The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of curses in System V - Release 4.0, 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 SYSV-curses - enhancements over BSD curses. + 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 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.
+ +Since 1995, ncurses has been + ported to many systems:
+ +The distribution includes the library and support utilities, + including
+ +Full manual pages are provided for the library and tools.
+ +The ncurses distribution is + available at ncurses' homepage:
+ +++ +ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/ + or
+
+ https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/ .
It is also available via anonymous FTP at the GNU distribution + site
+ ++ ++ +
These notes are for ncurses + @VERSION@, released January 27, 2018.
+ +This release is designed to be source-compatible with + 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:
+ +improve integration of tput + and tset
+provide support for extended numeric capabilities.
+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:
+ +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.
+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.
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.
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.
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>
When configured for 8-bit (narrow) characters, the
+ TERMTYPE2 structure is not used.
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.
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.
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.
These are new or revised features:
+ +modify c++/etip.h.in to accommodate
+ deprecation of throw and throws in c++17
add new function unfocus_current_field
add option to preserve leading whitespace in form + fields
+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.
add build-time utility report_offsets to help
+ show when the various configurations of tinfo library are
+ compatible or not.
These were done to limit or ultimately deprecate features:
+ +drop two symbols obsoleted in 2004:
+ _nc_check_termtype, and
+ _nc_resolve_uses
move _nc_tracebits, _tracedump
+ and _tracemouse to curses.priv.h,
+ since they are not part of the suggested ABI6.
mark some structs in form/menu/panel libraries as + potentially opaque without modifying API/ABI.
+ifdef'd header-file definition of mouse_trafo
+ with NCURSES_NOMACROS
remove initialization-check for calling napms
+ in the term-driver configuration; none is needed.
modify trace to avoid overwriting existing
+ file
These are improvements to existing features:
+ +modify make_hash to allow building with
+ address-sanitizer, assuming that --disable-leaks
+ is configured.
move SCREEN field for use_tioctl
+ data before the ncursesw fields, and limit that to the
+ sp-funcs configuration to improve termlib compatibility
modify db-iterator:
+ +ignore zero-length files in db-iterator; these are
+ useful for instance to suppress
+ $HOME/.terminfo when not wanted.
modify update_getenv to ensure that
+ environment variables which are not initially set will be
+ checked later if an application happens to set them
modify _nc_outc_wrapper to use the standard
+ output if the screen was not initialized, rather than
+ returning an error.
improve checks for low-level terminfo functions when the + terminal has not been initialized.
+modify set_curterm to update
+ ttytype[] data used by longname/p>
modify _nc_get_screensize to allow for
+ use_env and use_tioctl state to be
+ per-screen when sp-funcs are configured, better matching the
+ behavior when using the term-driver configuration.
remove an early-return from _nc_do_color,
+ which can interfere with data needed by bkgd
+ when ncurses is configured
+ with extended colors
incorporate A_COLOR mask into
+ COLOR_PAIR, in case user application provides an
+ out-of-range pair number
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 for mvcur,
+ e.g., in the sample program dots_mvcur for the term-driver
+ configuration.
These are corrections to existing features:
+ +fixes for writing extended color pairs in
+ putwin.
modify no-leaks code for lib_cur_term.c to
+ account for the tgetent cache.
amend handling of the repeat_char capability
+ in EmitRange to avoid scope creep: translate the
+ character to the alternate character set when the alternate
+ character set is enabled, and do not use
+ repeat_char for characters past 255.
improve wide-character implementation of
+ myADDNSTR in frm_driver.c, which
+ was inconsistent with the normal implementation.
modify winnstr and winchnstr 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.
modify setupterm to save original tty-modes
+ so that erasechar works as expected. Also modify
+ _nc_setupscreen to avoid redundant calls to get
+ original tty-modes.
modify wattr_set and wattr_get
+ to return ERR if win-parameter is null,
+ as documented.
correct order of initialization for traces in
+ use_env and use_tioctl versus first
+ _tracef calls.
correct parameters for copywin call in
+ _nc_Synchronize_Attributes
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.
