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ANNOUNCE
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ANNOUNCE
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733
Announcing ncurses 6.5
Overview
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 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:
* It is used in almost every system based on the Linux kernel (aside
from some embedded applications).
* It is used as the system curses library on OpenBSD, FreeBSD and
MacOS.
* It is used in environments such as Cygwin and MinGW. The first of
these was EMX on OS/2 Warp.
* It is used (though usually not as the system curses) on all of the
vendor unix systems, e.g., AIX, HP-UX, IRIX64, SCO, Solaris,
Tru64.
* It should work readily on any ANSI/POSIX-conforming unix.
The distribution includes the library and support utilities, including
* captoinfo, a termcap conversion tool
* clear, utility for clearing the screen
* infocmp, the terminfo decompiler
* tabs, set tabs on a terminal
* tic, the terminfo compiler
* toe, list (table of) terminfo entries
* tput, utility for retrieving terminal capabilities in shell
scripts
* tset, to initialize the terminal
Full manual pages are provided for the library and tools.
The ncurses distribution is available at ncurses' homepage:
https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/ or
https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/ .
It is also available at the GNU distribution site
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
Release Notes
These notes are for ncurses 6.5, released April 27, 2024.
This release is designed to be source-compatible with ncurses 5.0
through 6.4; providing extensions to the application binary interface
(ABI). Although the source can still be configured to support the
ncurses 5 ABI, the reason for the release is to reflect improvements
to the ncurses 6 ABI and the supporting utility programs.
There are, of course, numerous other improvements, listed in this
announcement.
The most important bug-fixes/improvements dealt with robustness
issues. The release notes also mention some other bug-fixes, but are
focused on new features and improvements to existing features since
ncurses 6.4 release.
Library improvements
New features
These are new features:
* The low-level terminfo and termcap interfaces are used both by the
higher-level curses library, as well as by many applications.
The functions which convert parameterized terminal capability
strings for output to the terminal (tiparm and tparm) analyze the
capability string to determine which parameters are strings (i.e.,
addresses), versus numbers (not addresses).
The library's analysis of a capability string may differ from the
calling application's design if environment variables are used to
point to an invalid terminal database. This is a longstanding
problem with all implementations of terminfo, dating from the
early 1980s.
Two new functions address this problem: by providing a function
which allows the calling application to tell ncurses how many
string-parameters to expect:
+ tiscan_s helps applications check formatting capabilities
that would be passed to tiparm_s.
+ tiparm_s provides applications a way to tell ncurses what the
expected parameters are for a capability.
* The ncurses library supports a compile-time feature (enabled with
the configure --enable-check-size option) which simplifies
initialization with terminals which do not negotiate window
(screen) size. This is done in setupterm, by providing for using
ANSI cursor-position report (in user6/user7 terminfo capabilities)
to obtain the screen size if neither environment variables or
ioctl is used.
The ncurses test-program with options "-E -T" demonstrates this
feature.
* add functions to query tty-flags in SCREEN
This release drops compatibility with obsolete versions of tack, e.g.,
pre-1.08
Other improvements
These are improvements to existing features:
* In addition to the new, safer function tiparm_s, ncurses adds
checks to make the older tiparm, tparm and tgoto functions safer:
+ the terminfo functions tiparm and tparm ensure that the
capability string comes from the terminal description which
ncurses loads, rather than from random data which the
application happens to have.
+ the tgoto function disallows capabilities which its analysis
shows will attempt to use string parameters.
+ ncurses uses internal functions which correspond to tiparm,
and tgoto which ensure that the capability strings which are
passed to these functions come from the loaded terminal
description.
* improve check in lib_tparm.c, ensuring that a char* fits into a
TPARM_ARG
* modify _nc_syserr_abort to use _nc_env_access, rather than only
checking root uid
* improve thread lock in lib_trace.c
* modify flushinp to use file descriptors in SCREEN, rather than
from TERMINAL, and check if they are for a terminal, like SVr4
* modify mcprint to use file descriptor in SCREEN, for consistency
* modify internal function _nc_read_file_entry to show relevant
filename in warnings
* improve checks in internal function convert_string for corrupt
terminfo entry
* review/improve handling of out-of-memory conditions
* limit delays to 30 seconds, i.e., padding delays in terminfo, as
well as napms and delay_output functions
* fix reallocation loop for vsnprintf in _nc_sprintf_string by
copying the va_list variable
* modify delscreen to limit the windows which it creates to just
those associated with the screen
* modify endwin to return an error if it is called again without an
intervening screen update
* modify wenclose to handle pads
* eliminate use of PATH_MAX in lib_trace.c
* provide for any CCHARW_MAX greater than 1
These are corrections to existing features:
* correct loop termination condition in waddnstr and waddnwstr
* improve parsing in internal function _nc_msec_cost, allowing a
single decimal point
* amend parameter check for entire string versus specific length in
winsnstr and wins_nwstr to match Solaris; make similar correction
to wins_nwstr
* correct internal function wadd_wch_literal when adding a
non-spacing character to a double-width character
* correct definition of Charable macro for non-wide ncurses library
.
