The ncurses (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 +
The ncurses (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.
+ enhancements over BSD curses. SVr4 curses became the basis of + X/Open Curses.In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the - keepers of unix releases such as - BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to ncurses.
+ keepers of unix releases such as + BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to ncurses. -Since 1995, ncurses has been +
Since 1995, ncurses has been ported to many systems:
The distribution includes the library and support utilities, @@ -90,1743 +100,2252 @@ p,li { max-width:700px; }
Full manual pages are provided for the library and tools.
-The ncurses distribution is - available via anonymous FTP at the GNU distribution site
+The ncurses distribution is + available at ncurses' homepage:
-It is also available at + "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/ + or
It is also available via anonymous FTP at the GNU distribution + site
+ "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
These notes are for ncurses - @VERSION@, released August 8, 2015.
+These notes are for ncurses + @VERSION@, released January 27, 2018.
This release is designed to be source-compatible with - ncurses 5.0 through 5.9; providing a - new application binary interface (ABI). Although the source can - still be configured to support the ncurses 5 ABI, the intent of the release is to - provide extensions which are generally useful, but - binary-incompatible with ncurses - 5:
+ ncurses 5.0 through 6.0; providing + extensions to the application binary interface (ABI). Although + the source can still be configured to support the ncurses 5 ABI, the intent of the release is to + provide extensions to the ncurses + 6 ABI:Extend the cchar_t structure to allow more
- than 16 colors to be encoded.
improve integration of tput + and tset
Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th - mouse button. That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel mouse with xterm or - similar X terminal emulators.
+provide support for extended numeric capabilities.
There are, of course, numerous other improvements, - including
+There are, of course, numerous other improvements, listed in + this announcement.
+ +The release notes also mention some bug-fixes, but are focused + on new features and improvements to existing features since + ncurses 6.0 release.
+ +The improved integration of tput and tset + made only small changes to the libraries. However, supporting + extended numeric capabilities required a few changes:
fixes made based on the Clang and Coverity static - analyzers.
+The TERMINAL structure in
+ <term.h> is now opaque. Doing that allowed
+ making the structure larger, to hold the extended numeric
+ data.
A few applications required changes during development of + ncurses 6.1 because those + applications misused the members of that structure, e.g., + directly modifying it rather than using + def_prog_mode.
memory leak fixes using Valgrind
-Having made TERMINAL opaque (and because none
+ of the library functions use anything except a pointer to
+ TERMINAL), it was possible to increase the size
+ of the structure, adding to the end.
The release notes mention some bug-fixes, but are focused on - new features and improvements to existing features log since - ncurses 5.9 release.
+Existing applications which were linked to the
+ ncurses 6.0 high-level
+ (ncurses, ncursesw) and low-level
+ (tinfo, tinfo) libraries should not require
+ re-linking since the binary interface did not change, nor did
+ the structure offsets with TERMINAL change.
While the intent of the release is to provide a new stable - ABI, there are other development activities which are summarized - below.
+A few applications use the inner TERMTYPE
+ structure's offsets to refer to terminfo capabilities within
+ that structure. Again, those do not require modification
+ because their offsets within TERMINAL did not
+ change.
The original release plan, e.g., for "5.10" was to improve
- the MinGW port. Ultimately that was completed (wide-character
- support, mouse, etc), but was deferred to focus on termcap
- support and performance issues. Also, pinpointing the
- problems with Console2 took a while.
When configured for wide-characters, i.e.,
+ “ncursesw” the TERMINAL structure is
+ extended.
The new data in TERMINAL holds the same
+ information as TERMTYPE, but with larger numbers
+ (“int” versus “short”). It is named
+ TERMTYPE2.
The library uses this structure internally in preference
+ to TERMTYPE, referring to TERMTYPE
+ only to initialize it for applications that use the
+ capabilities defined in <term.h>
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.
+When configured for 8-bit (narrow) characters, the
+ TERMTYPE2 structure is not used.
The termcap - library checker (tctest) (not part of ncurses) was one result. A followup review - of performance using ncurses-examples - in 2014 led to additional improvements.
+The motivation for making this extension came from noticing + that + termcap applications could (though not + realistically) 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.
+ +Generally speaking, applications that use internal details of
+ a library are unsupported. There was exactly one exception for
+ ncurses: the tack program used the internal
+ details of TERMINAL, 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 tack from these internal
+ details of ncurses, but to
+ generalize it so that the program works with Unix curses
+ (omitting the ncurses-specific feature). That was released as
+
+ tack 1.08 in July
+ 2017.
While making changes to tack to + eliminate its dependency upon ncurses 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 ncurses internals. + Future releases of ncurses may + eliminate some of those symbols (such as those used by + tack 1.07) because they are + neither part of the API or the ABI.
+ +Using the TERMTYPE2 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:
X/Open Curses defined function prototypes such as
+ wattr_set with an unused parameter, for
+ “future” use. After 25 years, the future is here:
+ ncurses uses the parameter to
+ augment color pair values as described in the
+ manual page.
Output buffering provided a further, but worthwhile
- distraction. A bug report in 2012 regarding the use of signal
- handlers in ncurses) pointed out
-
- a problem with the use of unsafe functions for handling
- SIGTSTP. Other signals could be addressed with
- workarounds; repairing SIGTSTP required a
- different approach. The solution required changing internal
- behavior of the library: how it handles output buffering.
Now ncurses buffers its own - output, independently of the standard output. A few - applications relied upon the library's direct reuse of the - standard output buffering; however that is - unspecified behavior and has never been a - recommended practice. Identifying these applications as well - as refining the change to permit low-level applications to - work consistently took time.
-Since the introduction of the experimental support for 256 - colors early in 2005 - (released in ncurses - 5.5), there has been increased user interest. Almost all - packagers continue providing the ncurses ABI 5 which cannot - support 256 colors.
-Symbol versioning, or the lack of it in ncurses, is the - main reason why packagers would be reluctant to add a new - ncurses ABI.
- -This release provides the new ABI along with - script-generated lists of versioned symbols which can be used - for both ABI 5 and 6 (with distinct names to keep the two - separate). This took time to development, as reported in - Symbol - versioning in ncurses.
+Other functions such as those defining color pairs did not
+ have a corresponding reserved parameter. For those,
+ ncurses defines extended
+ versions such as init_extended_pair (versus
+ init_pair), init_extended_color
+ (versus init_color).
Additionally, to improve performance other changes (and + extensions) are provided in this release:
-Several new functions simplify management of large sets of
+ color pairs: reset_color_pairs,
+ alloc_pair, find_pair and
+ free_pair.
X/Open curses provides more than one initialization - function:
+New "RGB" extension capability for direct-color support is
+ used to improve performance of
+ color_content.
The internal colorpair_t is now a struct,
+ eliminating an internal 8-bit limit on colors
Allocation for SCREEN's color-pair table
+ starts small, grows on demand up to the limit given in the
+ terminal description.
setcchar and getcchar now treat
+ a negative color-pair as an error.
They are documented in X/Open as if
- initscr calls newterm using
- stdout for output stream, and in turn
- newterm calls setupterm using
- fileno(stdout) for the file descriptor. As long as
- an implementation acts as if it does this, it conforms.
- In practice, implementations do what is implied. This creates a
- problem: the low-level setupterm function's file
- descriptor is unbuffered, while newterm implies
- buffered output. X/Open Curses says that all output is done
- through the file descriptor, and does not say how the output
- stream is actually used.
Initially, ncurses used the file
- descriptor (obtained from the output stream passed to
- newterm) for changing the terminal modes, and relied
- upon the output parameter of newterm for buffered
- output. Later (to avoid using unsafe buffered I/O in signal
- handlers), ncurses was modified to
- use the file descriptor (unbuffered output) when cleaning up on
- receipt of a signal. Otherwise (when not handling a signal), it
- continued to use the buffered output.