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.
correct return-value of extended putwin.
double-width multibyte characters were not counted
+ properly in winsnstr and
+ wins_nwstr.
amend fix for _nc_ripoffline from 20091031 to
+ make test/ditto.c work in threaded
+ configuration.
modify _nc_viscbuf2 and
+ _tracecchar_t2 to trace wide-characters as a
+ whole rather than their multibyte equivalents.
minor fix in wadd_wchnstr to ensure that each
+ cell has nonzero width.
move PUTC_INIT calls next to
+ wcrtomb calls, to avoid carry-over of error
+ status when processing Unicode values which are not
+ mapped.
add missing assignment in lib_getch.c to make
+ notimeout work
While reviewing user feedback, it became apparent that the + differences between + reset (an alias for + tset) and “tput reset” were confusing:
+ +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):
+ +add the terminal-mode parts of “reset” (aka tset) to the “tput
+ reset” command, making the two almost the same
+ except for window-size.
improve tput's check for + being called as “init” or “reset” to + allow for transformed names.
+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.
+add -x option to clear/tput
+ to make the E3 extension optional
add functionality of
+ “tset -w” to tput, like the
+ “-c” feature this is not optional in
+ tput.
add options -T and -V to
+ clear command for
+ compatibility with tput.
drop long-obsolete “-n” option
+ from tset.
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
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.
If “-f” option splits line,
+ do not further split it with
+ “-W”.
Begin a new line when adding
+ “use=” after a wrapped line.
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.
Sorted options in usage message for infocmp, to make it simpler to see unused + letters.
+Updated usage message for tic, adding “-0”
+ option.
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”.Other less-visible improvements and new features include:
+ +modify utility headers such as tic.h to make
+ it clearer which are externals that are used by tack.
add “reset” to list of programs
+ whose names might change in manpages due to
+ program-transformation configure options.
modify “-T” option of
+ clear and tput to call use_tioctl to
+ obtain the operating system's notion of the screensize if
+ possible.
add check in tput for + init/reset operands to ensure those use a terminal.
+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.
+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.
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.
improve error message from tset/reset + when both stderr/stdout are redirected to a file or pipe.
+Several of the less apparent features deal with translation of + terminfo to termcap (and the reverse), with corresponding checks + by tic:
+ +modify check in fmt_entry to handle a
+ cancelled reset string. Make similar fixes in other parts of
+ dump_entry.c and tput.c
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.
+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 “@,
+ -”.
correct a warning from tic + about keys which are the same, to skip over missing/cancelled + values.
+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.
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.
+improve checks in trim_sgr0, comp_parse.c and
+ parse_entry.c, for cancelled string capabilities.
add check in tic for some + syntax errors of delays, as well as use of proportional + delays for non-line capabilities.
+add check in tic for
+ conflict between ritm, rmso,
+ rmul versus sgr0.
add check in _nc_parse_entry for invalid
+ entry name, setting the name to
+ “invalid” to avoid problems storing
+ entries.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Along with the library and utilities, many improvements were + made to the ncurses-examples.
+ +These changes were made to demonstrate new extensions in + ncurses:
+ +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 +
add extended_color program, + like the older color_set + program, but using the extended color functions, with and + without the SP-functions interface.
+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.
There are other new example programs and a few scripts:
+ +add dots_xcurses program to + illustrate a different approach used for extended colors + which can be contrasted with dots_curses.
+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.
+add padview program, to + compare pads with direct updates in the view program.
+add sp_tinfo program to + exercise the SP-functions extension of the low-level terminfo + library.
+add test-programs for termattrs and
+ term_attrs functions.
add test_sgr program to + exercise all combinations of the sgr capability.
+add tput-colorcube demo + script, imitating xterm's 88- and 256-color scripts using + tput.
+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.
+ +The ncurses program is the + largest; a proportionately large number of changes were made to + it:
+ +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.
modify layout of b/B screens to allow for additional + annotation on the right margin; some terminals with partial + support did not display well.
+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.
These changes were made to the other examples:
+ +modify blue program to use + Unicode values for card-glyphs when available, as well as + improving the check for CP437 and CP850.
+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.
correct logic in demo_terminfo program for
+ “-f” option
modify ditto program to
+ allow $XTERM_PROG environment variable to
+ override "xterm" as the name of the program to run in the
+ threaded configuration.
