncurses</em>
+ library) which read the extended terminal descriptions see those
+ numeric capabilities set to the maximum value for a signed 16-bit
+ number.</p>
- <h4><a name="h4-port-mingw" id="h4-port-mingw">MinGW</a></h4>
+ <p>Older versions of <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>'
+ <span class="part-name">tic</span> accept out-of-range numeric
+ capabilities, storing those as the maximum value for a signed
+ 16-bit number. Other implementations of curses (mentioned in the
+ discussion of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-slang.html#compare_picsmap">
+ <span class="part-name">picsmap</span></a>) give zero for these
+ out-of-range capabilities.</p>
- <p>Most of the portability-related work since <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/announce-5.9.html"><em class="small-caps">
- ncurses</em> 5.9</a> extended and improved the MinGW port
- introduced in <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/announce-5.8.html"><em class="small-caps">
- ncurses</em> 5.8</a>.</p>
+ <h4><a name="h4-config-options" id=
+ "h4-config-options">Configuration options</a></h4>
- <p>The MinGW port can be readily cross-compiled:</p>
+ <p>These changes provide support for <span class=
+ "main-name">tack</span> 1.08, released in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack/CHANGES.html#index-t20170726">
+ July 2017</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>modified configure script to allow creating dll's for
- MinGW when cross-compiling.</p>
+ <p>add <code>--without-tack</code> configure option to refine
+ <code>--with-progs</code> configure option. Normally
+ <span class="main-name">tack</span> is built outside the
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> tree, but a few
+ packagers combine it during the build. If
+ <code>term_entry.h</code> is installed, there is no advantage
+ to in-tree builds.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>enforced Windows-style path-separator if
- cross-compiling,</p>
+ <p>adjust configure-script to define
+ <code>HAVE_CURSES_DATA_BOOLNAMES</code> symbol needed for
+ <span class="main-name">tack</span> 1.08 when built in-tree.
+ Rather than relying upon internal "_nc_" functions,
+ <span class="main-name">tack</span> now uses the boolean,
+ number and string capability name-arrays provided by
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> and SVr4 Unix curses.
+ It still uses <code>term_entry.h</code> for the definitions
+ of the extended capability arrays.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added scripts for test-builds of cross-compiled packages
- for ncurses6 to MinGW.</p>
+ <p>add dependency upon ncurses_cfg.h to <span class=
+ "part-name">tic</span>'s header-files; any program using
+ <span class="part-name">tic</span>-library will have to
+ supply this file. Legacy <span class="main-name">tack</span>
+ versions supply this file; ongoing <span class=
+ "main-name">tack</span> development has dropped the
+ dependency upon <span class="part-name">tic</span>-library
+ and new releases will not be affected.</p>
</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>Other changes to the configure-script and generated files
+ include</p>
+ <ul>
<li>
- <p>added pc-files to the MinGW cross-compiling
- test-packages.</p>
+ <p>add configure options to disable checks for form, menu and
+ panel libraries so that ncurses-examples can be built with
+ non-SVr4 curses implementations.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added script for building test-packages of binaries
- cross-compiled to MinGW using NSIS.</p>
+ <p>add configure option <code>--enable-opaque-curses</code>
+ for <em>ncurses</em> library and similar options for the
+ other libraries.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added <code>nc_mingw.h</code> to installed headers for
- MinGW port; this is needed for cross-compiling <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>.</p>
+ <p>add configure option <code>--disable-wattr-macros</code>
+ for use in cases where one wants to use the same headers for
+ ncurses5/ncurses6 development, by suppressing the
+ <em>wattr*</em> macros which differ due to the introduction
+ of extended colors</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>added test-packages for cross-compiling ncurses-examples
- using the MinGW test-packages.</p>
+ <p>modify configure macro for shared-library rules to use
+ <code>-Wl,-rpath</code> rather than <code>-rpath</code> to
+ work around a bug in <span class="part-name">scons</span></p>
</li>
- </ul>
- <p>The MinGW-specific Windows driver accounts for several
- changes:</p>
-
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>wide-character display is made usable by replacing MinGW's
- non-working <code>wcrtomb</code> and <code>wctomb</code>
- functions.</p>
+ <p>improve ncurses-examples' configure script to define as
+ needed <code>NCURSES_WIDECHAR</code> for platforms where
+ <code>_XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED</code> does not work. Also
+ modified the test program to ensure that if building with
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>, that the
+ <code>cchar_t</code> type is checked, since that is normally
+ (since <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20111030">20111030</a>)
+ ifdef'd depending on this test.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>implemented some display features: <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_beep.3x.html">beep</a>,
- <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_beep.3x.html">flash</a>,
- <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_kernel.3x.html#h3-curs_set">
- curs_set</a>.</p>
+ <p>modify configure script to handle the case where
+ <span class="part-name">tic</span>-library is renamed, but
+ the <code>--with-debug</code> option is used by itself