That approach worked reasonably well and as a side effect,
- using the same buffered output as an application might use for
- printf meant that no flushing was needed when
- switching between normal- and screen-modes.
There were a couple of problems:
+These are new or revised features:
to get good performance, curses (not only ncurses, but SVr4 curses in general) set an
- output buffer using setbuf or similar function.
- There is no standard (or portable) way to turn that output
- buffer off, and revert to line-buffering. The
- NCURSES_NO_SETBUF environment variable did make it
- optional.
modify c++/etip.h.in to accommodate
+ deprecation of throw and throws in c++17
to handle SIGTSTP (the “stop”
- signal), ncurses relied upon
- unsafe functions. That is, due to the complexity of the
- feature, it relied upon reusing existing functions which
- should not have been called via the signal handler.
add new function unfocus_current_field
Conveniently, solving the second problem (by making ncurses do its own output buffering) - also fixed the first one. But there were special cases to - resolve: - low-level functions such as mvcur, putp, vidattr - explicitly use the standard output. Those functions were reused - internally, and required modification to distinguish whether they - were used by the high-level or low-level interfaces.
+add option to preserve leading whitespace in form + fields
+Finally, there may still be a few programs which should be - modified to improve their portability, e.g., adding an
+add a macro for is_linetouched and adjust the
+ function's return value to make it possible for most
+ applications to check for an error-return.
-+-fflush(stdout); --
add build-time utility report_offsets to help
+ show when the various configurations of tinfo library are
+ compatible or not.
when switching from “shell”
- mode to “program”
- (curses) mode. Those are fairly rare because most programmers
- have learned not to mix printf and printw.
This release introduces symbol-versioning to ncurses because without it, the change of ABI - would be less successful. A lengthy discussion will be presented - in Symbol - versioning in ncurses. These - notes summarize what has changed, and what can be done with the - new release.
- -Symbol-versioning allows the developers of a library to mark - each public symbol (both data and functions) with an identifier - denoting the library name and the version for which it was built. - By doing this, users of the library have a way to help ensure - that applications do not accidentally load an incompatible - library. In addition, private symbols can be hidden entirely.
- -This release provides sample files for the four principal
- configurations of ncurses libraries:
- ncurses, ncursesw,
- ncursest and ncursestw. Each sample is
- given in two forms:
These were done to limit or ultimately deprecate features:
--+-
-- “
+.map”+
- +
-drop two symbols obsoleted in 2004: +
+_nc_check_termtype, and +_nc_resolve_uses- These list all public symbols, together with version - names.
+- +
-move
+_nc_tracebits,_tracedump+ and_tracemousetocurses.priv.h, + since they are not part of the suggested ABI6.- “
+.sym”- +
-mark some structs in form/menu/panel libraries as + potentially opaque without modifying API/ABI.
+- These list all public symbols, without version - names.
-
ifdef'd header-file definition of mouse_trafo
+ with NCURSES_NOMACROS
The sample files are generated by scripts which take
- into account a few special cases such as tack to omit
- many of the ncurses private symbols
- (beginning with “_nc_”). Here are
- counts of globals versus locals:
remove initialization-check for calling napms
+ in the term-driver configuration; none is needed.
-+-
-- +Config ++ + -modify
+traceto avoid overwriting existing + fileSymbols +These are improvements to existing features:
-Globals ++
- +
-modify
+make_hashto allow building with + address-sanitizer, assuming that--disable-leaks+ is configured.Locals +- +
-move
+SCREENfield foruse_tioctl+ data before the ncursesw fields, and limit that to the + sp-funcs configuration to improve termlib compatibility"_nc_" -+ modify db-iterator:
-- +ncurses ++
+ -- +
-ignore zero-length files in db-iterator; these are + useful for instance to suppress +
+$HOME/.terminfowhen not wanted.976 +- +
+modify
+update_getenvto ensure that + environment variables which are not initially set will be + checked later if an application happens to set them796 ++ -modify
+_nc_outc_wrapperto use the standard + output if the screen was not initialized, rather than + returning an error.180 ++ -improve checks for low-level terminfo functions when the + terminal has not been initialized.
+332 -+ -modify
+set_curtermto update +ttytype[]data used by longname/p>- +ncursesw ++ -modify
+_nc_get_screensizeto allow for +use_envanduse_tioctlstate to be + per-screen when sp-funcs are configured, better matching the + behavior when using the term-driver configuration.1089 ++ -remove an early-return from
+_nc_do_color,+ which can interfere with data needed bybkgd+ when ncurses is configured + with extended colors905 ++ -incorporate
+A_COLORmask into +COLOR_PAIR, in case user application provides an + out-of-range pair number184 ++ + -modify logic for
+endwin-state to be able to + detect the case where the screen was never initialized, using + that to trigger a flush of ncurses' buffer formvcur, + e.g., in the sample program dots_mvcur for the term-driver + configuration.343 -These are corrections to existing features:
-- +ncursest ++
- +
-fixes for writing extended color pairs in +
+putwin.979 +- +
-modify no-leaks code for
+lib_cur_term.cto + account for thetgetentcache.804 +- +
-amend handling of the
+repeat_charcapability + inEmitRangeto avoid scope creep: translate the + character to the alternate character set when the alternate + character set is enabled, and do not use +repeat_charfor characters past 255.175 +- +
-improve wide-character implementation of +
+myADDNSTRinfrm_driver.c, which + was inconsistent with the normal implementation.358 -+ -modify
+winnstrandwinchnstrto + 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.- -ncursestw ++ -modify
+setuptermto save original tty-modes + so thaterasecharworks as expected. Also modify +_nc_setupscreento avoid redundant calls to get + original tty-modes.1098 ++ -modify
+wattr_setandwattr_get+ to returnERRif win-parameter is null, + as documented.914 ++ -correct order of initialization for traces in +
+use_envanduse_tioctlversus first +_tracefcalls.184 ++ -correct parameters for
+copywincall in +_nc_Synchronize_Attributes372 -
flush the standard output in _nc_flush for
+ the case where SP is zero, e.g., when called via
+ putp. This fixes a scenario where
+ “tput flash” did not work after changes in
+ 20130112.
Although only four sample configurations are presented, each - is formed by merging symbols from several combinations of - configure-script options, taking into account advice from - downstream packagers. Because they are formed by merging, the - sample files may list a symbol which is not in a given package. - That is expected. The samples have been tested and are working - with systems (such as Fedora, FreeBSD and Debian) which fully - support this feature. There are other systems which do - not support the feature, and a few (such as Solaris) - which provide incomplete support.
- -The version-naming convention used allows these sample files - to build distinct libraries for ABI 5 and 6. Version names - consist of
+amend internal use of tputs 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
+ “*” proportional delay for these
+ operations, prompting a change in doupdate.
configuration name, e.g.,
- “NCURSESW” for the wide-character
- libraries
correct return-value of extended putwin.
ABI version (if not 5)
+double-width multibyte characters were not counted
+ properly in winsnstr and
+ wins_nwstr.
library name for two special cases which have the same
- interface across configurations:
- “TINFO” and
- “TIC”
amend fix for _nc_ripoffline from 20091031 to
+ make test/ditto.c work in threaded
+ configuration.
release version
+modify _nc_viscbuf2 and
+ _tracecchar_t2 to trace wide-characters as a
+ whole rather than their multibyte equivalents.
patch date (for the release version)
+minor fix in wadd_wchnstr to ensure that each
+ cell has nonzero width.
For example, running nm -D on the libraries in
- the ncurses6 test package shows these symbol-versions:
move PUTC_INIT calls next to
+ wcrtomb calls, to avoid carry-over of error
+ status when processing Unicode values which are not
+ mapped.
