1 -- $Id: INSTALL,v 1.45 2000/10/08 02:17:57 tom Exp $
2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
3 How to install Ncurses/Terminfo on your system
4 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
6 ************************************************************
7 * READ ALL OF THIS FILE BEFORE YOU TRY TO INSTALL NCURSES. *
8 ************************************************************
10 You should be reading the file INSTALL in a directory called ncurses-d.d, where
11 d.d is the current version number. There should be several subdirectories,
12 including `c++', `form', `man', `menu', 'misc', `ncurses', `panel', `progs',
13 and `test'. See the README file for a roadmap to the package.
15 If you are a Linux or FreeBSD or NetBSD distribution integrator or packager,
16 please read and act on the section titled IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR
19 If you are converting from BSD curses and do not have root access, be sure
20 to read the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below.
22 If you are using a version of XFree86 xterm older than 3.1.2F, see the section
23 on RECENT XTERM VERSIONS below.
25 If you are trying to build GNU Emacs using ncurses for terminal support,
26 read the USING NCURSES WITH EMACS section below.
28 If you are trying to build applications using gpm with ncurses,
29 read the USING NCURSES WITH GPM section below.
31 If you are running over the Andrew File System see the note below on
32 USING NCURSES WITH AFS.
34 If you are cross-compiling, see the note below on BUILDING NCURSES WITH A
37 If you want to build the Ada95 binding, go to the Ada95 directory and
38 follow the instructions there. The Ada95 binding is not covered below.
40 If you are using anything but (a) Linux, or (b) one of the 4.4BSD-based
41 i386 Unixes, go read the Portability section in the TO-DO file before you
48 You will need the following in order to build and install ncurses under UNIX:
50 * ANSI C compiler (gcc is recommended)
52 * awk (mawk or gawk will do)
54 * BSD or System V style install (a script is enclosed)
56 Ncurses has been also built in the OS/2 EMX environment.
59 INSTALLATION PROCEDURE:
60 ----------------------
62 1. First, decide whether you want ncurses to replace your existing library (in
63 which case you'll need super-user privileges) or be installed in parallel
66 The --prefix option to configure changes the root directory for installing
67 ncurses. The default is in subdirectories of /usr/local. Use
68 --prefix=/usr to replace your default curses distribution. This is the
69 default for Linux and BSD/OS users.
71 The package gets installed beneath the --prefix directory as follows:
73 In $(prefix)/bin: tic, infocmp, captoinfo, tset,
74 reset, clear, tput, toe
75 In $(prefix)/lib: libncurses*.* libcurses.a
76 In $(prefix)/share/terminfo: compiled terminal descriptions
77 In $(prefix)/include: C header files
78 Under $(prefix)/man: the manual pages
80 Note however that the configure script attempts to locate previous
81 installation of ncurses, and will set the default prefix according to where
82 it finds the ncurses headers.
84 2. Type `./configure' in the top-level directory of the distribution to
85 configure ncurses for your operating system and create the Makefiles.
86 Besides --prefix, various configuration options are available to customize
87 the installation; use `./configure --help' to list the available options.
89 If your operating system is not supported, read the PORTABILITY section in
90 the file ncurses/README for information on how to create a configuration
93 The `configure' script generates makefile rules for one or more object
94 models and their associated libraries:
98 libcurses.a (normal, a link to libncurses.a)
99 This gets left out if you configure with --disable-overwrite.
101 libncurses.so (shared)
103 libncurses_g.a (debug)
105 libncurses_p.a (profile)
107 If you do not specify any models, the normal and debug libraries will be
108 configured. Typing `configure' with no arguments is equivalent to:
110 ./configure --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
114 ./configure --with-shared
116 makes the shared libraries the default, resulting in
118 ./configure --with-shared --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
120 If you want only shared libraries, type
122 ./configure --with-shared --without-normal --without-debug
124 Rules for generating shared libraries are highly dependent upon the choice
125 of host system and compiler. We've been testing shared libraries on Linux
126 and SunOS with gcc, but more work needs to be done to make shared libraries
127 work on other systems.
129 You can make curses and terminfo fall back to an existing file of termcap
130 definitions by configuring with --enable-termcap. If you do this, the
131 library will search /etc/termcap before the terminfo database, and will
132 also interpret the contents of the TERM environment variable. See the
133 section BSD CONVERSION NOTES below.
135 3. Type `make'. Ignore any warnings, no error messages should be produced.
136 This should compile the ncurses library, the terminfo compiler tic(1),
137 captoinfo(1), infocmp(1), toe(1), clear(1) tset(1), reset(1), and tput(1)
138 programs (see the manual pages for explanation of what they do), some test
139 programs, and the panels, menus, and forms libraries.