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:
+ +-n” option by
+ simply reading the whole file.SIGWINCH example; just
+ use KEY_RESIZE.improve animation in xmas
+ program by adding a time-delay in blinkit.
modify several test-programs which call
+ use_default_colors to consistently do this only
+ if the “-d” option is given.
modify the install-rule for ncurses-examples to put the
+ data files in the data directory, e.g.,
+ /usr/share/ncurses-examples.
modify several test programs to use new
+ popup_msgs function, adapted from the
+ help-screen used in the edit_field program.
modify test data for xterm palettes to use the newer + color4/color12 values.
+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:
+ +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 blocksansi+idc to better match original
+ ansiterm+idc, add alias
+ ansitermicl6402icl6402 and
+ m2-naminterix^? for kdch1linuxlinux3.0 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 capabilitypccon entriespccon* entriespccon+sgr+acs and
+ pccon-basepccon+keystmuxscreen's "standout" code rather than the
+ standard code.xterm-keys
+ option to reflect upcoming change to make that option
+ "on" by defaultvt100vt100 rs2 string to reset
+ vt52 mode and scrolling regionsvt100-namvt100+4bsd, e.g.,
+ delay in sgr for consistencyvtevte-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.
+ +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.
+The addch manual page has additional
+ information on
+ portability and differences from other
+ implementations.
The discussion of color-pairs in the attributes + manual page is improved in its + history section.
+The 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.
improve discussion of + portability in the mouse manual.
+The pad manual page has a section on the + origin and portability of pads.
+Differences between SVr4 and X/Open Curses soft-keys are + discussed in a new section on + portability.
+There are updated/improved notes on portability in the + + resizeterm and + wresize manual pages.
+In addition to providing background information to explain + these features and show how they evolved, there are corrections, + clarifications, etc.:
+ +add note in the + addch manual about line-drawing when it depends + upon UTF-8.
+improve discussion of line-drawing characters in the + + add_wch manual.
+explain in + clear's manual page that + it writes to the standard output.
+improve description of + endwin.
+improve discussion of field validation in the + form driver manual page.
+clarify the use of wint_t vs
+ wchar_t in
+ get_wstr manual page.
clarify in the
+ getch manual that the keypad mode affects an
+ application's ability to read KEY_MOUSE codes,
+ but does not affect KEY_RESIZE.
trim some obsolete/incorrect wording about
+ EINTR from the getch manual page
improve 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>
improve description of the -R option in the
+
+ infocmp manual page
clarify in the
+ resizeterm manual page how
+ KEY_RESIZE is pushed onto the input stream.
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.
+document return value of
+ use_extended_names
The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It has been in - use for some time with OpenBSD as the system curses library, and - on FreeBSD and NetBSD as an external package. It should port - easily to any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported - to OS/2 Warp!
+document differences in
+ ESCDELAY versus AIX's implementation in the
+ variables manual page.
The distribution includes the library and support utilities, - including a terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), - clear(1), tput(1), tset(1), and a termcap conversion tool - captoinfo(1). Full manual pages are provided for the library and - tools.
+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.
add a note to the + tic manual page about -W versus -f options.
+improve terminfo manual description of + terminfo syntax.
+ +improve terminfo manual page discussion of + control- and graphics- characters.
+ +improve + color-handling section in terminfo manual page
+The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the
- GNU distribution site ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
+
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.
+improve manual page description of tset/reset + versus window-size.
+This is a bug-fix release, correcting a small number of urgent - problems in the ncurses library from the 5.8 release.
+improve description of + tgoto parameters
+It also improves the Ada95 binding:
+There are new manual pages:
+ scr_dump documents the screen-dump format.
+Some of the improvements are more subtle, relating to the way + the information is presented:
-Those were a proof of concept. For the 5.9 release, those - scripts are augmented with rpm- and dpkg-scripts used in test - builds against a variety of gnat- and system ncurses versions - as old as gnat 3.15 and ncurses 5.4 (see snapshots and - systems tested here.
+Made 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.
+improve manual pages for utilities with respect to POSIX + versus X/Open Curses.
improve organization of the + attributes and color manual + pages.
+modify toe to not exit if + unable to read a terminal description, e.g., if there is a + permission problem.
+correct 20100515 change for weak signals versus + sigprocmask
+gprconfig to specify the C compiler to be
+ used by gnatmake, and conditionally suppressing
+ Library_Options line for static libraries.wresize allows you to resize
- windows, preserving their data.use_default_colors allows you to
- use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair,
- achieving the effect of transparent colors.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.