-+-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 --
add missing assignment in lib_getch.c to make
+ notimeout work
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.
+While reviewing user feedback, it became apparent that the + differences between + reset (an alias for + tset) and “tput reset” were confusing:
-The new release has several improvements for performance and - building. For instance:
+On further investigation, it turned out that the differences + were largely an accident due to the way those programs had + evolved.
+ +This release eliminates the unnecessary differences, using the + same approach for tput's + init (initialization), reset and clear + operations as the separate + reset and + clear programs. Doing this does not change the + command-line options; existing scripts are unaffected.
+ +These are the user-visible changes for the three programs + (tput, tset and clear):
several files in ncurses- and progs-directories were
- modified to allow const data used in internal
- tables to be put by the linker into the readonly text
- segment.
add the terminal-mode parts of “reset” (aka tset) to the “tput
+ reset” command, making the two almost the same
+ except for window-size.
various improvements were made to building the Ada95
- binding, both in simplifying the generated files as well as
- improving the way it uses gnatmake
improve tput's check for + being called as “init” or “reset” to + allow for transformed names.
There are also new features in the libraries:
+add “clear” as a possible link/alias to + tput.
+amend changes for tput to + reset tty modes to “sane” if the program is run + as “reset”, like tset. Likewise, ensure that tset sends either reset- or + init-strings.
+added - wgetdelay to retrieve _delay member of WINDOW if it - happens to be opaque, e.g., in the pthread configuration.
+add -x option to clear/tput
+ to make the E3 extension optional
added - A_ITALIC extension.
+add functionality of
+ “tset -w” to tput, like the
+ “-c” feature this is not optional in
+ tput.
added form library extension - O_DYNAMIC_JUSTIFY option which can be used to override - the different treatment of justification for static versus - dynamic fields .
+add options -T and -V to
+ clear command for
+ compatibility with tput.
rewrote - putwin and - getwin, making an extended version which is capable of - reading screen-dumps between the wide/normal ncurses configurations. These are text - files, except for a magic code at the beginning:
+drop long-obsolete “-n” option
+ from tset.
-+-0 string \210\210 Screen-dump (ncurses) --
modify tset's assignment to
+ TERM 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 tset from
+ termcap to terminfo. The termcap library in 4.3BSD did this
+ to avoid using the short 2-character name
several changes to mouse support include:
+remove a restriction in tput's support for termcap names which + omitted capabilities normally not shown in termcap + translations
+add usage message to clear + command
+improve usage messages for tset and tput.
+Other user-visible improvements and new features include:
+ +modify tic/infocmp display of numeric values to use + hexadecimal when they are "close" to a power of two, making + the result more readable.
+add “-W” option to tic/infocmp
+ to force long strings to wrap.
This is in addition to the
+ “-w” option which attempts to
+ fit capabilities into a given line-length.
%u” format to terminfo.If “-f” option splits line,
+ do not further split it with
+ “-W”.
Begin a new line when adding
+ “use=” after a wrapped line.
There are a few new configure options dealing with library - customization:
+add “-q” option to infocmp to suppress the
+ “Reconstructed from” comment from
+ the header, and a corresponding option to tic to suppress all comments from the
+ “tic -I” output.
add “--enable-ext-putwin”
- configure option to turn on the extended putwin/getwin. By
- default, this is enabled for ABI 6 and disabled with ABI
- 5.
Sorted options in usage message for infocmp, to make it simpler to see unused + letters.
add “--enable-string-hacks”
- option to control whether strlcat and strlcpy may be used.
- Because ncurses already does the
- requisite buffer-limit checks, this feature is mainly of
- interest to quiet compiler-warnings on a few systems.
Updated usage message for tic, adding “-0”
+ option.
add configure option
- “--with-tparm-arg” to allow
- tparm's parameters to be something more likely to be the
- same size as a pointer, e.g., intptr_t (again,
- the default is set for ABI 6).
add infocmp/tic “-Q” option,
+ which allows one to dump the compiled form of the terminal
+ entry, in hexadecimal or base64:
b64:” prefix in the
+ TERMINFO variable tells the terminfo reader to
+ use base64 according to RFC-3548 as well as RFC-4648
+ url/filename-safe format.hex:” prefix tells the
+ terminfo reader to accept hexadecimal data as generated by
+ “infocmp -0qQ1”.Most of the termcap-related changes based on development of
- tctest
- (termcap library checker) are implemented in the tic and
- infocmp programs rather than affecting the library. As noted in
- the
- discussion of tctest, ncurses's ability to translate between terminfo
- and termcap formats has been improved at different times, but
- subject to feedback from "real" termcap users. There are very few
- of those. Nowadays, virtually all termcap users are
- using ncurses (or NetBSD, with its
- own terminfo library) and their programs are actually using
- terminfo rather than termcap data.
Still, there are a few. A comment about the translation of the
- ASCII NUL character prompted a review:
Other less-visible improvements and new features include:
Both terminfo and termcap store string capabilities as
- NUL-terminated strings.
modify utility headers such as tic.h to make
+ it clearer which are externals that are used by tack.
In terminfo, a \0 in a terminal description
- is stored as \200.
add “reset” to list of programs
+ whose names might change in manpages due to
+ program-transformation configure options.
There are no (known) terminals which would behave
- differently when sent \0 or
- \200.
modify “-T” option of
+ clear and tput to call use_tioctl to
+ obtain the operating system's notion of the screensize if
+ possible.
When translating to terminfo format (or displaying a
- printable version of an entry using infocmp), ncurses shows \200 as
- \0.
add check in tput for + init/reset operands to ensure those use a terminal.
It has done this since 1998 (quoting from the NEWS - file):
- --+-980103 -... - + modify _nc_tic_expand() to generate \0 rather than \200. -... - + correct translation of terminfo "^@", to \200, like \0. --
modify programs clear, + tabs, tput and tset to pass the actual tty file + descriptor to setupterm rather than the standard output or + error, making padding work.
However, the _nc_tic_expand function (which
- optionally produces terminfo or termcap format) did not
- address this special case for termcap. Even the later 4.4BSD
-
- cgetstr interprets a \0 literally, ending
- that string (rather than using the terminfo
- improvement).
change tset's
+ initialization to allow it to get settings from the standard
+ input as well as /dev/tty, to be more effective
+ when output or error are redirected.
As a result of the review, several improvements were made to - ncurses translation to/from termcap - format — and improving the checks made in tic for - consistency of entries. Most of these are not of general - interest, except for two new command-line options for tic and - infocmp:
- -the “-0” option generates
- termcap/terminfo source on a single line.
amend check in tput,
+ tabs and clear to allow those to use the
+ database-only features in cron
+ if a “-T” option gives a suitable
+ terminal name.
the “-K” option provides stricter
- BSD-compatibility for termcap output.
improve error message from tset/reset + when both stderr/stdout are redirected to a file or pipe.
Other user-visible improvements and new features include:
+Several of the less apparent features deal with translation of + terminfo to termcap (and the reverse), with corresponding checks + by tic:
added “-D” option to tic and
- infocmp, to show the database locations that it could
- use.
modify check in fmt_entry to handle a
+ cancelled reset string. Make similar fixes in other parts of
+ dump_entry.c and tput.c
added “-s” option to toe, to sort
- its output.
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.
extended “-c” and
- “-n” options of infocmp to allow
- comparing more than two entries.
modify infocmp to suppress
+ mixture of absent/cancelled capabilities that would only show
+ as “NULL, NULL”, unless the
+ “-q” option is used, e.g., to show
+ “-, @” or “@,
+ -”.
modified toe's report when “-a”
- and “-s” options are combined, to
- add a column showing which entries belong to a given
- database.
correct a warning from tic + about keys which are the same, to skip over missing/cancelled + values.
modified the clear program to take into account the
- “E3” extended capability to clear
- the terminal's scrollback buffer.
add check in tic for use of
+ bold, etc., video attributes in the color capabilities,
+ accounting whether the feature is listed in
+ ncv.
add check in tic for
+ unnecessary use of “2” to denote a
+ shifted special key.