Program improvements
Several improvements were made to the utility programs. Some were done
to make the infocmp option "-u" option help refactor the terminal
database.
infocmp
+ add limit checks for processing extended capabilities with
the "-u" option
+ correct initial alignment of extended capabilities, so that
the "-u" option can be used for more than two terminal types
+ modify "-u" option to not report cancels for strings which
were already cancelled in a use'd chunk.
+ correct an assignment "-u" for detecting if a boolean is
unset in a base entry and set in a use'd chunk, i.e., if it
was cancelled.
tic
+ correct limit-check when dumping tc/use clause via "-I"
+ check return value of _nc_save_str, in special case where
extended capabilities are processed but the terminal
description was not initialized
+ modify check for multiply defined aliases to report problems
within the current runtime rather than for conflicts with
pre-existing terminal descriptions.
+ disallow using $TERMINFO or $HOME/.terminfo when "-o" option
is used
tput and tset
+ add "-v" option to tput, to show warnings
+ modify reset command to avoid altering clocal if the terminal
uses a modem
+ modify reset feature to avoid 1-second sleep if running in a
pseudo-terminal
Examples
Along with the library and utilities, improvements were made to the
ncurses-examples:
* modify test_tparm to account for extended capabilities
* corrected mouse mask in test/testcurs.c
* modify test/clip_printw.c to optionally test non-wrapped updates
* modify test/test_mouse.c to use curses api for raw/noraw
* modify test/clip_printw.c to optionally test non-wrapped updates
There is one new demo/test programs:
test/test_endwin.c
This program shows the return-status from endwin with different
combinations of endwin (repeated), initscr, newterm.
Terminal database
There are several new terminal descriptions:
* ansi+apparrows
* contour
* linux+kbs for terminals which imitate xterm's behavior with Linux
* rio, rio-direct
* mostlike
* ms-vt100-16color, winconsole
* vt100+noapp, vt100+noapp+pc, xterm+app+pc, xterm+decedit from
xterm #389
* putty+cursor to reflect amending of modified cursor-keys in 2021
* wezterm
There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some were
updates to several descriptions, using the infocmp "-u" option in a
script to determine which building-block entries could be used to
replace multiple capability settings (and trim redundant information).
Other changes include:
* document XF, kxIN and kxOUT
* add note on sun regarding wscons/cmdtool/shelltool
* remove DECCOLM+DECSCLM from foot
* add xterm+focus to foot+base
* add ecma+strikeout to putty
* use CSI 3J in vte-2017
* use oldxterm+sm+1006 in vte-2014
* modify xgterm to work around line-drawing bug
* add xterm focus mode 1004 to xterm+focus as fe/fd capabilities,
like vim.
* add xterm+focus to alacritty+common
* add XR/xr, to work with vim, and use RV/rv to denote DA2 and its
response
* add XF flag to xterm+focus so that termcap applications can be
aware of terminals which may support focus in/out
* use xterm+focus in xterm-p370 and tmux
* remove xterm+sm+1006 from tmux
* NetBSD-related fixes for x68k and wsvt25
Documentation
As 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 addition to providing background information to explain these
features and show how they evolved, there are corrections,
clarifications, etc.:
* Corrections:
+ add assignment in CF_MAN_PAGES to fill in value for
TERMINFO_DIRS in ncurses, terminfo and tic manpages.
+ clarify interaction of -R option versus -C, -I and -r in
infocmp manpage.
+ correct manpage description of panel_hidden.
+ improve manpage description for addch versus unctrl format
used for non-printable characters.
+ improve manpages discussing file descriptors in low-level
functions.
+ improve description of search rules for terminal descriptions
in terminfo manpage.
+ modify dist.mk to avoid passing developer's comments in
manpages into the generated html documentation.