141 4. Run ncurses and several other test programs in the test directory to
142 verify that ncurses functions correctly before doing an install that
143 may overwrite system files. Read the file test/README for details on
146 NOTE: You must have installed the terminfo database, or set the
147 environment variable $TERMINFO to point to a SVr4-compatible terminfo
148 database before running the test programs. Not all vendors' terminfo
149 databases are SVr4-compatible, but most seem to be. Exceptions include
150 DEC's Digital Unix (formerly known as OSF/1).
152 The ncurses program is designed specifically to test the ncurses library.
153 You can use it to verify that the screen highlights work correctly, that
154 cursor addressing and window scrolling works OK, etc.
156 5. Once you've tested, you can type `make install' to install libraries,
157 the programs, the terminfo database and the manual pages. Alternately, you
158 can type `make install' in each directory you want to install. In the
159 top-level directory, you can do a partial install using these commands:
161 'make install.progs' installs tic, infocmp, etc...
162 'make install.includes' installs the headers.
163 'make install.libs' installs the libraries (and the headers).
164 'make install.data' installs the terminfo data. (Note: `tic' must
165 be installed before the terminfo data can be
167 'make install.man' installs the manual pages.
169 ############################################################################
170 # CAVEAT EMPTOR: `install.data' run as root will NUKE any existing #
171 # terminfo database. If you have any custom or unusual entries SAVE them #
172 # before you install ncurses. I have a file called terminfo.custom for #
173 # this purpose. Don't forget to run tic on the file once you're done. #
174 ############################################################################
176 The terminfo(5) manual page must be preprocessed with tbl(1) before
177 being formatted by nroff(1). Modern man(1) implementations tend to do
178 this by default, but you may want to look at your version's manual page
181 If the system already has a curses library that you need to keep using
182 for some bizarre binary-compatibility reason, you'll need to distinguish
183 between it and ncurses. If ncurses is installed outside the standard
184 directories (/usr/include and /usr/lib) then all your users will need
185 to use the -I option to compile programs and -L to link them.
187 If you have BSD curses installed in your system and you accidentally
188 compile using its curses.h you'll end up with a large number of
189 undefined symbols at link time. _waddbytes is one of them.
191 IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ROOT: Change directory to the `progs' subdirectory
192 and run the `capconvert' script. This script will deduce various things
193 about your environment and use them to build you a private terminfo tree,
194 so you can use ncurses applications.
196 If more than one user at your site does this, the space for the duplicate
197 trees is wasted. Try to get your site administrators to install a system-
198 wide terminfo tree instead.
200 See the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below for a few more details.
202 6. The c++ directory has C++ classes that are built on top of ncurses and
203 panels. You must have c++ (and its libraries) installed before you can
204 compile and run the demo.
206 Use --without-cxx-binding to tell configure to not build the C++ bindings
209 If you do not have C++, you must use the --without-cxx option to tell
210 the configure script to not attempt to determine the type of 'bool'
211 which may be supported by C++. IF YOU USE THIS OPTION, BE ADVISED THAT
212 YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO COMPILE (OR RUN) NCURSES APPLICATIONS WITH C++.
214 7. If you're running an older Linux, you must either (a) tell Linux that the
215 console terminal type is `linux' or (b) make a link to or copy of the
216 linux entry in the appropriate place under your terminfo directory, named
217 `console'. All 1.3 and many 1.2 distributions (including Yggdrasil and
218 Red Hat) already have the console type set to `linux'.
220 The way to change the wired-in console type depends on the configuration
221 of your system. This may involve editing /etc/inittab, /etc/ttytype,
222 /etc/profile and other such files.
224 Warning: this is not for the fainthearted, if you mess up your console
225 getty entries you can make your system unusable! However, if you are
226 a distribution maker, this is the right thing to do (see the note for
227 integrators near the end of this file).
229 The easier way is to link or copy l/linux to c/console under your terminfo
230 directory. Note: this will go away next time you do `make install.data'
231 and you'll have to redo it. There is no need to have entries for all
232 possible screen sizes, ncurses will figure out the size automatically.
235 SUMMARY OF CONFIGURE OPTIONS:
236 ----------------------------
238 The configure script provides a short list of its options when you type
242 The --help and several options are common to all configure scripts that are
243 generated with autoconf. Those are all listed before the line
245 --enable and --with options recognized:
247 The other options are specific to this package. We list them in alphabetic
250 --disable-assumed-color
251 With ncurses 5.1, we introduced a new function, assume_default_colors()
252 which allows applications to specify what the default foreground and
253 background color are assumed to be. Most color applications use
254 full-screen color; but a few do not color the background. While the
255 assumed values can be overridden by invoking assume_default_colors(),
256 you may find it useful to set the assumed values to the pre-5.1
257 convention, using this configure option.