+ without normal or shared libraries</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the driver handles repainting on endwin/refresh
- combination.</p>
+ <p>modify editing script which generates resulting.map to
+ work with the clang configuration on recent FreeBSD, which
+ gives an error on an empty "local" section.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>modified treatment of <code>TERM</code> variable for MinGW
- port to allow explicit use of the Windows console driver by
- checking if <code>$TERM</code> is set to
- “<code>#win32console</code>” or an abbreviation
- of that.</p>
+ <p>improve configure check for setting the
+ <code>WILDCARD_SYMS</code> variable; on ppc64 the variable is
+ in the <strong><em>Data</em></strong> section rather than
+ <strong><em>Text</em></strong>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the Windows driver also matches the special
- <code>TERM</code> value “unknown”</p>
+ <p>correct result of configure option
+ <code>--without-fallbacks</code>, which caused FALLBACK_LIST
+ to be set to "no"</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the driver now returns characters for special keys, (like
- <code>ansi.sys</code> does), when keypad mode is off, rather
- than returning nothing at all.</p>
+ <p>modify <code>--with-pkg-config-libdir</code> option to
+ make it possible to install “.pc” files even if
+ <span class="part-name">pkg-config</span> is not found. Limit
+ this change, to suppress the actual install if it is not
+ overridden to a valid directory at install time.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the driver checks a new environment variable <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-NCURSES_CONSOLE2">
- NCURSES_CONSOLE2</a> to optionally work around a deficiency
- in <code>Console2</code> (and its descendent
- <code>ConsoleZ</code>) which hang when an application creates
- a console buffer.</p>
+ <p>disallow “no” as a possible value for
+ <code>--with-shlib-version</code> option, overlooked in
+ cleanup-changes for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20000708">20000708</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>Finally, there are other improvements:</p>
+ <h3><a name="h3-portability" id=
+ "h3-portability">Portability</a></h3>
+
+ <p>Many of the portability changes are implemented via the
+ configure script:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>MinGW is one of the configurations where <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> installs by default into /usr</p>
+ <p>improve configure script's <code>CF_CC_ENV_FLAGS</code>
+ macro to allow for compiler wrappers such as <span class=
+ "part-name">ccache</span>. This change moves only the
+ preprocessor, optimization and warning flags to
+ <code>CPPFLAGS</code> and <code>CFLAGS</code>, leaving the
+ residue in <code>CC</code>. That happens to work for
+ <span class="part-name">gcc</span>'s various
+ “model” options, but may require tuning for other
+ compilers.</p>
</li>
- <li>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.</li>
-
<li>
- <p>extend Windows support to work with MSYS2;</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>this works with a scenario where there is an
- ANSI-escape handler such as <code>ansicon</code> running
- in the console window.</p>
- </li>
-
- <li>wrap <code>isatty</code> calls with a macro, provide a
- corresponding set of support routines to address
- differences between MinGW and MSYS2.</li>
- </ul>
+ <p>modify ncurses-examples' configure script to use
+ <span class="part-name">pkg-config</span> for the extra
+ form/menu/panel libraries, to be more consistent with the
+ handling of the curses/ncurses library.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>ensure <code>WINVER</code> is defined in makefiles rather
- than using headers.</p>
+ <p>add configuration checks to build with <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-netbsd.html">NetBSD
+ curses</a>, which for example lacks <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-use_env">
+ <code>use_env</code></a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>add check for the <code>gnatprep</code>
- “<code>-T</code>” option.</p>
+ <p>change ncurses-examples to use <code>attr_t</code> vs
+ <code>chtype</code> to follow X/Open documentation more
+ closely since Solaris xpg4-curses uses different values for
+ <code>WA_<em>xxx</em></code> vs <code>A_<em>xxx</em></code>
+ that rely on attr_t being an unsigned short. Tru64 aka OSF1,
+ HPUX, AIX did as <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> does,
+ equating the two sets.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>work around a bug introduced by <a href=
- "http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20877689/gcc-4-8-1-minggw-d-option-does-not-work-as-usual">
- gcc 4.8.1</a> in MinGW which breaks "trace" feature.</p>
+ <p>modify several test programs to reflect that <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> honors existing signal handlers in
+ initscr, while other implementations do not.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>add a driver-name method to each of the drivers.</p>
+ <p>add configure check for <code>openpty</code> to
+ ncurses-examples' configure script, for <span class=
+ "part-name">ditto</span>.</p>
</li>
- </ul>
-
- <h4><a name="h4-port-systems" id="h4-port-systems">Other
- ports</a></h4>
- <p>These changes affect certain platforms (ports):</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve check for working <code>poll</code> function by
+ using <code>posix_openpt</code> as a fallback in case there
+ is no valid terminal on the standard input</p>
+ </li>
- <ul>
<li>
- <p>the configure script knows how to build shared libraries
- with DragonFlyBSD and Interix.</p>