+ modify test-package "ncurses6-doc" to use manpage-aliases,
which in turn required a change to the configure script to
factor in the extra-suffix option when deriving alias names.
* New/improved history and portability sections:
+ add information about "ttycap", termcap's forerunner, to
tset.1
+ document limitations of tparm, and error-returns in
curs_terminfo.3x
+ document limitations of tgoto, and error-returns in
curs_termcap.3x
* Other improvements:
+ This release has many changes to improve the formatting and
style of the manpages.
+ Manpages now use consistent section-naming, page headers and
footers (including the modification date for each page).
+ Table layout has been revised.
There are no new manual pages (all of the manual page updates are to
existing pages).
Interesting bug-fixes
The changes to tparm, tgoto which improve the design of the low-level
interfaces are interesting, but are not bug-fixes per se.
Configuration changes
Major changes
These are the major changes (aside from introducing tiparm_s):
* use wide-character (ncursesw) by default
* use opaque typedefs by default
However, most of the work on configure scripts was done to reduce
warnings within the configure script:
* intrusive warnings from GNU grep regarding fgrep and egrep
* fatal errors in compile-checks, arising from recent "Modern C"
efforts by some developers which caused longstanding configure
checks to fail.
After repairing the configure script, none of that activity
affected ncurses because stricter warnings are used routinely in
development.
Other improvements made to configure checks include
* use string-hacks in alloc_entry.c, alloc_type.c and hardscroll.c,
overlooked due to compiler changes in recent OpenBSD releases
* revise progs.priv.h to provide for NC_ISATTY reuse
* configure check for MB_LEN_MAX provides warning as needed
* trim a space after some "-R" options, fixing builds for
applications built using clang and ncurses on Solaris
* work around misconfiguration of MacPorts gcc13, which exposes
invalid definition of MB_LEN_MAX in gcc's fallback copy of
limits.h
* modified experimental Windows driver works with xterm mouse
protocol
Configuration options
There are a few new configure options:
--disable-setuid-environ
Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment
variables are not available when running via a setuid/setgid
application. These are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow
the search path for the terminfo or termcap entry to be
customized.
A setuid/setgid application inherits its environment variables
from the current user, in contrast to sudo which may limit the
environment variables that ncurses uses.
--enable-check-size
Compile-in feature to detect screensize for terminals which do
not advertise their screensize, e.g., serial terminals.
--with-abi-altered=NUM
Override the displayed (rather than compiled-in) ABI. Only
packagers who have created configurations where the ABI differs
from ncurses should be interested in this option.
--with-strip-program=XXX
When stripping executables during install, use the specified
program rather than "strip" overriding program chosen by the
install program for stripping executables.
These configure options are modified:
--with-pkg-config-libdir[=DIR]
The optional DIR parameter can now be "auto" to automatically
use pkg-config's library directory.
The default is $(libdir).
--with-xterm-kbs[=XXX]
The default is "auto" which tells the configure script to
choose BS or DEL according to platform defaults.
Portability
Many of the portability changes are implemented via the configure
script:
* add/use configure check for clock_gettime, to supersede
gettimeofday.
* modify configure script check for pkg-config library directory to
take into account an older version 0.15.0 which used
PKG_CONFIG_PATH but not PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR
* allow for MinGW32-/64-bit configurations to use _DEFAULT_SOURCE
* modify CF_XOPEN_SOURCE macro's amend default case to avoid
undefining _XOPEN_SOURCE if _POSIX_C_SOURCE is defined
* updated configure script macro CF_XOPEN_SOURCE, for uClibc-ng
* modify version-check for gcc/g++, now works for msys2
* build-fixes related to configure-options and/or platform:
+ fix for --enable-fvisibility
+ fix for unusual values of --with-rel-version
+ fix for unusual values of --with-abi-version
+ fix for --disable-tcap-names
+ fix for termcap in nc_access.h
* other configure-script improvements:
+ recent msys2 headers work with _DEFAULT_SOURCE; amend check
+ use $ac_includes_default in most cases where stdlib.h should
work
+ use #error consistently vs "make an error"
+ add configure macro for gettimeofday vs inline check
Here are some of the other portability fixes:
* modify configure scripts/makefiles to omit KEY_RESIZE if the
corresponding SIGWINCH feature is disabled
* increase MB_CUR_MAX to 16, matching glibc's MB_LEN_MAX
* add BSD erase2 to characters handled by tset/reset
* use getauxval when available, to improve setuid/setgid checks
* set dwShareMode in calls to CreateConsoleScreenBuffer
* use CreateFile with "CONIN$", "CONOUT$" rather than GetStdHandle
to obtain a handle on the actual console, avoiding redirection in
the MinGW/Win32 configurations
* modify MinGW driver to return KEY_BACKSPACE when an unmodified
VK_BACK virtual key is entered
* modify MinGW configuration to provide for running in MSYS/MSYS2
shells, assuming ConPTY support
_________________________________________________________________
Features of ncurses
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 the features of SVr4 curses including keyboard
mapping, color, form drawing with ACS characters, and automatic
recognition of keypad and function keys.