260 Assume machine has little memory. The configure script attempts to
261 determine if your machine has enough memory (about 6Mb) to compile the
262 terminfo database without writing portions to disk. Some allocators
263 return deceptive results, so you may have to override the configure
264 script. Or you may be building tic for a smaller machine.
267 Use only built-in data. The ncurses libraries normally read terminfo
268 and termcap data from disk. You can configure ncurses to have a
269 built-in database, aka "fallback" entries. Embedded applications may
270 have no need for an external database.
273 Disable function-extensions. Configure ncurses without the functions
274 that are not specified by XSI. See ncurses/modules for the exact
275 list of library modules that would be suppressed.
278 Compile without hashmap scrolling-optimization code. This algorithm is
282 For testing, compile-in code that frees memory that normally would not
283 be freed, to simplify analysis of memory-leaks.
286 For testing, use functions rather than macros. The program will run
287 more slowly, but it is simpler to debug. This makes a header file
288 "nomacros.h". See also the --enable-expanded option.
291 If you are installing ncurses on a system which contains another
292 development version of curses, or which could be confused by the loader
293 for another version, we recommend that you leave out the link to
294 -lcurses. The ncurses library is always available as -lncurses.
295 Disabling overwrite also causes the ncurses header files to be
296 installed into a subdirectory, e.g., /usr/local/include/ncurses,
297 rather than the include directory. This makes it simpler to avoid
298 compile-time conflicts with other versions of curses.h
300 --disable-root-environ
301 Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment variables
302 are not available when running as root, or via a setuid/setgid
303 application. These are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow the
304 search path for the terminfo or termcap entry to be customized.
306 --disable-scroll-hints
307 Compile without scroll-hints code. This option is ignored when
308 hashmap scrolling is configured, which is the default.
310 --enable-add-ons=DIR...
311 This is used to check if this package is a glibc add-on. This is used
312 only by the glibc makefiles.
315 For testing, compile-in assertion code. This is used only for a few
316 places where ncurses cannot easily recover by returning an error code.
318 --enable-broken_linker
319 A few platforms have what we consider a broken linker: it cannot link
320 objects from an archive solely by referring to data objects in those
321 files, but requires a function reference. This configure option
322 changes several data references to functions to work around this
325 NOTE: With ncurses 5.1, this may not be necessary, since we are
326 told that some linkers interpret uninitialized global data as a
327 different type of reference which behaves as described above. We have
328 explicitly initialized all of the global data to work around the
332 Recognize BSD-style prefix padding. Some ancient BSD programs (such as
333 nethack) call tputs("50") to implement delays.
336 Compile with experimental $COLORFGBG code. That environment variable
337 is set by some terminal emulators as a hint to applications, by
338 advertising the default foreground and background colors. During
339 initialization, ncurses sets color pair 0 to match this.
342 The curses interface as documented in XSI is rather old, in fact
343 including features that precede ANSI C. The prototypes generally do
344 not make effective use of "const". When using stricter compilers (or
345 gcc with appropriate warnings), you may see warnings about the mismatch
346 between const and non-const data. We provide a configure option which
347 changes the interfaces to use const - quieting these warnings and
348 reflecting the actual use of the parameters more closely. The ncurses
349 library uses the symbol NCURSES_CONST for these instances of const,
350 and if you have asked for compiler warnings, will add gcc's const-qual
351 warning. There will still be warnings due to subtle inconsistencies
352 in the interface, but at a lower level.
354 NOTE: configuring ncurses with this option may detract from the
355 portability of your applications by encouraging you to use const in
356 places where the XSI curses interface would not allow them. Similar
357 issues arise when porting to SVr4 curses, which uses const in even
361 Use the option --disable-echo to make the build-log less verbose by
362 suppressing the display of the compile and link commands. This makes
363 it easier to see the compiler warnings. (You can always use "make -n"
364 to see the options that are used).
367 For testing, generate functions for certain macros to make them visible
368 as such to the debugger. See also the --disable-macros option.
371 Use the 4.4BSD getcap code if available, or a bundled version of it to
372 fetch termcap entries. Entries read in this way cannot use (make
373 cross-references to) the terminfo tree, but it is faster than reading
376 --enable-getcap-cache
377 Cache translated termcaps under the directory $HOME/.terminfo
379 NOTE: this sounds good - it makes ncurses run faster the second time.
380 But look where the data comes from - an /etc/termcap containing lots of
381 entries that are not up to date. If you configure with this option and
382 forget to install the terminfo database before running an ncurses
383 application, you will end up with a hidden terminfo database that
384 generally does not support color and will miss some function keys.