+ <p>modify ncurses-examples' configure script to check for
+ <span class="part-name">pthread</span> dependency of
+ <em>ncursest</em> or <em>ncursestw</em> library when building
+ the <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> examples, e.g., in
+ case weak symbols are used.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>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:</p>
+ <p>add checks in ncurses-examples' configure script for some
+ functions neither in 4.3BSD curses, nor based on X/Open
+ Curses:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>the shared-library suffix for AIX 5 and 6 is now
- ".so"</p>
+ <p>modify a loop limit in firework.c to work around
+ absense of limit checks in some libraries.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the <code>-brtl</code> option is used with AIX 5-7; it
- is needed to link with the shared libraries.</p>
+ <p>fill the last row of a window with
+ “<code>?</code>” in firstlast if waddch does
+ not return <code>ERR</code> on the lower-right
+ corner.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the configure <code>--enable-pc-files</code> option takes
- into account the <a href=
- "http://linux.die.net/man/1/pkg-config"><code>PKG_CONFIG_PATH</code></a>
- variable.</p>
- </li>
+ <p>build-fixes for the Portland Group (PGI) compilers</p>
- <li>
- <p>the configure option <code>--with-pkg-config-libdir</code>
- provides control over the actual directory into which
- pc-files are installed.</p>
- </li>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>accept whitespace in <span class=
+ "part-name">sed</span> expression for generating
+ expanded.c</p>
+ </li>
- <li>
- <p>the build scripts add explicit -ltinfo, etc., to the
- generated ".pc" file when <code>ld</code> option
- “<code>--as-needed</code>” is used, or when
- ncurses and tinfo are installed without using rpath.</p>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify configure check that g++ compiler warnings are
+ not used.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add configure check for -fPIC option needed for shared
+ libraries.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the configure script disallows conflicting options
- “<code>--with-termlib</code>” and
- “<code>--enable-term-driver</code>”.</p>
+ <p>modify configure script for clang as used on FreeBSD, to
+ work around clang's differences in exit codes vs gcc.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the check for missing c++ compiler to work when no error
- is reported, and no variables set is improved (see note for
- <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20021206">20021206</a>).</p>
+ <p>fixes for configure/build using clang on OSX</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>do not redefine “inline” in
+ <code>ncurses_cfg.h</code>; this was originally to solve
+ a problem with gcc/g++, but is aggravated by clang's
+ misuse of symbols to pretend it is gcc.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add braces to configure script to prevent unwanted
+ addition of “<code>-lstdc++</code>” option to
+ the <code>CXXLIBS</code> symbol.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve/update test-program used for checking
+ existence of stdc++ library.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>if <code>$CXXLIBS</code> is set, the linkage test uses
+ that in addition to <code>$LIBS</code>.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the misc/gen_edit.sh script selects a "linux" entry which
- works with the current kernel rather than assuming it is
- always "linux3.0"</p>
+ <p>fixes for OS/2:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>use button instead of <code>kbuf[0]</code> in
+ EMX-specific part of <code>lib_mouse.c</code></p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>support building with <span class=
+ "part-name">libtool</span> on OS/2</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>use stdc++ library with OS/2 kLIBC</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>clear configure script's <code>cf_XOPEN_SOURCE</code>
+ for OS/2, to work with its header files</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the test/configure script makes it simpler to override
- names of curses-related libraries, to help with linking with
- pdcurses in MinGW environment.</p>
+ <p>add “newer” baudrate symbols to the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_termattrs.3x.html#h3-baudrate">
+ <code>baudrate</code></a> function in the ncurses library as
+ well as to a corresponding table in <span class=
+ "part-name">tset</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the configure-script/ifdef's allow the BSD OLD_TTY feature
- to be suppressed if the type of <code>ospeed</code> is
- configured using the option <code>--with-ospeed</code> to not
- be a <code>short</code>. By default, it is a
- <code>short</code> for termcap-compatibility.</p>
+ <p>modify ncurses-examples <span class=
+ "part-name">savescreen</span> to work with AIX and HPUX.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the MKlib_gen.sh script works around a recent change in
- gcc 5 (released <a href=
- "https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-5/">mid-2015</a>) which essentially
- emits multiple <code>#line</code> statements for the same
- position in a file.</p>
+ <p>define <code>WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN</code> for MinGW port,
+ making builds faster.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the configure script works with Minix3.2 (see <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/autoconf/portability-test.html">note</a>
- on portability)</p>
+ <p>add a configure check for <em>wcwidth</em> versus the
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> line-drawing
+ characters, to use in special-casing systems such as Solaris.