Along with the library and utilities, many improvements were - made to the ncurses-examples. - Some were made to allow building (and comparison-testing) against - NetBSD curses and PDCurses. Both lack some of the X/Open Curses - features, necessitating customization. But this activity was - useful because it showed some remaining performance issues (which - have been resolved in this release).
+improve check in tic 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.
+These changes were made to verify compatibility or compare - performance of ncurses:
+improve checks in trim_sgr0, comp_parse.c and
+ parse_entry.c, for cancelled string capabilities.
made workarounds for compiling test-programs with NetBSD - curses, though it lacks some common functions such as - - use_env.
+add check in tic for some + syntax errors of delays, as well as use of proportional + delays for non-line capabilities.
added dots_termcap test-program
+add check in tic for
+ conflict between ritm, rmso,
+ rmul versus sgr0.
added dots_curses test-program, for comparison with the - low-level examples.
+add check in _nc_parse_entry for invalid
+ entry name, setting the name to
+ “invalid” to avoid problems storing
+ entries.
added test_setupterm test-proram to demonstrate - normal/error returns from the setupterm and restartterm - functions.
+improve _nc_tparm_analyze, using that to
+ extend the checks made by tic
+ for reporting inconsistencies between the expected number of
+ parameters for a capability and the actual.
added “-d”,
- “-e” and
- “-q” options to the demo_terminfo
- and demo_termcap test-programs.
remove tic warning about
+ “^?” 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,
+ BSD termcap did not support this feature (until the
+
+ mid-1990s).
in _nc_infotocap, added a check to ensure
+ that terminfo “^?” is not written to
+ termcap.
added “-y” option to demo_termcap
- and test/demo_terminfo test-programs to demonstrate behavior
- with/without extended capabilities.
modify sscanf calls in
+ _nc_infotocap for patterns
+ “%{number}%+%c” and
+ “%'char'%+%c” to check that the
+ final character is really “c”,
+ avoiding a case in icl6404 which cannot be converted to
+ termcap.
modified demo_termcap and demo_terminfo test-programs to
- make their options more directly comparable, and add
- “-i” option to specify a terminal
- description filename to parse for names to lookup.
in _nc_tic_expand and
+ _nc_infotocap, improved string-length check when
+ deciding whether to use “^X” or
+ “\xxx” format for control
+ characters, to make the output of tic/infocmp
+ more predictable.
rewrote the tests for - mvderwin and test for recursive - mvwin in the movewindow test-program.
+limited termcap “%d” width to 2
+ digits on input, and use “%2” in
+ preference to “%02” on output.
correct terminfo/termcap conversion of
+ “%02” and
+ “%03” into
+ “%2” and
+ “%3”; the result repeated the last
+ character.
These changes were made to help with the MinGW port:
+Along with the library and utilities, many improvements were + made to the ncurses-examples.
+ +These changes were made to demonstrate new extensions in + ncurses:
added test-screens to the ncurses test-program to show - 256-characters at a time, to help with MinGW port.
+add demo_new_pair program,
+ to demonstrate
+ alloc_pair,
+ find_pair and
+ free_pair functions.
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.,
+ +++
++ + ++ + 32x64,32x128256 colors ++ + ++ + 24x44,24x8888 colors ++ ++ + 32x64,24x12816 colors +
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.
+add extended_color program, + like the older color_set + program, but using the extended color functions, with and + without the SP-functions interface.
added “-s” option to the view
- test-program to allow it to start in single-step mode,
- reducing size of trace files when it is used for debugging
- MinGW changes.
add picsmap program to fill + in some testing issues not met by dots, using this as the third example in a + comparison of the + ncurses versus slang libraries.
+ +The program can directly read X bitmap and pixmap files, + displaying a picture. It can read other image files using + ImageMagick's convert program to translate the image + into text.
+ +For 16-, 88- and 256-color terminal descriptions,
+ picsmap can load a palette
+ file which tells it which color palette entries to use. For
+ direct-colors, the terminal descriptions use the
+ RGB extension capability.
These changes were made to verify new extensions in ncurses:
+There are other new example programs and a few scripts:
added - form_driver_w entrypoint to wide-character forms library, - as well as form_driver_w test-program.
+add dots_xcurses program to + illustrate a different approach used for extended colors + which can be contrasted with dots_curses.
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.
+add list_keys program show + function keys for one or more terminal descriptions. It uses + ncurses's convention of + modifiers for special keys, based on xterm.
modified ncurses test-program, adding
- “-E” and
- “-T” options to demonstrate use_env
- versus use_tioctl.
add padview program, to + compare pads with direct updates in the view program.
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.
+add sp_tinfo program to + exercise the SP-functions extension of the low-level terminfo + library.
modified the ncurses test-program to also show position - reports in 'a' test.
+add test-programs for termattrs and
+ term_attrs functions.
These changes were made to make the examples more useful:
-added scripts for building dpkg and rpm test-packages
+add test_sgr program to + exercise all combinations of the sgr capability.
modified the hanoi test-program to show the minimum number - of moves possible for the given number of tiles.
+add tput-colorcube demo + script, imitating xterm's 88- and 256-color scripts using + tput.
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.
+add tput-initc script to + demonstrate how tput may be + used to initialize a color palette from a data file.
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.
-This release provides improvements to tic's
- “-c” checking option, which was used for
- example to
The ncurses program is the + largest; a proportionately large number of changes were made to + it:
make sgr in several entries agree with other
- caps.
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.
+ +add “t” toggle for
+ notimeout function.
correct padding in some entries where earlier versions had - miscounted the number of octal digits.
+modify layout of b/B screens to allow for additional + annotation on the right margin; some terminals with partial + support did not display well.
There are several new terminal descriptions:
- -modify c/C screens to allow for extended color pairs.
-add z/Z zoom feature to make extended color pairs + easier to test.
-modify test-screens to take advantage of wide screens, + reducing the number of lines used for 88- and 256-colors.
+ -modify “d” edit-color screen to
+ optionally read xterm color palette directly from terminal,
+ as well as handling KEY_RESIZE and
+ screen-repainting with control/L and control/R.
add examples to “F” screen for
+ WACS_D_PLUS and WACS_T_PLUS.
improve “g” screen, correcting
+ ifdef which made the legend not reflect changes to keypad-
+ and scroll-modes. Added check for return-value of
+ putwin.
make “s” test easier to
+ understand which subtests are available
add a corresponding “S”
+ wide-character overlap test-screen.
add “v” screen to show
+ baudrate and other values.
A few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal - capabilities):
+These changes were made to the other examples:
E3, used in linux, putty and xterm-basic is
- tested in the clear
- program to erase a terminal's scrollback.
modify blue program to use + Unicode values for card-glyphs when available, as well as + improving the check for CP437 and CP850.
TS is used in the
- xterm+sl building block to help deprecate the misuse of
- tsl for xterm's title-string.
improve demo_menus program,
+ allowing mouse-click on the menu-headers to switch the active
+ menu. This requires a new extension option
+ O_MOUSE_MENU 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.
XT is used in some terminfo entries to
- improve usefulness for other applications than screen, which
- would like to pretend that xterm's title is a
- status-line.
correct logic in demo_terminfo program for
+ “-f” option
xm is used in examples
- xterm-1005 and
- xterm-1006 to illustrate a way to make mouse handling
- more general
modify ditto program to
+ allow $XTERM_PROG environment variable to
+ override "xterm" as the name of the program to run in the
+ threaded configuration.