387 Compile-in cursor-optimization code that uses hard-tabs. We would make
388 this a standard feature except for the concern that the terminfo entry
389 may not be accurate, or that your stty settings have disabled the use
393 Compile-in support for the $NCURSES_NO_PADDING environment variable,
394 which allows you to suppress the effect of non-mandatory padding in
395 terminfo entries. This is the default, unless you have disabled the
399 Use rpath option when generating shared libraries, and with some
400 restrictions when linking the corresponding programs. This applies
401 mainly to systems using the GNU linker (read the manpage).
403 --enable-safe-sprintf
404 Compile with experimental safe-sprintf code. You may consider using
405 this if you are building ncurses for a system that has neither
406 vsnprintf() or vsprintf(). It is slow, however.
409 Compile support for ncurses' SIGWINCH handler. If your application has
410 its own SIGWINCH handler, ncurses will not use its own. The ncurses
411 handler causes wgetch() to return KEY_RESIZE when the screen-size
412 changes. This option is the default, unless you have disabled the
416 If your system supports symbolic links, make tic use symbolic links
417 rather than hard links to save diskspace when writing aliases in the
421 Compile-in support for user-definable terminal capabilities. Use the
422 -x option of tic and infocmp to treat unrecognized terminal
423 capabilities as user-defined strings. This option is the default,
424 unless you have disabled the extended functions.
427 Compile in support for reading terminal descriptions from termcap if no
428 match is found in the terminfo database. See also the --enable-getcap
429 and --enable-getcap-cache options.
432 Turn on GCC compiler warnings. There should be only a few.
435 Compile with experimental wide-character code. This makes a different
436 version of the libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so), which stores
437 characters in 16-bits. We provide a simple UTF-8 driver and test
438 program to use this feature with terminals that can display UTF-8.
440 NOTE: applications compiled with this configuration are not compatible
441 with those built for 8-bit characters. You cannot simply make a
442 symbolic link to equate libncurses.so with libncursesw.so
445 Compile-in support experimental xmc (magic cookie) code.
447 --with-ada-compiler=CMD
448 Specify the Ada95 compiler command (default "gnatmake")
450 --with-ada-include=DIR
451 Tell where to install the Ada includes (default:
452 PREFIX/lib/ada/adainclude)
454 --with-ada-objects=DIR
455 Tell where to install the Ada objects (default: PREFIX/lib/ada/adalib)
458 Specify the terminfo source file to install. Usually you will wish
459 to install ncurses' default (misc/terminfo.src). Certain systems
460 have special requirements, e.g, OS/2 EMX has a customized terminfo
464 For testing, compile and link with Conor Cahill's dbmalloc library.
467 Generate debug-libraries (default). These are named by adding "_g"
468 to the root, e.g., libncurses_g.a
470 --with-default-terminfo-dir=XXX
471 Specify the default terminfo database directory. This is normally
472 DATADIR/terminfo, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo.
475 Enable experimental/development options. This does not count those
476 that change the interface, such as --enable-widec.
479 For testing, compile and link with Gray Watson's dmalloc library.
482 Specify a list of fallback terminal descriptions which will be
483 compiled into the ncurses library. See CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES.
486 use Alessandro Rubini's GPM library to provide mouse support on the
489 --with-install-prefix=XXX
490 Allows you to specify an alternate location for installing ncurses
491 after building it. The value you specify is prepended to the "real"
492 install location. This simplifies making binary packages.
494 NOTE: a few systems build shared libraries with fixed pathnames; this
495 option probably will not work for those configurations.
497 --with-manpage-format=XXX
498 Tell the configure script how you would like to install man-pages. The
499 option value must be one of these: gzip, compress, BSDI, normal,
500 formatted. If you do not give this option, the configure script
501 attempts to determine which is the case.
503 --with-manpage-renames=XXX
504 Tell the configure script that you wish to rename the manpages while
505 installing. Currently the only distribution which does this is
506 the Linux Debian. The option value specifies the name of a file
507 that lists the renamed files, e.g., $srcdir/man/man_db.renames
509 --with-manpage-symlinks
510 Tell the configure script that you wish to make symbolic links in the
511 man-directory for aliases to the man-pages. This is the default, but
512 can be disabled for systems that provide this automatically. Doing
513 this on systems that do not support symbolic links will result in
514 copying the man-page for each alias.
