ANNOUNCE revision 76726
1 2 Announcing ncurses 5.2 3 4 The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of 5 curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format, 6 supports pads and color and multiple highlights and forms characters 7 and function-key mapping, and has all the other SYSV-curses 8 enhancements over BSD curses. 9 10 In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he 11 considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and is encouraging the keepers of 12 Unix releases such as BSD/OS, freeBSD and netBSD to switch over to 13 ncurses. 14 15 The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It should port easily 16 to any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported to OS/2 17 Warp! 18 19 The distribution includes the library and support utilities, including 20 a terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), clear(1), 21 tput(1), tset(1), and a termcap conversion tool captoinfo(1). Full 22 manual pages are provided for the library and tools. 23 24 The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the GNU 25 distribution site [1]ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses. 26 It is also available at [2]ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses. 27 28 Release Notes 29 30 This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 and 31 5.1; very few applications will require recompilation, depending on 32 the platform. These are the highlights from the change-log since 33 ncurses 5.1 release. 34 35 Interface changes: 36 * change type of ospeed variable back to short to match its use in 37 legacy applications. It was altered after ncurses 4.2 to speed_t 38 to repair a type mismatch which was introduced after 1.9.4 in 39 1995. The principal users of termcap continued to use short, which 40 is not the same size. 41 NOTE: A few applications will have to be recompiled (about 1% of 42 the programs in a typical Linux distribution, 10% of the programs 43 that use ncurses). These are easy to identify with nm or strings. 44 * remove a private function _nc_can_clear_with(), which was built 45 with the configure --enable-expanded option but not used. 46 * add several private functions (prefixed with "_nc_") for tracing 47 chtype values in the debug library, and for better access and 48 buffer limit checking. 49 50 New features and improvements: 51 * rewrote tgoto() to make it better support existing termcap 52 applications which use hardcoded strings rather than obtain all of 53 their information from the termcap file. If the string does not 54 appear to be a terminfo string (i.e., does not refer to a "%p" 55 parameter, or terminfo-style padding), and termcap support is 56 configured, tgoto() will interpret it as termcap. Otherwise, as 57 before, it will use tparm(). 58 * to ensure that the tgoto() changes work properly, added checks to 59 tic which report capabilities that do not reference the expected 60 number of parameters. 61 * new configure script options: 62 + option --disable-root-environ adds runtime checks which tell 63 ncurses to disregard $TERMINFO and similar environment 64 variables if the current user is root, or running 65 setuid/setgid. 66 + option --disable-assumed-color allows you to use the pre-5.1 67 convention of default colors used for color-pair 0 to be 68 configured (see assume_default_colors()). 69 + implement configure script options that transform installed 70 program names, e.g., --program-prefix, including the manpage 71 names and cross references. 72 + option --with-database allows you to specify a different 73 terminfo source-file to install. On OS/2 EMX, the default is 74 misc/emx.src, otherwise misc/terminfo.src 75 + option --with-default-terminfo-dir allows you to specify the 76 default terminfo database directory. 77 + option --with-libtool allows you to build with libtool. 78 NOTE: libtool uses a different notation for numbering shared 79 library versions from the existing ncurses configuration. 80 + option --with-manpage-tbl causes the manpages to be 81 preprocessed by tbl(1) prior to installation, 82 + option --without-curses-h causes the installation process to 83 install curses.h as ncurses.h and make appropriate changes to 84 headers and manpages. 85 * modified configure script options: 86 + change symbol used by the --install-prefix configure option 87 from INSTALL_PREFIX to DESTDIR (the latter has become common 88 usage although the name is misleading). 89 + modify ld -rpath options (e.g., Linux, and Solaris) to use an 90 absolute pathname for the build tree's lib directory, 91 avoiding confusion with directories relative to the current 92 one with the installed programs. 93 + modified misc/run_tic.in to use tic -o, to eliminate 94 dependency on $TERMINFO variable for installs. 95 * terminfo database: 96 + updated xterm terminfo entries to match XFree86 xterm patch 97 #146. 98 + added amiga-vnc, Matrix Orbital, and QNX qansi to 99 misc/terminfo.src. 100 + added os2 entry to misc/emx.src. 101 + add S0 and E0 extensions to screen's terminfo entry since 102 otherwise the FreeBSD port makes it pass termcap equivalents 103 to tgoto, which would be misinterpreted by older versions of 104 ncurses. 105 * improvements to program usability: 106 + modify programs to use curses_version() string to report the 107 version of ncurses with which they are compiled rather than 108 the NCURSES_VERSION string. The function returns the patch 109 level in addition to the major and minor version numbers. 110 + modify tput program so it can be renamed or invoked via a 111 link as 'reset' or 'init', producing the same effect as 112 tput reset or tput init. 113 + add error checking to infocmp's -v and -m options to ensure 114 that the option value is indeed a number. 115 * improved performance: 116 + replace a lookup table in lib_vidattr.c used to decode 117 no_color_video with a logic expression which is faster. 