A few terminals support italics and/or dim capabilities. In
- particular, screen does not. Documented that, and accommodated
- the terminals where this feature works with the
- A_ITALIC extension.
add several options to the “dots” + test-programs.
+modify filter program:
+ +getnstr, that
+ polls for input while updating a clock on the right margin
+ as well as responding to window size-changes.--keep-tite” option for
+ filter program as the "-a"
+ option. When set, filter
+ attempts to suppress the alternate screen.modify knight program to
+ provide the "slow" solution for small screens using
+ “R”, noting that Warnsdorf's method
+ is easily done with “a”.
modify the savescreen + program to add test patterns that exercise 88-, 256-, etc., + colors.
+add options to test_arrays, + for selecting termcap vs terminfo, etc.
+modify the view + program:
-As usual, this release
+-n” option by
+ simply reading the whole file.SIGWINCH example; just
+ use KEY_RESIZE.improves documentation by describing new features,
+improve animation in xmas
+ program by adding a time-delay in blinkit.
attempts to improve the description of features which - users have found confusing
+modify several test-programs which call
+ use_default_colors to consistently do this only
+ if the “-d” option is given.
fills in overlooked descriptions of features which were - described in the NEWS file - but treated sketchily in manual pages.
+modify the install-rule for ncurses-examples to put the
+ data files in the data directory, e.g.,
+ /usr/share/ncurses-examples.
In addition, the mechanism for producing HTML versions of the - documentation has been improved:
+modify several test programs to use new
+ popup_msgs function, adapted from the
+ help-screen used in the edit_field program.
use an improved version of man2html - to generate html manpages.
+modify test data for xterm palettes to use the newer + color4/color12 values.
regenerated - NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html to fix some of the broken - html emitted by docbook.
+improve the tracemunch + script:
+ +add_wch,
+ color_content and pair_content to
+ dummy parameters.There are several new terminal descriptions:
+ +++ ++ +
dumb-emacs-ansi,dvtm, +dvtm-256color,fbterm, +iterm2,linux-m1minitel + entries,putty-noapp,viewdata, + andvt100+4bsdbuilding-block.+ +
xterm+noalt,xterm+titlestack, +xterm+alt1049,xterm+alt+title+ building blocks andxterm+direct, +xterm+indirect,xterm-direct. from + xterm + patch #331.several other “
+-direct” + descriptions to address the differences of other terminal + emulators versusxterm-direct.
There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some + were updates to several descriptions:
Ada95 binding:
+xterm+sm+1006 in several terminal
+ descriptions which were validated as supporting the extended
+ mouse feature for their respective terminal emulators.while others affected specific descriptions. These were + retested, to take into account new/undocumented changes by their + developers:
+ +++ ++
iterm,minitel,st, +viewdata,nsterm
while these are specific fixes based on user reports, or + warnings from tic:
+ +ansi building blocksmodify makefile rules to ensure that the PIC option is - not used when building a static library
-ansi+idc to better match original
+ ansiterm+idc, add alias
+ ansitermmake Ada95 build-fix for big-endian architectures such
- as sparc. This undoes one of the fixes from
- 20110319, which added an
- “Unused” member to
- representation clauses, replacing that with pragmas to
- suppress warnings about unused bits.
icl6402icl6402 and
+ m2-namColor and attributes:
+interixparenthesize parameter of COLOR_PAIR and
- PAIR_NUMBER in curses.h in case it happens
- to be a comma-expression.
improve
- 20021221 workaround for broken acs, handling a case
- where that ACS_xxx character is not in the
- acsc string but there is a known
- wide-character which can be used.
^? for kdch1modify - init_pair to accept -1's for color value after - - assume_default_colors has been called.
-linuxadd a check in - start_color to limit color-pairs to 256 when extended - colors are not supported.
-linux3.0 entry the default
+ linux entrylinux2.6 entry to improve
+ line-drawing so that the linux3.0 entry can be
+ used in non-UTF-8 modelinux
+ and wyse entries to put the delay between the
+ reverse/normal escapes rather than afterlinux-16color to not mask dim,
+ standout or reverse with the ncv capabilityResizing the screen:
+pccon entriespropagate error-returns from wresize, i.e., the - internal increase_size and decrease_size functions - through - resize_term.
-pccon* entriesadd check for zero/negative dimensions for
- resizeterm and resize_term.
pccon+sgr+acs and
+ pccon-basemodify resizeterm to always push a
- KEY_RESIZE onto the fifo, even if screensize
- is unchanged. Modify library to push a
- KEY_RESIZE if there was a SIGWINCH, even if
- it does not call resizeterm). These changes
- eliminate the case where a SIGWINCH is received, but ERR
- is returned from wgetch or
- wgetnstr because the screen dimensions did
- not change.
pccon+keysLow-level interfaces
+tmuxfix an old bug in the termcap emulation;
- “%i” was ignored in
- tparm because the parameters to be
- incremented were already on the internal stack.
screen's "standout" code rather than the
+ standard code.change “%l” behavior in tparm
- to push the string length onto the stack rather than
- saving the formatted length into the output buffer.
xterm-keys
+ option to reflect upcoming change to make that option
+ "on" by defaultmodify name-comparison for tgetstr, etc., to - accommodate legacy applications as well as to improve - compatbility with BSD 4.2 termcap implementations (see - note for 980725).
-vt100modify internal recursion in wgetch which
- handles cooked mode to check if the call to
- wgetnstr returned an error. This can happen
- when both nocbreak and nodelay
- are set, for instance (see note for 960418).
vt100 rs2 string to reset
+ vt52 mode and scrolling regionsadd a check in internal function
- waddch_nosync to ensure that tab characters
- are treated as control characters; some broken locales
- claim they are printable.
vt100-nammodify menu library to ensure that a menu's top-row is - adjusted as needed to ensure that the current item is on - the screen
-vt100+4bsd, e.g.,
+ delay in sgr for consistencyfix special case where double-width character - overwrites a single- width character in the first - column.
-vtevte-2014 to
+ vte-2012xtermxterm-new, available
+ since
+ late 1996.xterm+256color and
+ xterm+256setaf to use correct number of color
+ pairs.xterm-16color,
+ xterm-88color and xterm-256color
+ to reset palette using oc string as in
+ linux entry.xterm-256colorxterm+256color, allowing palette reset for
+ xtermxterm+256setafxterm-r5, xterm-r6 and
+ xterm-xf86-v32 to use xterm+kbs
+ to match
+ xterm #272, reflecting packager's changesxterm-new, to reflect vt220-style responses
+ that could be returned.xterm-pcolor sgr consistent
+ with other capabilitiesA few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal + capabilities):
+ +tmux and xterm-basicAs usual, this release
+ +improves documentation by describing new features,
+attempts to improve the description of features which + users have found confusing
+fills in overlooked descriptions of features which were + described in the NEWS + file but treated sketchily in manual pages.
In particular,
-Since the underlying features for + tset, + tput, and + clear have been better + integrated, the documentation now includes information on how + those tools evolved.
-The ncurses 6.0 configure script
- makes changes to the default value of several configure
- options, depending on the --with-abi-version option
- (i.e., whether its value is “5” or
- “6”):
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.
+--enable-constThe addch manual page has additional
+ information on
+ portability and differences from other
+ implementations.
Feature introduced in 970405
- supports the use of const where X/Open Curses
- should have, but did not. NetBSD curses does something
- similar with const.
The discussion of color-pairs in the attributes + manual page is improved in its + history section.
+--enable-ext-colorsThe documentation of the chtype,
+ cchar_t types and the attribute values which can
+ be stored in those types, in particular the
+ history and
+ portability sections of the attributes manual
+ page, has been improved.
Extends the cchar_t structure to allow more
- than 16 colors to be encoded. This applies only to the
- wide-character (--enable-widec)
- configuration.
improve discussion of + portability in the mouse manual.