517 Generate normal (i.e., static) libraries (default).
520 Generate profile-libraries These are named by adding "_p" to the root,
524 Compile-in RCS identifiers. Most of the C files have an identifier.
527 Generate shared-libraries. The names given depend on the system for
528 which you are building, typically using a ".so" suffix, along with
529 symbolic links that refer to the release version.
531 NOTE: Unless you override the configure script by setting the $CFLAGS
532 environment variable, these will not be built with the -g debugging
535 --with-shlib-version=XXX
536 Specify whether to use the release or ABI version for shared libraries.
537 This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of system
538 which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure script.
540 --with-system-type=XXX
541 For testing, override the derived host system-type which is used to
542 decide things such as the linker commands used to build shared
543 libraries. This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of
544 system which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure
547 --with-terminfo-dirs=XXX
548 Specify a search-list of terminfo directories which will be compiled
549 into the ncurses library (default: DATADIR/terminfo)
552 When building the ncurses library, organize this as two parts: the
553 curses library (libncurses) and the low-level terminfo library
554 (libtinfo). This is done to accommodate applications that use only
555 the latter. The terminfo library is about half the size of the total.
558 Suppress the configure script's check for Ada95, do not build the
559 Ada95 binding and related demo.
562 XSI curses declares "bool" as part of the interface. C++ also declares
563 "bool". Neither specifies the size and type of booleans, but both
564 insist on the same name. We chose to accommodate this by making the
565 configure script check for the size and type (e.g., unsigned or signed)
566 that your C++ compiler uses for booleans. If you do not wish to use
567 ncurses with C++, use this option to tell the configure script to not
568 adjust ncurses bool to match C++.
570 --without-cxx-binding
571 Suppress the configure script's check for C++, do not build the
572 C++ binding and related demo.
575 Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' application
576 programs (e.g., tic). The test applications will still be built if you
577 type "make", though not if you simply do "make install".
580 COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER VERSIONS OF NCURSES:
581 --------------------------------------------
583 Because ncurses implements the X/Open Curses Specification, its interface
584 is fairly stable. That does not mean the interface does not change.
585 Changes are made to the documented interfaces when we find differences
586 between ncurses and X/Open or implementations which they certify (such as
587 Solaris). We add extensions to those interfaces to solve problems not
588 addressed by the original curses design, but those must not conflict with
589 the X/Open documentation.
591 Here are some of the major interface changes, and related problems which
592 you may encounter when building a system with different versions of
598 + made the extended terminal capabilities
599 (configure --enable-tcap-names) a standard feature. This should
600 be transparent to applications that do not require it.
602 + removed the trace() function and related trace support from the
605 + modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict
608 Added extensions: assume_default_colors().
610 5.0 (October 23, 1999)
613 + implemented the wcolor_set() and slk_color() functions.
615 + move macro winch to a function, to hide details of struct ldat
617 + corrected prototypes for slk_* functions, using chtype rather than
620 + the slk_attr_{set,off,on} functions need an additional void*
621 parameter according to XSI.
623 + modified several prototypes to correspond with 1997 version of X/Open
624 Curses: [w]attr_get(), [w]attr_set(), border_set() have different
625 parameters. Some functions were renamed or misspelled:
626 erase_wchar(), in_wchntr(), mvin_wchntr(). Some developers have used
629 Added extensions: keybound(), curses_version().
631 Terminfo database changes:
633 + change translation for termcap 'rs' to terminfo 'rs2', which is
634 the documented equivalent, rather than 'rs1'.
636 The problems are subtler in recent releases.
638 a) This release provides users with the ability to define their own
639 terminal capability extensions, like termcap. To accomplish this,
640 we redesigned the TERMTYPE struct (in term.h). Very few
641 applications use this struct. They must be recompiled to work with
644 a) If you use the extended terminfo names (i.e., you used configure
645 --enable-tcap-names), the resulting terminfo database can have some
646 entries which are not readable by older versions of ncurses. This
647 is a bug in the older versions:
649 + the terminfo database stores booleans, numbers and strings in
650 arrays. The capabilities that are listed in the arrays are
651 specified by X/Open. ncurses recognizes a number of obsolete and
652 extended names which are stored past the end of the specified
655 + a change to read_entry.c in 951001 made the library do an lseek()
656 call incorrectly skipping data which is already read from the
657 string array. This happens when the number of strings in the
658 terminfo data file is greater than STRCOUNT, the number of
659 specified and obsolete or extended strings.
661 + as part of alignment with the X/Open final specification, in the
662 990109 patch we added two new terminfo capabilities:
663 set_a_attributes and set_pglen_inch). This makes the indices for
664 the obsolete and extended capabilities shift up by 2.