118 119 Major bug fixes: 120 * correct manlinks.sed script introduced in ncurses 5.1 to avoid 121 using ERE "\+", which is not understood by standard versions of 122 sed. This happens to work with GNU sed, but is not portable, and 123 was the initial motivation for this release. 124 * remove "hpux10.*" case from CF_SHARED_OPTS configure script macro. 125 This differed from the "hpux*" case by using reversed symbolic 126 links, which made the 5.1 version not match the configuration of 127 5.0 shared libraries. 128 * guard against corrupt terminfo data: 129 + modify tparm() to disallow arithmetic on strings, analyze the 130 varargs list to read strings as strings and numbers as 131 numbers. 132 + modify tparm()'s internal function spop() to treat a null 133 pointer as an empty string. 134 + modify parse_format() in lib_tparm.c to ignore precision if 135 it is longer than 10000. 136 + rewrote limit checks in lib_mvcur.c using new functions 137 _nc_safe_strcat(), etc. Made other related changes to check 138 lengths used for strcat() and strcpy(). 139 * corrections to screen optimization: 140 + added special case in lib_vidattr.c to reset underline and 141 standout for devices that have no sgr0 defined. 142 + change handling of non_dest_scroll_region in tty_update.c to 143 clear text after it is shifted in rather than before shifting 144 out. Also correct row computation. 145 + modify rs2 capability in xterm-r6 and similar entries where 146 cursor save/restore bracketed the sequence for resetting 147 video attributes. The cursor restore would undo that. 148 * UTF-8 support: 149 + when checking LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment 150 variables for UTF-8 locale, ignore those which are set to an 151 empty value, as per SUSV2. 152 + encode 0xFFFD in UTF-8 with 3 bytes, not 2. 153 + modify _nc_utf8_outch() to avoid sign-extension when checking 154 for out-of-range value. 155 * other library fixes: 156 + added checks for an empty $HOME environment variable, to 157 avoid retrieving terminfo descriptions from ./.terminfo . 158 + change functions _nc_parse_entry() and postprocess_termcap() 159 to avoid using strtok(), because it is non-reentrant. 160 + initialize fds[] array to 0's in _nc_timed_wait(); apparently 161 poll() only sets the revents members of that array when there 162 is activity corresponding to the related file. 163 + add a check for null pointer in Make_Enum_Type(). 164 + fix a heap problem with the c++ binding. 165 + correct missing includes for <string.h> in several places, 166 including the C++ binding. This is not noted by gcc unless we 167 use the -fno-builtin option. 168 * several fixes for tic: 169 + add a check for empty buffers returned by fgets() in 170 comp_scan.c next_char() function, in case tic is run on a 171 non-text file (fixes a core dump). 172 + modify tic to verify that its inputs are really files, in 173 case someone tries to read a directory (or /dev/zero). 174 + correct an uninitialized parameter to open_tempfile() in 175 tic.c which made "tic -I" give an ambiguous error message 176 about tmpnam. 177 + correct logic in adjust_cancels(), which did not check both 178 alternatives when reclassifying an extended name between 179 boolean, number and string, causing an infinite loop in tic. 180 * using new checks in tic for parameter counts in capability 181 strings, found/fixed several errors both in the terminfo database 182 and in the include/Caps file. 183 + modified several terminfo capability strings, including the 184 definitions for setaf, setab, in include/Caps to indicate 185 that the entries are parameterized. This information is used 186 to tell which strings are translated when converting to 187 termcap. This fixes a problem where the generated termcap 188 would contain a spurious "%p1" for the terminfo "%p1%d". 189 + correct parameter counts in include/Caps for dclk as well as 190 some printer-specific capabilities: csnm, defc, scs, scsd, 191 smgtp, smglp. 192 * various fixes for install scripts used to support configure 193 --srcdir and --with-install-prefix. 194 * correct several mismatches between manpage filename and ".TH" 195 directives, renaming dft_fgbg.3x to default_colors.3x and 196 menu_attribs.3x to menu_attributes.3x. 197 198 Portability: 199 * configure script: 200 + newer config.guess, config.sub, including changes to support 201 OS/2 EMX. The configure script for OS/2 EMX still relies on a 202 patch since there is no (working) support for that platform 203 in the main autoconf distribution. 204 + make configure script checks on variables $GCC and $GXX 205 consistently compare against 'yes' rather than test if they 206 are nonnull, since either may be set to the corresponding 207 name of the C or C++ compiler. 208 + change configure script to use AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM rather 209 than AC_CANONICAL_HOST, which means that configure --target 210 will set a default program-prefix. 211 + modify the check for big-core to force a couple of memory 212 accesses, which may work as needed for older/less-capable 213 machines (if not, there's still the explicit configure 214 option). 215 + modify configure test for tcgetattr() to allow for old 216 implementations, e.g., on BeOS, which only defined it as a 217 macro. 218 + add configure check for filesystems (such as OS/2 EMX) which 219 do not distinguish between upper/lowercase filenames, use 220 this to fix tags rules in makefiles. 221 + add MKncurses_def.sh to generate fallback definitions for 222 ncurses_cfg.h, to quiet gcc -Wundef warnings, modified 223 ifdef's in code to consistently use "#if" rather than 224 "#ifdef". 225 + change most remaining unquoted parameters of test in 226 configure script to use quotes, for instance fixing a problem 227 in the --disable-database option. 