+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.--enable-ext-colors
- option.quickch
- routine.#undef.The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of - applications including (versions starting with those noted):
+This 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.
-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.
-These changes provide support for tack 1.08, released in + July 2017:
-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.
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.
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
-add configure options to disable checks for form, menu and + panel libraries so that ncurses-examples can be built with + non-SVr4 curses implementations.
+add configure option --enable-opaque-curses
+ for ncurses library and similar options for the
+ other libraries.
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
modify configure macro for shared-library rules to use
+ -Wl,-rpath rather than -rpath to
+ work around a bug in scons
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.
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
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.
+improve configure check for setting the
+ WILDCARD_SYMS variable; on ppc64 the variable is
+ in the Data section rather than
+ Text.
correct result of configure option
+ --without-fallbacks, which caused FALLBACK_LIST
+ to be set to "no"
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.
disallow “no” as a possible value for
+ --with-shlib-version option, overlooked in
+ cleanup-changes for 20000708.
Many of the portability changes are implemented via the + configure script:
-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.
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.
+add configuration checks to build with NetBSD
+ curses, which for example lacks
+ use_env.
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.
modify several test programs to reflect that ncurses honors existing signal handlers in + initscr, while other implementations do not.
+add configure check for openpty to
+ ncurses-examples' configure script, for ditto.
improve check for working poll function by
+ using posix_openpt as a fallback in case there
+ is no valid terminal on the standard input
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.
+add checks in ncurses-examples' configure script for some + functions neither in 4.3BSD curses, nor based on X/Open + Curses:
+ +modify a loop limit in firework.c to work around + absense of limit checks in some libraries.
+fill the last row of a window with
+ “?” in firstlast if waddch does
+ not return ERR on the lower-right
+ corner.
build-fixes for the Portland Group (PGI) compilers
+ +accept whitespace in sed expression for generating + expanded.c
+modify configure check that g++ compiler warnings are + not used.
+add configure check for -fPIC option needed for shared + libraries.
+modify configure script for clang as used on FreeBSD, to + work around clang's differences in exit codes vs gcc.
+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.
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
add “newer” baudrate symbols to the
+ baudrate function in the ncurses library as
+ well as to a corresponding table in tset.
modify ncurses-examples savescreen to work with AIX and HPUX.
+define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN for MinGW port,
+ making builds faster.
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.
+string-hacks (non-standard):
+ +fix configure script to record when
+ strlcat is found on OpenBSD.
add --enable-string-hacks option to
+ ncurses-examples' configure script.
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.
workaround for Debian's antique/unmaintained version of + mawk:
+ +see Debian #65617, which was fixed in mawk's upstream releases in + 2009.
+related fixes when building link_test.
+The ncurses package is fully + upward-compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:
+ +All of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are + documented).
+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 + add-on libraries (not part of X/Open Curses):
+ +the panels library, supporting a stack of windows with + backing store.
+the menus library, supporting a uniform but flexible + interface for menu programming.
+the form library, supporting data collection through + on-screen forms.
+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 + used in related systems such as AIX and Tru64.
+Alternatively, ncurses + can be configured to use hashed databases rather than the + directory of files used by SVr4 curses.
+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 API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the + X/OPEN curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it + implements all BASE level features, and most EXTENDED + features). It includes many function calls not supported + under SVr4 curses (but portability of all calls is documented + so you can use the SVr4 subset only).
+Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses + can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if + your terminal has an insert-character capability.
+Ada95 and C++ bindings.
+Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and + FreeBSD and OS/2 console windows.
+Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm + package.
+The function wresize allows you to resize
+ windows, preserving their data.
The function use_default_colors allows you to
+ use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair,
+ achieving the effect of transparent colors.
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.
Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm.
+Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm + and modern xterm.
+Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now + features a cursor-local-movement computation more efficient + than either BSD's or System V's.
+Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code
+ incorporates a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that
+ enables it to make optimal use of hardware scrolling,
+ line-insertion, and line-deletion for screen-line movements.
+ This algorithm is more powerful than the 4.4BSD curses
+ quickch routine.
Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch. + The screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight + if the magic- cookie unattributed spaces required just before + the beginning and after the end would step on a non-space + character. It will automatically shift highlight boundaries + when doing so would make it possible to draw the highlight + without changing the visual appearance of the screen.