666 + the last two capabilities in the obsolete/extended list are memu
667 and meml, which are found in most terminfo descriptions for xterm.
669 When trying to read this terminfo entry, the spurious lseek()
670 causes the library to attempt to read the final portion of the
671 terminfo data (the text of the string capabilities) 4 characters
672 past its starting point, and reads 4 characters too few. The
673 library rejects the data, and applications are unable to
674 initialize that terminal type.
676 FIX: remove memu and meml from the xterm description. They are
677 obsolete, not used by ncurses. (It appears that the feature was
678 added to xterm to make it more like hpterm).
680 This is not a problem if you do not use the -x option of tic to
681 create a terminfo database with extended names. Note that the
682 user-defined terminal capabilities are not affected by this bug,
683 since they are stored in a table after the older terminfo data ends,
684 and are invisible to the older libraries.
686 c) Some developers did not wish to use the C++ binding, and used the
687 configure --without-cxx option. This causes problems if someone
688 uses the ncurses library from C++ because that configure test
689 determines the type for C++'s bool and makes ncurses match it, since
690 both C++ and curses are specified to declare bool. Calling ncurses
691 functions with the incorrect type for bool will cause execution
692 errors. In 5.0 we added a configure option "--without-cxx-binding"
693 which controls whether the binding itself is built and installed.
698 + correct prototype for termattrs() as per XPG4 version 2.
700 + add placeholder prototypes for color_set(), erasewchar(),
701 term_attrs(), wcolor_set() as per XPG4 version 2.
703 + add macros getcur[xy] getbeg[xy] getpar[xy], which are defined in
706 New extensions: keyok() and define_key().
708 Terminfo database changes:
710 + corrected definition in curses.h for ACS_LANTERN, which was 'I'
715 We added these extensions: use_default_colors(). Also added
716 configure option --enable-const, to support the use of const where
717 X/Open should have, but did not, specify.
719 The terminfo database content changed the representation of color for
720 most entries that use ANSI colors. SVr4 curses treats the setaf/setab
721 and setf/setb capabilities differently, interchanging the red/blue
722 colors in the latter.
724 4.0 (December 24, 1996)
726 We bumped to version 4.0 because the newly released dynamic loader
727 (ld.so.1.8.5) on Linux did not load shared libraries whose ABI and REL
728 versions were inconsistent. At that point, ncurses ABI was 3.4 and the
729 REL was 1.9.9g, so we made them consistent.
731 1.9.9g (December 1, 1996)
733 This fixed most of the problems with 1.9.9e, and made these interface
736 + remove tparam(), which had been provided for compatibility with
737 some termcap. tparm() is standard, and does not conflict with
738 application's fallback for missing tparam().
740 + turn off hardware echo in initscr(). This changes the sense of the
741 echo() function, which was initialized to echoing rather than
742 nonechoing (the latter is specified). There were several other
743 corrections to the terminal I/O settings which cause applications to
746 + implemented several functions (such as attr_on()) which were
747 available only as macros.
749 + corrected several typos in curses.h.in (i.e., the mvXXXX macros).
751 + corrected prototypes for delay_output(),
752 has_color, immedok() and idcok().
754 + corrected misspelled getbkgd(). Some applications used the
757 + added _yoffset to WINDOW. The size of WINDOW does not impact
758 applications, since they use only pointers to WINDOW structs.
760 These changes were made to the terminfo database:
762 + removed boolean 'getm' which was available as an extended name.
764 We added these extensions: wresize(), resizeterm(), has_key() and
767 1.9.9e (March 24, 1996)
769 not recommended (a last-minute/untested change left the forms and
770 menus libraries unusable since they do not repaint the screen).
771 Foreground/background colors are combined incorrectly, working properly
772 only on a black background. When this was released, the X/Open
773 specification was available only in draft form.
775 Some applications (such as lxdialog) were "fixed" to work with the
776 incorrect color scheme.
779 IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR:
780 ------------------------------
782 Beginning with 1.9.9, the ncurses distribution includes both a tset
783 utility and /usr/share/tabset directory. If you are installing ncurses,
784 it is no longer either necessary or desirable to install tset-jv.
786 Configuration and Installation:
788 Configure with --prefix=/usr to make the install productions put
789 libraries and headers in the correct locations (overwriting any
790 previous curses libraries and headers). This will put the terminfo
791 hierarchy under /usr/share/terminfo; you may want to override this with
792 --datadir=/usr/share/misc; terminfo and tabset are installed under the
795 Please configure the ncurses library in a pure-terminfo mode; that
796 is, with the --disable-termcap option. This will make the ncurses
797 library smaller and faster. The ncurses library includes a termcap
798 emulation that queries the terminfo database, so even applications
799 that use raw termcap to query terminal characteristics will win
800 (providing you recompile and relink them!).