228 + modify scripts so that "make install.data" works on OS/2 EMX. 229 + modify scripts and makefiles so the Ada95 directory builds on 230 OS/2 EMX. 231 * library: 232 + replaced case-statement in _nc_tracebits() for CSIZE with a 233 table to simplify working around implementations that define 234 random combinations of the related macros to zero. 235 + improved OS/2 mouse support by retrying as a 2-button mouse 236 if code fails to set up a 3-button mouse. 237 + added private entrypoint _nc_basename(), used to consolidate 238 related code in progs, as well as accommodating OS/2 EMX 239 pathnames. 240 + alter definition of NCURSES_CONST to make it non-empty. 241 + redefine 'TEXT' in menu.h for AMIGA, since it is reported to 242 have an (unspecified) symbol conflict. 243 * programs: 244 + modified progs/tset.c and tack/sysdep.c to build with sgttyb 245 interface if neither termio or termios is available. Tested 246 this with FreeBSD 2.1.5 (which does have termios - but the 247 sgttyb does work). 248 249 Features of Ncurses 250 251 The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) 252 curses: 253 * All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are 254 documented). 255 * Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping, 256 color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic 257 recognition of keypad and function keys. 258 * An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting a stack of 259 windows with backing store, is included. 260 * An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting a uniform but 261 flexible interface for menu programming, is included. 262 * An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting data collection 263 through on-screen forms, is included. 264 * Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1) 265 implementation are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format 266 SVr4 curses uses. 267 * The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo entries 268 for use with less capable curses/terminfo versions such as the 269 HP/UX and AIX ports. 270 271 The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4: 272 * The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN 273 curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE 274 level features, but not all EXTENDED features). Most 275 EXTENDED-level features not directly concerned with wide-character 276 support are implemented, including many function calls not 277 supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of all calls is 278 documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only). 279 * Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost 280 corner of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character 281 capability. 282 * Ada95 and C++ bindings. 283 * Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and OS/2 284 console windows. 285 * Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package. 286 * The function wresize() allows you to resize windows, preserving 287 their data. 288 * The function use_default_colors() allows you to use the terminal's 289 default colors for the default color pair, achieving the effect of 290 transparent colors. 291 * The functions keyok() and define_key() allow you to better control 292 the use of function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, 293 or by defining more than one control sequence to map to a given 294 key code. 295 * Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 xterm. 296 * Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a 297 cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's 298 or System V's. 299 * Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code 300 incorporates a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables it 301 to make optimal use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion, and 302 line-deletion for screen-line movements. This algorithm is more 303 powerful than the 4.4BSD curses quickch() routine. 304 * Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch. The 305 screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if the 306 magic- cookie unattributed spaces required just before the 307 beginning and after the end would step on a non-space character. 308 It will automatically shift highlight boundaries when doing so 309 would make it possible to draw the highlight without changing the 310 visual appearance of the screen. 311 * It is possible to generate the library with a list of pre-loaded 312 fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve those terminal 313 types even when no terminfo tree or termcap file is accessible 314 (this may be useful for support of screen-oriented programs that 315 must run in single-user mode). 316 * The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the ability 317 to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and AT&T extension 318 sets. 319 * A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided. 320 * The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read terminfo 321 entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that 322 directory if it exists and the user has no write access to the 323 system directory. This feature makes it easier for users to have 324 personal terminfo entries without giving up access to the system 325 terminfo directory. 326 * You may specify a path of directories to search for compiled 327 descriptions with the environment variable TERMINFO_DIRS (this 328 generalizes the feature provided by TERMINFO under stock System 329 V.) 330 * In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not just to 331 other entries in the same source file (as in System V) but also to 332 compiled entries in either the system terminfo directory or the 333 user's $HOME/.terminfo directory. 