+--enable-ext-mouseThe pad manual page has a section on the + origin and portability of pads.
+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.
-Differences between SVr4 and X/Open Curses soft-keys are + discussed in a new section on + portability.
+--enable-ext-putwinThere are updated/improved notes on portability in the + + resizeterm and + wresize manual pages.
+Modifies the file-format written by putwin to
- use printable text rather than binary files, allowing
- getwin to read screen dumps written by
- differently-configured ncurses libraries. The extended
- getwin can still read binary screen dumps from
- the same configuration of ncurses. This does not
- change the ABI (the binary interface seen by calling
- applications).
In addition to providing background information to explain + these features and show how they evolved, there are corrections, + clarifications, etc.:
---enable-interopadd note in the + addch manual about line-drawing when it depends + upon UTF-8.
+Modifies the FIELDTYPE structure used for the
- form library to make it more generic.
improve discussion of line-drawing characters in the + + add_wch manual.
+--enable-lp64explain in + clear's manual page that + it writes to the standard output.
+Allows an application to define _LP64 to
- declare chtype and mmask_t as
- simply “unsigned” rather than the
- configured types using the --with-chtype and
- --with-mmask_t options.
improve description of + endwin.
+--enable-sp-funcsimprove discussion of field validation in the + form driver manual page.
+Compile-in support for extended functions which accept a - SCREEN pointer, reducing the need for juggling the global SP - value with - set_term and - delscreen.
-clarify the use of wint_t vs
+ wchar_t in
+ get_wstr manual page.
--with-chtype=uint32_tclarify in the
+ getch manual that the keypad mode affects an
+ application's ability to read KEY_MOUSE codes,
+ but does not affect KEY_RESIZE.
Makes chtype explicitly a 32-bit unsigned
- value.
trim some obsolete/incorrect wording about
+ EINTR from the getch manual page
--with-mmask_t=uint32_timprove manual pages for
+ getch and
+ get_wch to point out that they might return
+ user-defined values which have no predefined names in
+ <curses.h>
Makes mmask_t explicitly a 32-bit unsigned
- value.
improve description of the -R option in the
+
+ infocmp manual page
--with-tparm-arg=intptr_tclarify in the
+ resizeterm manual page how
+ KEY_RESIZE is pushed onto the input stream.
X/Open Curses declares
- tparm using long for each of the parameters
- aside from the formatting string, presuming that
- long and char* are the same size.
- This configure option uses intptr_t which
- provides a better guarantee of the sizes.
document return value of
+ use_extended_names
The configure script no longer checks for antique compilers;
- c89 is assumed as a minimum. There are a few
- features from later revisions which are used when available. The
- configure script makes checks to turn on useful warnings from
- clang, gcc and icc. You should be able to build ncurses 6.0 with any of the current (or not so
- current) C compilers available in 2015.
The configure script, by the way, makes changes which do not
- work with systems whose /bin/sh is non-POSIX. This
- mainly affects Solaris (the other vendor unix systems have followed the POSIX guidelines
- for the past twenty years). If you must build on Solaris, its
- xpg4
- binaries suffice, e.g.,
- - -+- #!/bin/sh
-
- WHAT=`hostname|sed -e 's/\..*//'`
- - OUT=configure.out
- cat >>$OUT <<EOF/
- ** `date`
- ** node: $WHAT
- ** user: `id`
- ** conf: $*
- EOF/
-
- SHELL=/bin/sh
- if test -f /usr/xpg4/bin/sh
- - then
- CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/xpg4/bin/sh
- export CONFIG_SHELL
- - SHELL=$CONFIG_SHELL
- fi
-
- rm -f config.status config.cache
- TOP=$HOME/$WHAT
- $SHELL ./configure --verbose \
- - --disable-echo \
- - --disable-overwrite \
- - --enable-warnings \
- - --with-warnings \
- - --prefix=$TOP $* 2>&1 | tee -a $OUT
- -
document differences in
+ ESCDELAY versus AIX's implementation in the
+ variables manual page.
Other major changes to the configure script include:
+The _nc_free_tinfo function is now documented
+ in the
+ memory-leaks manual page, because it could be
+ used in tack for memory-leak
+ checking.
ABI 6 is now the default, intending that the existing ABI
- 5 should build as before using the
- “--with-abi-version=5” option.
add a note to the + tic manual page about -W versus -f options.
added --with-extra-suffix option to help with
- installing nonconflicting ncurses6 packages, e.g., avoiding
- header- and library-conflicts.
improve terminfo manual description of + terminfo syntax.
-NOTE: as a side-effect, this renames
+improve terminfo manual page discussion of + control- and graphics- characters.
--+-
adacurses-configto -adacurses5-configand
-adacursesw-configto -adacursesw5-config
improve + color-handling section in terminfo manual page
+clarify description in + tput manual page regarding + support for termcap names
+ +update + tput manual page to + reflect changes to manipulate terminal modes by sharing + functions with tset.
+clarify in manual pages that the optional verbose option + level of + tic and + infocmp is available only + when ncurses is configured for + tracing.
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.
+improve manual page description of tset/reset + versus window-size.
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.
+improve description of + tgoto parameters
There are new manual pages:
-There are several new (or extended) configure options:
+--disable-db-install+ scr_dump documents the screen-dump format.
+Do not install the terminal database. This is used to omit
- features for packages, as done with
- --without-progs. The option simplifies building
- cross-compile support packages.
Some of the improvements are more subtle, relating to the way + the information is presented:
---disable-gnat-projectsMade minor fixes to manpage NAME/SYNOPSIS + sections to consistently use rule that either all functions + which are prototyped in SYNOPSIS are listed in the + NAME section, or the manual-page name is the sole + item listed in the NAME 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 + SP-funcs and + threading.
+This option is used for regression testing
-improve manual pages for utilities with respect to POSIX + versus X/Open Curses.
+--disable-lib-suffixesimprove organization of the + attributes and color manual + pages.
+Suppress the “w”, “t” or
- “tw” suffixes which normally would be added to
- the library names for the --enable-widec and
- --with-pthread options.
--with-cxx-sharedmodify toe to not exit if + unable to read a terminal description, e.g., if there is a + permission problem.
+When --with-shared is set, build libncurses++
- as a shared library. This implicitly relies upon building
- with gcc/g++, since other compiler suites may have
- differences in the way shared libraries are built. libtool by
- the way has similar limitations.
correct 20100515 change for weak signals versus + sigprocmask
+--with-hashed-dbgprconfig to specify the C compiler to be
+ used by gnatmake, and conditionally suppressing
+ Library_Options line for static libraries.Extended this configure option to simplify building with - different versions of Berkeley database using FreeBSD - ports.
-There were, as well, several bug-fixes to handle illegal + input for tic. Because those + did not correspond to useful terminal descriptions, most + users are unaffected.
+--with-pc-suffixIf ".pc" files are installed, optionally add a suffix to - the files and corresponding package names to separate unusual - configurations. If no option value is given (or if it is - "none"), no suffix is added. This option is used in the test - package for ncurses6.
---with-xterm-kbsThis release provides a new binary format for terminal + descriptions that use extended numeric capabilities. Applications + built with the wide-character ncursesw library can use + these extended numbers.
-Configure xterm's terminfo entries to use either BS
- (^H, i.e., ASCII backspace) or DEL
- (^?, or 127).
This includes utilities such as tic and infocmp, because (as noted in New features), the feature + relies upon an extension to the low-level tinfo + library.
+A few software packagers use a configuration option of + ncurses which allows the + low-level tinfo library to be shared between the + high-level ncurses and ncursesw libraries. + This new feature was designed to work in that configuration + as well.
+Other applications (i.e., using the 8-bit ncurses + library) which read the extended terminal descriptions see those + numeric capabilities set to the maximum value for a signed 16-bit + number.