802 If you must configure with termcap fallback enabled, you may also
803 wish to use the --enable-getcap option. This option speeds up
804 termcap-based startups, at the expense of not allowing personal
805 termcap entries to reference the terminfo tree. See the code in
806 ncurses/tinfo/read_termcap.c for details.
808 Note that if you have $TERMCAP set, ncurses will use that value
809 to locate termcap data. In particular, running from xterm will
810 set $TERMCAP to the contents of the xterm's termcap entry.
811 If ncurses sees that, it will not examine /etc/termcap.
815 The terminfo file assumes that Shift-Tab generates \E[Z (the ECMA-48
816 reverse-tabulation sequence) rather than ^I. Here are the loadkeys -d
817 mappings that will set this up:
820 alt keycode 15 = Meta_Tab
821 shift keycode 15 = F26
824 Naming the Console Terminal
826 In various Linuxes (and possibly elsewhere) there has been a practice
827 of designating the system console driver type as `console'. Please
828 do not do this any more! It complicates peoples' lives, because it
829 can mean that several different terminfo entries from different
830 operating systems all logically want to be called `console'.
832 Please pick a name unique to your console driver and set that up
833 in the /etc/inittab table or local equivalent. Send the entry to the
834 terminfo maintainer (listed in the misc/terminfo file) to be included
835 in the terminfo file, if it's not already there. See the
836 term(7) manual page included with this distribution for more on
837 conventions for choosing type names.
839 Here are some recommended primary console names:
841 linux -- Linux console driver
846 If you are responsible for integrating ncurses for one of these
847 distribution, please either use the recommended name or get back
848 to us explaining why you don't want to, so we can work out nomenclature
849 that will make users' lives easier rather than harder.
852 RECENT XTERM VERSIONS:
853 ---------------------
855 The terminfo database file included with this distribution assumes you
856 are running an XFree86 xterm based on X11R6 (i.e., xterm-r6). The
857 earlier X11R5 entry (xterm-r5) is provided as well.
859 If you are running XFree86 version 3.2 (actually 3.1.2F and up), you
860 should consider using the xterm-xf86-v32 (or later, the most recent
861 version is always named "xterm-xfree86") entry, which adds ANSI color
862 and the VT220 capabilities which have been added in XFree86. If you
863 are running a mixed network, however, where this terminal description
864 may be used on an older xterm, you may have problems, since
865 applications that assume these capabilities will produce incorrect
866 output on the older xterm (e.g., highlighting is not cleared).
869 CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES:
870 ----------------------------
872 In order to support operation of ncurses programs before the terminfo
873 tree is accessible (that is, in single-user mode or at OS installation
874 time) the ncurses library can be compiled to include an array of
875 pre-fetched fallback entries.
877 These entries are checked by setupterm() only when the conventional
878 fetches from the terminfo tree and the termcap fallback (if configured)
879 have been tried and failed. Thus, the presence of a fallback will not
880 shadow modifications to the on-disk entry for the same type, when that
883 By default, there are no entries on the fallback list. After you
884 have built the ncurses suite for the first time, you can change
885 the list (the process needs infocmp(1)). To do so, use the script
886 MKfallback.sh. A configure script option --with-fallbacks does this
887 (it accepts a comma-separated list of the names you wish, and does
888 not require a rebuild).
890 If you wanted (say) to have linux, vt100, and xterm fallbacks, you
891 would use the commands
894 MKfallback.sh linux vt100 xterm >fallback.c
896 Then just rebuild and reinstall the library as you would normally.
897 You can restore the default empty fallback list with
899 MKfallback.sh >fallback.c
901 The overhead for an empty fallback list is one trivial stub function.
902 Any non-empty fallback list is const-ed and therefore lives in sharable
903 text space. You can look at the comment trailing each initializer in
904 the generated ncurses/fallback.c file to see the core cost of the
905 fallbacks. A good rule of thumb for modern vt100-like entries is that
906 each one will cost about 2.5K of text space.
909 BSD CONVERSION NOTES:
912 If you need to support really ancient BSD programs, you probably
913 want to configure with the --enable-bsdpad option. What this does
914 is enable code in tputs() that recognizes a numeric prefix on a
915 capability as a request for that much trailing padding in milliseconds.
916 There are old BSD programs that do things like tputs("50").
918 (If you are distributing ncurses as a support-library component of
919 an application you probably want to put the remainder of this section
920 in the package README file.)