334 * A script (capconvert) is provided to help BSD users transition 335 from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the information in a TERMCAP 336 environment variable and/or a ~/.termcap local entries file and 337 converts it to an equivalent local terminfo tree under 338 $HOME/.terminfo. 339 * Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled in 340 when it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This feature is 341 neither fast nor cheap, you don't want to use it unless you have 342 to, but it's there. 343 * The table-of-entries utility toe makes it easy for users to see 344 exactly what terminal types are available on the system. 345 * The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro entry point 346 have a corresponding function which may be linked (and will be 347 prototype-checked) if the macro definition is disabled with 348 #undef. 349 * An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document 350 provides a narrative introduction to the curses programming 351 interface. 352 353 State of the Package 354 355 Numerous bugs present in earlier versions have been fixed; the library 356 is far more reliable than it used to be. Bounds checking in many 357 `dangerous' entry points has been improved. The code is now type-safe 358 according to gcc -Wall. The library has been checked for malloc leaks 359 and arena corruption by the Purify memory-allocation tester. 360 361 The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of applications 362 including (versions starting with those noted): 363 364 cdk 365 Curses Development Kit 366 [3]http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html 367 [4]http://dickey.his.com/cdk. 368 369 ded 370 directory-editor 371 [5]http://dickey.his.com/ded. 372 373 dialog 374 the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the 375 basis for similar applications on GNU/Linux. 376 [6]http://dickey.his.com/dialog. 377 378 lynx 379 the character-screen WWW browser 380 [7]http://lynx.isc.org/release. 381 382 Midnight Commander 4.1 383 file manager 384 [8]www.gnome.org/mc/. 385 386 mutt 387 mail utility 388 [9]http://www.mutt.org. 389 390 ncftp 391 file-transfer utility 392 [10]http://www.ncftp.com. 393 394 nvi 395 New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7 and 396 later. 397 [11]http://www.bostic.com/vi/. 398 399 tin 400 newsreader, supporting color, MIME 401 [12]http://www.tin.org. 402 403 taper 404 tape archive utility 405 [13]http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/. 406 407 vh-1.6 408 Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File 409 [14]http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html. 410 411 as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone: 412 413 minicom 414 terminal emulator 415 [15]http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html. 416 417 vile 418 vi-like-emacs 419 [16]http://dickey.his.com/vile. 420 421 The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs 422 (including a few games). 423 424Who's Who and What's What 425 426 The original developers of ncurses are [17]Zeyd Ben-Halim and [18]Eric 427 S. Raymond. Ongoing work is being done by [19]Thomas Dickey and 428 [20]J�rgen Pfeifer. [21]Thomas Dickey acts as the maintainer for the 429 Free Software Foundation, which holds the copyright on ncurses. 430 Contact the current maintainers at [22]bug-ncurses@gnu.org. 431 432 To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to 433 bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org containing the line: 434 subscribe <name>@<host.domain> 435 436 This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development 437 and testing of this package. 438 439 Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made 440 available at [23]ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses. 441 442Future Plans 443 444 * Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization 445 support. 446 * Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows. 447 448 We need people to help with these projects. If you are interested in 449 working on them, please join the ncurses list. 450 451Other Related Resources 452 453 The distribution includes and uses a version of the terminfo-format 454 terminal description file maintained by Eric Raymond. 455 [24]http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo. 456 457 You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not 458 covered in the terminfo file at [25]Richard Shuford's archive. 459 460References 461 462 1. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses 463 2. ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses 464 3. http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html 465 4. http://dickey.his.com/cdk/cdk.html 466 5. http://dickey.his.com/ded/ded.html 467 6. http://dickey.his.com/dialog/dialog.html 468 7. http://lynx.isc.org/release/ 469 8. file://localhost/usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-5.2-20001021/doc/html/www.gnome.org/mc/ 470 9. http://www.mutt.org/ 471 10. http://www.ncftp.com/ 472 11. http://www.bostic.com/vi/ 473 12. http://www.tin.org/ 474 13. http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/ 475 14. http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html 476 15. http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html 477 16. http://dickey.his.com/vile/vile.html 478 17. mailto:zmbenhal@netcom.com 479 18. http://www.ccil.org/~esr/home.html 480 19. mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com 481 20. mailto:juergen.pfeifer@gmx.net 482 21. mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com 483 22. mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org 484 23. ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses 485 24. http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo 486 25. http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html 487