* ncurses provides work-alike replacements of SVr4 supplemental
libraries based on curses, but which were not specified by X/Open
Curses:
+ the panel library, supporting a stack of windows with backing
store
+ the menu 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 that 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 almost all 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 direct-color terminals, such as modern xterm.
* 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.
* X/Open Curses permits most functions it specifies to be made
available as macros as well. ncurses does this
+ to improve performance, e.g., for operations composed of
simpler functions such as cursor movement following by adding
text to the screen,
+ to simplify the implementation by reusing functions which use
common parameters, e.g., the standard screen stdscr, and
+ to provide functions that return values via their parameters
Except for the last case, ncurses provides a non-macro
implementation of the function. If the macro definition is
disabled with #undef, or by defining NCURSES_NOMACROS the function
may be linked (and its calls will be checked against the
prototype).
* Extensive documentation is provided (see the Additional Reading
section of the ncurses FAQ for online documentation).
Applications using ncurses
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
https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude
cdk
Curses Development Kit
https://invisible-island.net/cdk/
ded
directory-editor
https://invisible-island.net/ded/
dialog
the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the
basis for similar install/configure applications on many
systems.
https://invisible-island.net/dialog/
lynx
the text WWW browser
https://lynx.invisible-island.net/
mutt
mail utility
http://www.mutt.org/
ncftp
file-transfer utility
https://www.ncftp.com/
nvi
New vi uses ncurses.
https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/the-berkeley-
vi-editor-home-page
ranger
A console file manager with VI key bindings in Python.
https://ranger.github.io/
tin
newsreader, supporting color, MIME
http://www.tin.org/
vifm
File manager with vi like keybindings
https://vifm.info/
as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
minicom
terminal emulator for serial modem connections
https://salsa.debian.org/minicom-team/minicom
mosh
a replacement for ssh.
https://mosh.org/
tack
terminfo action checker
https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html
tmux
terminal multiplexor
https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki
vile
vi-like-emacs may be built to use the terminfo, termcap or
curses interfaces.
https://invisible-island.net/vile/
and finally, those which use only the termcap interface:
emacs
text editor
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
less
The most commonly used pager (a program that displays text
files).
http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/
screen
terminal multiplexor
https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/
vim
text editor
https://www.vim.org/
Development activities
Zeyd Ben-Halim started ncurses from a previous package pcurses,
written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S. Raymond continued development.
Juergen Pfeifer wrote most of the form and menu libraries.
Ongoing development work is done by Thomas E. Dickey. Thomas E. Dickey
has acted as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which
held a copyright on ncurses for releases 4.2 through 6.1. Following
the release of ncurses 6.1, effective as of release 6.2, copyright for
ncurses reverted to Thomas E. Dickey (see the ncurses FAQ for
additional information).
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:
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 are made available at
https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/current/ and
https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/ .
Patches to the current release are made available at
https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/6.4/ and
https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.4/ .
There is an archive of the mailing list here:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses .
Related resources
The release notes make scattered references to these pages, which may
be interesting by themselves:
* ncurses licensing
* Symbol versioning in ncurses
* Comments on ncurses versus slang (S-Lang)
* Comments on OpenBSD
* tack - terminfo action checker
* tctest - termcap library checker
* Terminal Database
Other resources
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, which also provides several user-definable extensions beyond the
X/Open Curses specification.
You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not
covered in the terminfo file in Richard Shuford's archive (original).
The collection of computer manuals at bitsavers.org has also been
useful.
* Overview
* Release Notes
+ Library improvements
o New features
o Other improvements
+ Program improvements
o Utilities
o Examples
+ Terminal database
+ Documentation
+ Interesting bug-fixes
+ Configuration changes
o Major changes
o Configuration options
+ Portability
* Features of ncurses
* Applications using ncurses
* Development activities
* Related resources
* Other resources