+ Solaris, however, requires a special case that maps Unicode
+ line-drawing characters into the acsc string for non-Unicode
+ locales. Solaris also has a misconfigured wcwidth which marks
+ all of the line drawing characters as double-width.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>OS/2 redux:</p>
+ <p>string-hacks (non-standard):</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>the configure script supports OS/2 kLIBC.</p>
+ <p>fix configure script to record when
+ <code>strlcat</code> is found on OpenBSD.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add <code>--enable-string-hacks</code> option to
+ ncurses-examples' configure script.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the <code>--with-lib-prefix</code> option allows
- configuring for old/new flavors of OS/2 EMX.</p>
+ <p>completed string-hacks for <em>sprintf</em>, etc.,
+ including the ncurses-examples programs.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>make <code>--enable-string-hacks</code> option work
+ with Debian by checking for the "bsd" library and its
+ associated "<bsd/string.h>" header.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p>improved configure-script checks for
- <code>_XOPEN_SOURCE</code>:</p>
+ <p>workaround for Debian's antique/unmaintained version of
+ mawk:</p>
<ul>
<li>
- <p>the definition works starting with Solaris 10.</p>
+ <p>see Debian #65617, which was fixed in <span class=
+ "main-name">mawk</span>'s upstream releases in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/mawk/CHANGES.html#t20090727">
+ 2009</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>the definition is suppressed for IRIX64, since its
- header files have a conflict versus
- <code>_SGI_SOURCE</code>.</p>
+ <p>related fixes when building link_test.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<hr>
- <h2><a name="h2-features" id="h2-features">Features of <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em></a></h2>
+ <h2><a name="h2-features" id="h2-features">Features of
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a></h2>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> package is fully
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> package is fully
upward-compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:</p>
<ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p><em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> supports all of the
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> supports all of the
for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping, color,
forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic recognition
of keypad and function keys.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p><em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> provides these SVr4
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> provides these SVr4
add-on libraries (not part of X/Open Curses):</p>
<ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p><em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>'s terminal database is
- fully compatible with that used by SVr4 curses.</p>
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span>'s terminal database
+ is fully compatible with that used by SVr4 curses.</p>
<ul>
- <li><em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> supports
- user-defined capabilities which it can see, but which are
- hidden from SVr4 curses applications using the
- <em>same</em> terminal database.</li>
+ <li>
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> supports
+ user-defined capabilities which it can see, but which are
+ hidden from SVr4 curses applications using the
+ <em>same</em> terminal database.</p>
+ </li>
<li>
<p>It can be optionally configured to match the format
</li>
<li>
- <p>Alternatively, <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> can
- be configured to use hashed databases rather than the
+ <p>Alternatively, <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
+ can be configured to use hashed databases rather than the
directory of files used by SVr4 curses.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> utilities have
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> utilities have
options to allow you to filter terminfo entries for use with
less capable <em>curses</em>/<em>terminfo</em> versions such
as the HP/UX and AIX ports.</p>
</li>
</ul>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> package also has many
- useful extensions over SVr4:</p>
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> package also has
+ many useful extensions over SVr4:</p>
<ul>
<li>
</li>
<li>
- <p>Unlike SVr3 curses, <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>
+ <p>Unlike SVr3 curses, <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if
your terminal has an insert-character capability.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The functions <code>keyok</code> and
<code>define_key</code> allow you to better control the use
- of function keys, e.g., disabling the <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em> KEY_MOUSE, or by defining more than
- one control sequence to map to a given key code.</p>
+ of function keys, e.g., disabling the <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> KEY_MOUSE, or by defining more
+ than one control sequence to map to a given key code.</p>
</li>
<li>
<li>
<p>The <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html">tic</a>/<a href="http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo</a>
- utility provided with <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> has
- the ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM
- and AT&T extension sets.</p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tic</span></a>/<a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo</a>
+ utility provided with <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
+ has the ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX,
+ IBM and AT&T extension sets.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A BSD-like <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html">tset</a>
- utility is provided.</p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html"><span class="part-name">
+ tset</span></a> utility is provided.</p>
</li>
<li>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> library and
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 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 system
<li>
<p>The table-of-entries utility <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html">toe</a>
- makes it easy for users to see exactly what terminal types