922 The following note applies only if you have configured ncurses with
925 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
927 If you are installing this application privately (either because you
928 have no root access or want to experiment with it before doing a root
929 installation), there are a couple of details you need to be aware of.
930 They have to do with the ncurses library, which uses terminfo rather
931 than termcap for describing terminal characteristics.
933 Though the ncurses library is terminfo-based, it will interpret your
934 TERMCAP variable (if present), any local termcap files you reference
935 through it, and the system termcap file. However, in order to avoid
936 slowing down your application startup, it will only do this once per
939 The first time you load a given terminal type from your termcap
940 database, the library initialization code will automatically write it
941 in terminfo format to a subdirectory under $HOME/.terminfo. After
942 that, the initialization code will find it there and do a (much
943 faster) terminfo fetch.
945 Usually, all this means is that your home directory will silently grow
946 an invisible .terminfo subdirectory which will get filled in with
947 terminfo descriptions of terminal types as you invoke them. If anyone
948 ever installs a global terminfo tree on your system, this will quietly
949 stop happening and your $HOME/.terminfo will become redundant.
951 The objective of all this logic is to make converting from BSD termcap
952 as painless as possible without slowing down your application (termcap
953 compilation is expensive).
955 If you don't have a TERMCAP variable or custom personal termcap file,
956 you can skip the rest of this dissertation.
958 If you *do* have a TERMCAP variable and/or a custom personal termcap file
959 that defines a terminal type, that definition will stop being visible
960 to this application after the first time you run it, because it will
961 instead see the terminfo entry that it wrote to $HOME/terminfo the
964 Subsequently, editing the TERMCAP variable or personal TERMCAP file
965 will have no effect unless you explicitly remove the terminfo entry
966 under $HOME/terminfo. If you do that, the entry will be recompiled
967 from your termcap resources the next time it is invoked.
969 To avoid these complications, use infocmp(1) and tic(1) to edit the
970 terminfo directory directly.
972 ------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
974 USING NCURSES WITH AFS:
975 AFS treats each directory as a separate logical filesystem, you
976 can't hard-link across them. The --enable-symlinks option copes
977 with this by making tic use symbolic links.
979 USING NCURSES WITH EMACS:
980 GNU Emacs has its own termcap support. By default, it uses a mixture
981 of those functions and code linked from the host system's libraries.
982 You need to foil this and shut out the GNU termcap library entirely.
984 In order to do this, hack the Linux config file (s/linux.h) to contain
985 a #define TERMINFO and set the symbol LIBS_TERMCAP to "-lncurses".
987 We have submitted such a change for the 19.30 release, so it may
988 already be applied in your sources -- check for the #define TERMINFO.
990 USING NCURSES WITH GPM:
991 Ncurses 4.1 and up can be configured to use GPM (General Purpose Mouse)
992 which is used on Linux console. Be aware that GPM is commonly
993 installed as a shared library which contains a wrapper for the curses
994 wgetch() function (libcurses.o). Some integrators have simplified
995 linking applications by combining all or part of libcurses.so (the BSD
996 curses) into the libgpm.so file, producing symbol conflicts with
997 ncurses (specifically the wgetch function). You may be able to work
998 around this problem by linking as follows:
1000 cc -o foo foo.o -lncurses -lgpm -lncurses
1002 but the linker may not cooperate, producing mysterious errors.
1003 A patched version of gpm is available:
1005 dickey.his.com:/ncurses/gpm-1.10-970125.tar.gz
1007 This patch is incorporated in gpm 1.12; however some integrators
1008 are slow to update this library. Current distributions of gpm can
1009 be configured properly using the --without-curses option.
1011 BUILDING NCURSES WITH A CROSS-COMPILER
1012 Ncurses can be built with a cross-compiler. Some parts must be built
1013 with the host's compiler since they are used for building programs
1014 (e.g., ncurses/make_hash and ncurses/make_keys) that generate tables
1015 that are compiled into the ncurses library. You should set the
1016 BUILD_CC environment variable to your host's compiler, and run the
1017 configure script configuring for the cross-compiler.
1019 Note that all of the generated source-files which are part of ncurses
1020 will be made if you use
1024 This would be useful in porting to an environment which has little
1025 support for the tools used to generate the sources, e.g., sed, awk and
1029 Send any feedback to the ncurses mailing list at
1030 bug-ncurses@gnu.org. To subscribe send mail to
1031 bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with body that reads:
1032 subscribe ncurses <your-email-address-here>
1034 The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines
1035 on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly.
projects / dragonfly.git / blob