-Older versions of ncurses' + tic 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 + picsmap) give zero for these + out-of-range capabilities.
-Most of the portability-related work since - ncurses 5.9 extended and improved the MinGW port - introduced in - ncurses 5.8.
+The MinGW port can be readily cross-compiled:
+These changes provide support for tack 1.08, released in + July 2017:
modified configure script to allow creating dll's for - MinGW when cross-compiling.
+add --without-tack configure option to refine
+ --with-progs configure option. Normally
+ tack is built outside the
+ ncurses tree, but a few
+ packagers combine it during the build. If
+ term_entry.h is installed, there is no advantage
+ to in-tree builds.
enforced Windows-style path-separator if - cross-compiling,
+adjust configure-script to define
+ HAVE_CURSES_DATA_BOOLNAMES symbol needed for
+ tack 1.08 when built in-tree.
+ Rather than relying upon internal "_nc_" functions,
+ tack now uses the boolean,
+ number and string capability name-arrays provided by
+ ncurses and SVr4 Unix curses.
+ It still uses term_entry.h for the definitions
+ of the extended capability arrays.
added scripts for test-builds of cross-compiled packages - for ncurses6 to MinGW.
+add dependency upon ncurses_cfg.h to tic's header-files; any program using + tic-library will have to + supply this file. Legacy tack + versions supply this file; ongoing tack development has dropped the + dependency upon tic-library + and new releases will not be affected.
Other changes to the configure-script and generated files + include
+added pc-files to the MinGW cross-compiling - test-packages.
+add configure options to disable checks for form, menu and + panel libraries so that ncurses-examples can be built with + non-SVr4 curses implementations.
added script for building test-packages of binaries - cross-compiled to MinGW using NSIS.
+add configure option --enable-opaque-curses
+ for ncurses library and similar options for the
+ other libraries.
added nc_mingw.h to installed headers for
- MinGW port; this is needed for cross-compiling ncurses-examples.
add configure option --disable-wattr-macros
+ for use in cases where one wants to use the same headers for
+ ncurses5/ncurses6 development, by suppressing the
+ wattr* macros which differ due to the introduction
+ of extended colors
added test-packages for cross-compiling ncurses-examples - using the MinGW test-packages.
+modify configure macro for shared-library rules to use
+ -Wl,-rpath rather than -rpath to
+ work around a bug in scons
The MinGW-specific Windows driver accounts for several - changes:
- -wide-character display is made usable by replacing MinGW's
- non-working wcrtomb and wctomb
- functions.
improve ncurses-examples' configure script to define as
+ needed NCURSES_WIDECHAR for platforms where
+ _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED does not work. Also
+ modified the test program to ensure that if building with
+ ncurses, that the
+ cchar_t type is checked, since that is normally
+ (since 20111030)
+ ifdef'd depending on this test.
implemented some display features: beep, - flash, - - curs_set.
+modify configure script to handle the case where
+ tic-library is renamed, but
+ the --with-debug option is used by itself
+ without normal or shared libraries
the driver handles repainting on endwin/refresh - combination.
+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.
modified treatment of TERM variable for MinGW
- port to allow explicit use of the Windows console driver by
- checking if $TERM is set to
- “#win32console” or an abbreviation
- of that.
improve configure check for setting the
+ WILDCARD_SYMS variable; on ppc64 the variable is
+ in the Data section rather than
+ Text.
the Windows driver also matches the special
- TERM value “unknown”
correct result of configure option
+ --without-fallbacks, which caused FALLBACK_LIST
+ to be set to "no"
the driver now returns characters for special keys, (like
- ansi.sys does), when keypad mode is off, rather
- than returning nothing at all.
modify --with-pkg-config-libdir option to
+ make it possible to install “.pc” files even if
+ pkg-config is not found. Limit
+ this change, to suppress the actual install if it is not
+ overridden to a valid directory at install time.
the driver checks a new environment variable
- NCURSES_CONSOLE2 to optionally work around a deficiency
- in Console2 (and its descendent
- ConsoleZ) which hang when an application creates
- a console buffer.
disallow “no” as a possible value for
+ --with-shlib-version option, overlooked in
+ cleanup-changes for 20000708.
Finally, there are other improvements:
+Many of the portability changes are implemented via the + configure script:
MinGW is one of the configurations where ncurses installs by default into /usr
+improve configure script's CF_CC_ENV_FLAGS
+ macro to allow for compiler wrappers such as ccache. This change moves only the
+ preprocessor, optimization and warning flags to
+ CPPFLAGS and CFLAGS, leaving the
+ residue in CC. That happens to work for
+ gcc's various
+ “model” options, but may require tuning for other
+ compilers.
extend Windows support to work with MSYS2;
- -this works with a scenario where there is an
- ANSI-escape handler such as ansicon running
- in the console window.
isatty calls with a macro, provide a
- corresponding set of support routines to address
- differences between MinGW and MSYS2.modify ncurses-examples' configure script to use + pkg-config for the extra + form/menu/panel libraries, to be more consistent with the + handling of the curses/ncurses library.
ensure WINVER is defined in makefiles rather
- than using headers.
add configuration checks to build with NetBSD
+ curses, which for example lacks
+ use_env.
add check for the gnatprep
- “-T” option.
change ncurses-examples to use attr_t vs
+ chtype to follow X/Open documentation more
+ closely since Solaris xpg4-curses uses different values for
+ WA_xxx vs A_xxx
+ that rely on attr_t being an unsigned short. Tru64 aka OSF1,
+ HPUX, AIX did as ncurses does,
+ equating the two sets.
work around a bug introduced by - gcc 4.8.1 in MinGW which breaks "trace" feature.
+modify several test programs to reflect that ncurses honors existing signal handlers in + initscr, while other implementations do not.
add a driver-name method to each of the drivers.
+add configure check for openpty to
+ ncurses-examples' configure script, for ditto.
These changes affect certain platforms (ports):
+improve check for working poll function by
+ using posix_openpt as a fallback in case there
+ is no valid terminal on the standard input
the configure script knows how to build shared libraries - with DragonFlyBSD and Interix.
+modify ncurses-examples' configure script to check for + pthread dependency of + ncursest or ncursestw library when building + the ncurses examples, e.g., in + case weak symbols are used.
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:
+add checks in ncurses-examples' configure script for some + functions neither in 4.3BSD curses, nor based on X/Open + Curses:
the shared-library suffix for AIX 5 and 6 is now - ".so"
+modify a loop limit in firework.c to work around + absense of limit checks in some libraries.
the -brtl option is used with AIX 5-7; it
- is needed to link with the shared libraries.
fill the last row of a window with
+ “?” in firstlast if waddch does
+ not return ERR on the lower-right
+ corner.
the configure --enable-pc-files option takes
- into account the PKG_CONFIG_PATH
- variable.
build-fixes for the Portland Group (PGI) compilers
-the configure option --with-pkg-config-libdir
- provides control over the actual directory into which
- pc-files are installed.
accept whitespace in sed expression for generating + expanded.c
+the build scripts add explicit -ltinfo, etc., to the
- generated ".pc" file when ld option
- “--as-needed” is used, or when
- ncurses and tinfo are installed without using rpath.
modify configure check that g++ compiler warnings are + not used.
+add configure check for -fPIC option needed for shared + libraries.
+the configure script disallows conflicting options
- “--with-termlib” and
- “--enable-term-driver”.
modify configure script for clang as used on FreeBSD, to + work around clang's differences in exit codes vs gcc.
the check for missing c++ compiler to work when no error - is reported, and no variables set is improved (see note for - 20021206).
+fixes for configure/build using clang on OSX
+ +do not redefine “inline” in
+ ncurses_cfg.h; this was originally to solve
+ a problem with gcc/g++, but is aggravated by clang's
+ misuse of symbols to pretend it is gcc.
add braces to configure script to prevent unwanted
+ addition of “-lstdc++” option to
+ the CXXLIBS symbol.
improve/update test-program used for checking + existence of stdc++ library.
+if $CXXLIBS is set, the linkage test uses
+ that in addition to $LIBS.
the misc/gen_edit.sh script selects a "linux" entry which - works with the current kernel rather than assuming it is - always "linux3.0"
+fixes for OS/2:
+ +use button instead of kbuf[0] in
+ EMX-specific part of lib_mouse.c
support building with libtool on OS/2
+use stdc++ library with OS/2 kLIBC
+clear configure script's cf_XOPEN_SOURCE
+ for OS/2, to work with its header files
the test/configure script makes it simpler to override - names of curses-related libraries, to help with linking with - pdcurses in MinGW environment.
+add “newer” baudrate symbols to the
+ baudrate function in the ncurses library as
+ well as to a corresponding table in tset.
the configure-script/ifdef's allow the BSD OLD_TTY feature
- to be suppressed if the type of ospeed is
- configured using the option --with-ospeed to not
- be a short. By default, it is a
- short for termcap-compatibility.
modify ncurses-examples savescreen to work with AIX and HPUX.
the MKlib_gen.sh script works around a recent change in
- gcc 5 (released mid-2015) which essentially
- emits multiple #line statements for the same
- position in a file.
define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN for MinGW port,
+ making builds faster.
the configure script works with Minix3.2 (see note - on portability)
+add a configure check for wcwidth versus the + ncurses 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.
OS/2 redux:
+string-hacks (non-standard):
the configure script supports OS/2 kLIBC.
+fix configure script to record when
+ strlcat is found on OpenBSD.
add --enable-string-hacks option to
+ ncurses-examples' configure script.
the --with-lib-prefix option allows
- configuring for old/new flavors of OS/2 EMX.
completed string-hacks for sprintf, etc., + including the ncurses-examples programs.
+make --enable-string-hacks option work
+ with Debian by checking for the "bsd" library and its
+ associated "<bsd/string.h>" header.
improved configure-script checks for
- _XOPEN_SOURCE:
workaround for Debian's antique/unmaintained version of + mawk:
the definition works starting with Solaris 10.
+see Debian #65617, which was fixed in mawk's upstream releases in + 2009.
the definition is suppressed for IRIX64, since its
- header files have a conflict versus
- _SGI_SOURCE.
related fixes when building link_test.
The ncurses package is fully +
The ncurses package is fully upward-compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:
ncurses supports all of the +
ncurses 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.
ncurses provides these SVr4 +
ncurses provides these SVr4 add-on libraries (not part of X/Open Curses):
ncurses's terminal database is - fully compatible with that used by SVr4 curses.
+ncurses's terminal database + is fully compatible with that used by SVr4 curses.
ncurses supports + user-defined capabilities which it can see, but which are + hidden from SVr4 curses applications using the + same terminal database.
+It can be optionally configured to match the format @@ -1880,23 +2401,23 @@ fflush(stdout);
Alternatively, ncurses can - be configured to use hashed databases rather than the +
Alternatively, ncurses + can be configured to use hashed databases rather than the directory of files used by SVr4 curses.
The ncurses utilities have +
The ncurses utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo entries for use with less capable curses/terminfo versions such as the HP/UX and AIX ports.
The ncurses package also has many - useful extensions over SVr4:
+The ncurses package also has + many useful extensions over SVr4:
Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses +
Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character capability.
The functions keyok and
define_key allow you to better control the use
- of function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, or by defining more than
- one control sequence to map to a given key code.
The tic/captoinfo - utility provided with ncurses has - the ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM - and AT&T extension sets.
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html"> + tic/captoinfo + utility provided with ncurses + has the ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, + IBM and AT&T extension sets.A BSD-like tset - utility is provided.
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html"> + tset utility is provided.The ncurses library and +
The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read terminfo entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that directory if it exists and the user has no write access to the system @@ -2030,9 +2553,9 @@ fflush(stdout);
The table-of-entries utility toe - makes it easy for users to see exactly what terminal types - are available on the system.
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html"> + toe makes it easy for users to see exactly what + terminal types are available on the system.Extensive documentation is provided (see the + "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#additional_reading"> Additional Reading section of the - ncurses FAQ for online documentation).
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html"> + ncurses FAQ for online documentation).The ncurses distribution includes - a selection of test programs (including a few games). These are - available separately as ncurses-examples
+The ncurses distribution + includes a selection of test programs (including a few games). + These are available separately as ncurses-examples
The ncurses library has been tested with a wide variety of applications including:
--
- cdk
+- aptitude
+ +- +
+ +FrontEnd to Apt, the debian package manager
+ + +- cdk
- -
Curses Development Kit
http://invisible-island.net/cdk/
+ "https://invisible-island.net/cdk/">https://invisible-island.net/cdk/
- ded
+- ded
- -
directory-editor
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ded/">https://invisible-island.net/ded/- dialog
+- dialog
- -
the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, @@ -2091,56 +2623,57 @@ fflush(stdout); many systems.
+ "https://invisible-island.net/dialog/">https://invisible-island.net/dialog/- lynx
+- lynx
- -
the text WWW browser
+ "https://lynx.invisible-island.net/">https://lynx.invisible-island.net/- Midnight Commander
+- mutt
- -
-file manager
+mail utility
+ "http://www.mutt.org/">http://www.mutt.org/- mutt
+- ncftp
- -
-mail utility
+file-transfer utility
+ "https://www.ncftp.com/">https://www.ncftp.com/- ncftp
+- nvi
- -
-file-transfer utility
+New vi uses ncurses.
+ "https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi">https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi
+- nvi
+- ranger
- -
-New vi uses ncurses.
+A console file manager with VI key bindings in + Python.
+ "https://ranger.github.io/">https://ranger.github.io/- tin
+- tin
- + +
newsreader, supporting color, MIME
@@ -2148,24 +2681,32 @@ fflush(stdout);- vifm
+ +- +
File manager with vi like keybindings
+ + +
as well as some that use ncurses - for the terminfo support alone:
+as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
@@ -2208,31 +2749,41 @@ fflush(stdout);-
- minicom
+- minicom
- -
terminal emulator for serial modem connections
+ "https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/- mosh
+- mosh
- -
a replacement for
@@ -2174,32 +2715,32 @@ fflush(stdout); "https://mosh.mit.edu/">https://mosh.mit.edu/ssh.- tack
+- tack
- -
terminfo action checker
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html- tmux
+- tmux
- -
terminal multiplexor
+ "https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki">https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki- vile
+- vile
vi-like-emacs may be built to use the terminfo, termcap or curses interfaces.
+ "https://invisible-island.net/vile/">https://invisible-island.net/vile/
@@ -2240,14 +2791,14 @@ fflush(stdout);-
- emacs
+- emacs
- + +
text editor
+ "https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ +- less
+ +- +
-The most commonly used pager (a program that + displays text files).
+ +- screen
+- screen
- -
terminal multiplexor
+ "https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/">https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/- vim
+- vim
text editor
+ "https://www.vim.org/">https://www.vim.org/
Zeyd Ben-Halim started ncurses +
Zeyd Ben-Halim started ncurses 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 Thomas Dickey. Thomas Dickey also acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which holds the copyright + "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html">copyright on ncurses.
Contact the current maintainers at
@@ -2271,12 +2822,15 @@ fflush(stdout);This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development and testing of this package.
-Beta versions of ncurses and +
Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made available at
ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ .
+ "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/ + and
+ https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/ .
There is an archive of the mailing list here:
@@ -2296,34 +2850,28 @@ fflush(stdout);You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not covered in the terminfo file at Library improvements
@@ -2392,23 +2938,15 @@ fflush(stdout);