- are available on the system.</p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
+ toe</span></a> makes it easy for users to see exactly what
+ terminal types are available on the system.</p>
</li>
<li>
<li>
<p>Extensive documentation is provided (see the <em><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#additional_reading">
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#additional_reading">
Additional Reading</a></em> section of the <em><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html"><em class="small-caps">
- ncurses</em> FAQ</a></em> for online documentation).</p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html"><span class="main-name">
+ ncurses</span> FAQ</a></em> for online documentation).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2><a name="h2-who-uses" id="h2-who-uses">Applications using
- <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em></a></h2>
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a></h2>
- <p>The <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> distribution includes
- a selection of test programs (including a few games). These are
- available separately as <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a></p>
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> distribution
+ includes a selection of test programs (including a few games).
+
These are available separately as <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a></p>
<p>The ncurses library has been tested with a wide variety of
applications including:</p>
<blockquote>
<dl>
- <dt>cdk</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">aptitude</span></dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>FrontEnd to Apt, the debian package manager</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude">https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">cdk</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>Curses Development Kit</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/cdk/">http://invisible-island.net/cdk/</a><br>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/cdk/">https://invisible-island.net/cdk/</a><br>
</p>
</dd>
- <dt>ded</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">ded</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>directory-editor</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ded/">http://invisible-island.net/ded/</a></p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ded/">https://invisible-island.net/ded/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>dialog</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">dialog</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>the underlying application used in Slackware's setup,
many systems.</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/dialog/">http://invisible-island.net/dialog/</a></p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/dialog/">https://invisible-island.net/dialog/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>lynx</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">lynx</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>the text WWW browser</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://lynx.isc.org/">http://lynx.isc.org/</a></p>
+ "https://lynx.invisible-island.net/">https://lynx.invisible-island.net/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>Midnight Commander</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">mutt</span></dt>
<dd>
- <p>file manager</p>
+ <p>mail utility</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://www.midnight-commander.org/">http://www.midnight-commander.org/</a></p>
+ "http://www.mutt.org/">http://www.mutt.org/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>mutt</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">ncftp</span></dt>
<dd>
- <p>mail utility</p>
+ <p>file-transfer utility</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://www.mutt.org/">http://www.mutt.org/</a></p>
+ "https://www.ncftp.com/">https://www.ncftp.com/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>ncftp</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">nvi</span></dt>
<dd>
- <p>file-transfer utility</p>
+ <p>New vi uses ncurses.</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://www.ncftp.com/">http://www.ncftp.com/</a></p>
+ "https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi">https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi</a><br>
+ </p>
</dd>
- <dt>nvi</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">ranger</span></dt>
<dd>
- <p>New vi uses ncurses.</p>
+ <p>A console file manager with VI key bindings in
+ <em>Python</em>.</p>
<p><a href=
- "https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi">https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi</a><br>
- </p>
+ "https://ranger.github.io/">https://ranger.github.io/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>tin</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">tin</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>newsreader, supporting color, MIME</p>
<p><a href=
"http://www.tin.org/">http://www.tin.org/</a></p>
</dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">vifm</span></dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>File manager with vi like keybindings</p>
+
+ <p><a href="https://vifm.info/">https://vifm.info/</a></p>
+ </dd>
</dl>
</blockquote>
- <p>as well as some that use <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>
- for the terminfo support alone:</p>
+ <p>as well as some that use <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> for the terminfo support alone:</p>
<blockquote>
<dl>
- <dt>minicom</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">minicom</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>terminal emulator for serial modem connections</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/</a></p>
+ "https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>mosh</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">mosh</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>a replacement for <code>ssh</code>.</p>
"https://mosh.mit.edu/">https://mosh.mit.edu/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>tack</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">tack</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>terminfo action checker</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html</a></p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>tmux</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">tmux</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>terminal multiplexor</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://tmux.github.io/">http://tmux.github.io/</a></p>