+It is possible to generate the library with a list of + pre-loaded fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve + those terminal types even when no terminfo tree or termcap + file is accessible (this may be useful for support of + screen-oriented programs that must run in single-user + mode).
+The + tic/captoinfo + utility provided with ncurses + has the ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, + IBM and AT&T extension sets.
+A BSD-like + tset utility is provided.
+The ncurses library and + utilities will automatically read terminfo entries from + $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that directory + if it exists and the user has no write access to the system + directory. This feature makes it easier for users to have + personal terminfo entries without giving up access to the + system terminfo directory.
+You may specify a path of directories to search for + compiled descriptions with the environment variable + TERMINFO_DIRS (this generalizes the feature provided by + TERMINFO under stock System V.)
+In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not + just to other entries in the same source file (as in System + V) but also to compiled entries in either the system terminfo + directory or the user's $HOME/.terminfo directory.
+The table-of-entries utility + toe makes it easy for users to see exactly what + terminal types are available on the system.
+The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro
+ entry point have a corresponding function which may be linked
+ (and will be prototype-checked) if the macro definition is
+ disabled with #undef.
Extensive documentation is provided (see the + Additional Reading section of the + 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 library has been tested with a wide variety of + applications including:
+ +++ ++
+- aptitude
+ +- +
+ +FrontEnd to Apt, the debian package manager
+ + +- cdk
+ +- +
+ +Curses Development Kit
+ + +- ded
+ +- +
+ +directory-editor
+ + +- dialog
+ +- +
+ +the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, + and the basis for similar install/configure applications on + many systems.
+ + +- lynx
+ +- +
+ +the text WWW browser
+ + +- mutt
+ +- +
+ +mail utility
+ + +- ncftp
+ +- +
+ +file-transfer utility
+ + +- nvi
+ +- +
+ +New vi uses ncurses.
+ + +- ranger
+ +- +
-A console file manager with VI key bindings in + Python.
+ + +The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs - (including a few games).
+- tin
-Who's Who and What's What
Zeyd Ben-Halim started it from - a previous package pcurses, written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S. +- +
+ +newsreader, supporting color, MIME
+ + +- vifm
+ +- +
+File manager with vi like keybindings
+ + +
as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
+ +++ ++
+- minicom
+ +- +
+ +terminal emulator for serial modem connections
+ + +- mosh
+ +- +
+ +a replacement for
+ + +ssh.- tack
+ +- +
+ +terminfo action checker
+ + +- tmux
+ +- +
+ +terminal multiplexor
+ + +- vile
+ +- +
+vi-like-emacs may be built to use the terminfo, termcap + or curses interfaces.
+ + +
and finally, those which use only the termcap interface:
+ +++ ++
+- emacs
+ +- +
+ +text editor
+ + +- less
+ +- +
+ +The most commonly used pager (a program that + displays text files).
+ + +- screen
+ +- +
+ +terminal multiplexor
+ + +- vim
+ +- +
+text editor
+ + +
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 work is being done by + the form and menu libraries. Ongoing development work is done by Thomas Dickey. - Thomas Dickey acts as the maintainer for the Free Software - Foundation, which holds the copyright on ncurses. Contact the - current maintainers at bug-ncurses@gnu.org. + Thomas Dickey also acts as the maintainer for the Free Software + Foundation, which holds the copyright + on ncurses.
+ +Contact the current maintainers at
+ ++ bug-ncurses@gnu.org ++ +
To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
+ ++ bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org +containing the line: -
To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
- bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org containing the line:
- subscribe <name>@<host.domain> -+
++
subscribe+ <name>@<host.domain>
This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development and testing of this package.
-Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release - are made available at ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ .
+Beta versions of ncurses and + patches to the current release are made available at
+ ++ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/ + and
+
+ https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/ .
There is an archive of the mailing list here:
-http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses - (also https)
++-http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses + (also https)
+
The release notes make scattered references to these pages, + which may be interesting by themselves:
The distribution provides a newer version of the + terminfo-format terminal description file once maintained by + Eric Raymond . Unlike the older version, the termcap and - terminfo data are provided in the same file, and provides several - user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open specification. + terminfo data are provided in the same file, which also provides + several user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open + specification.
You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not covered in the terminfo file at Richard Shuford's archive .
+ +