+ "https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki">https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>vile</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">vile</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>vi-like-emacs may be built to use the terminfo, termcap
or curses interfaces.</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/vile/">http://invisible-island.net/vile/</a></p>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/vile/">https://invisible-island.net/vile/</a></p>
</dd>
</dl>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<dl>
- <dt>emacs</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">emacs</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>text editor</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/</a></p>
+ "https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">less</span></dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>The most commonly used <em>pager</em> (a program that
+ displays text files).</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/">http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>screen</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">screen</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>terminal multiplexor</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/">http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/</a></p>
+ "https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/">https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/</a></p>
</dd>
- <dt>vim</dt>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">vim</span></dt>
<dd>
<p>text editor</p>
<p><a href=
- "http://www.vim.org/">http://www.vim.org/</a></p>
+ "https://www.vim.org/">https://www.vim.org/</a></p>
</dd>
</dl>
</blockquote>
<h2><a name="h2-development" id="h2-development">Development
activities</a></h2>
- <p>Zeyd Ben-Halim started <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em>
+ <p>Zeyd Ben-Halim started <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
from a previous package pcurses, written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S.
Raymond continued development. Jürgen Pfeifer wrote most of
the form and menu libraries. Ongoing development work is done by
<a href="mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net">Thomas Dickey</a>.
Thomas Dickey also acts as the maintainer for the Free Software
Foundation, which holds the <a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html">copyright
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html">copyright
on ncurses</a>.</p>
<p>Contact the current maintainers at</p>
<p>This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the
development and testing of this package.</p>
- <p>Beta versions of <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> and
+ <p>Beta versions of <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> and
patches to the current release are made available at</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
- "ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a> .</p>
+ "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a>
+ and<br>
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/</a> .</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is an archive of the mailing list here:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/scripts/man2html.html">man2html</a></li>
-
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.nethttp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html">
- <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em> licensing</a></li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html"><span class="main-name">
+ ncurses</span> licensing</a></li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html">Symbol
- versioning in <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em></a></li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html">Symbol
+ versioning in <span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a></li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mingw.html">The
- MinGW port of <em class="small-caps">ncurses</em></a></li>
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-slang.html">Comments
+ on <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> versus <span class=
+ "main-name">slang</span> (S-Lang)</a></li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">tack –
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">tack –
terminfo action checker</a></li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/autoconf/portability-tar.html">tar
- versus portability</a></li>
-
- <li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html">tctest
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html">tctest
– termcap library checker</a></li>
<li><a href=
- "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.html#download_database">
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.html#download_database">
Terminal Database</a></li>
</ul>
terminfo-format 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, and provides several
- user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open specification.</p>
+ terminfo data are provided in the same file, which also provides
+ several user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open
+ specification.</p>
<p>You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
not covered in the terminfo file at <a href=
<a href="#h3-library">Library improvements</a>
<ul>
- <li><a href="#h3-lib-setbuf">Output
- buffering</a></li>
-
- <li><a href="#h3-lib-versioning">Symbol
- versioning</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#h4-new-library">New features</a></li>
- <li><a href="#h3-lib-other">Miscellaneous</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#h4-fixes-library">Other
+ improvements</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
- <li>
- <a href="#h3-portability">Portability</a>
-
- <ul>
- <li><a href="#h4-port-mingw">MinGW</a></li>
-
- <li><a href="#h4-port-systems">Other ports</a></li>
- </ul>
- </li>
+ <li><a href="#h3-portability">Portability</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
- <li><a href="#h2-features">Features of <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em></a></li>
+ <li><a href="#h2-features">Features of <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span></a></li>
- <li><a href="#h2-who-uses">Applications using <em class=
- "small-caps">ncurses</em></a></li>
+ <li><a href="#h2-who-uses">Applications using <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span></a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-development">Development activities</a></li>
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff