1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
|
<!--
$Id: announce.html,v 1.71 2025/12/30 20:20:20 tom Exp $
****************************************************************************
* Copyright 2018-2024,2025 Thomas E. Dickey *
* *
* Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a *
* copy of this software and associated documentation files (the *
* "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including *
* without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, *
* distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell *
* copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is *
* furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: *
* *
* The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included *
* in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. *
* *
* THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS *
* OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF *
* MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. *
* IN NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, *
* DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR *
* OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR *
* THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. *
* *
* Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright *
* holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the *
* sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written *
* authorization. *
****************************************************************************
-->
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta name="generator" content=
"HTML Tidy for HTML5 for Linux version 5.8.0">
<title>Announcing ncurses 6.5</title>
<link rel="author" href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
"text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<style type="text/css">
p,li { max-width:700px; }
dd { max-width:630px; }
*.main-name {
font-style: italic;
font-variant: small-caps;
}
*.part-name {
font-family: "Andale Mono", "Monotype.com", monospace;
font-size: 12pt;
font-weight: bold;
}
*.demo-name {
font-family: "Andale Mono", "Monotype.com", monospace;
font-size: 10pt;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1 class="no-header">Announcing ncurses 6.5</h1>
<h2><a name="h2-overview" id="h2-overview">Overview</a></h2>
<p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> (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.</p>
<p>In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared
that he considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the
keepers of <span class="main-name">unix</span> releases such as
BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to <span class=
"main-name">ncurses</span>.</p>
<p>Since 1995, <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> has been
ported to many systems:</p>
<ul>
<li>It is used in almost every system based on the Linux kernel
(aside from some embedded applications).</li>
<li>It is used as the system curses library on OpenBSD, FreeBSD
and MacOS.</li>
<li>It is used in environments such as Cygwin and MinGW. The
first of these was EMX on OS/2 Warp.</li>
<li>It is used (though usually not as the <em>system</em>
curses) on all of the vendor <span class=
"main-name">unix</span> systems, e.g., AIX, HP-UX, IRIX64, SCO,
Solaris, Tru64.</li>
<li>It should work readily on any ANSI/POSIX-conforming
<span class="main-name">unix</span>.</li>
</ul>
<p>The distribution includes the library and support utilities,
including</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html"><span class=
"part-name">captoinfo</span></a>, a termcap conversion
tool</li>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html"><span class=
"part-name">clear</span></a>, utility for clearing the
screen</li>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/infocmp.1m.html"><span class=
"part-name">infocmp</span></a>, the terminfo decompiler</li>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tabs.1.html"><span class=
"part-name">tabs</span></a>, set tabs on a terminal</li>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html"><span class=
"part-name">tic</span></a>, the terminfo compiler</li>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html"><span class=
"part-name">toe</span></a>, list (table of) terminfo
entries</li>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html"><span class=
"part-name">tput</span></a>, utility for retrieving terminal
capabilities in shell scripts</li>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html"><span class=
"part-name">tset</span></a>, to initialize the terminal</li>
</ul>
<p>Full manual pages are provided for the library and tools.</p>
<p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> distribution is
available at <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>' <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">homepage</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/">https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/</a>
or<br>
<a href=
"https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/</a> .</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is also available at the GNU distribution site</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
"https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/</a> .</p>
</blockquote>
<h2><a name="h2-release-notes" id="h2-release-notes">Release
Notes</a></h2>
<p>These notes are for <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
6.5, released <strong>December 30, 2025</strong>.</p>
<p>This release is designed to be source-compatible with
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 5.0 through 6.5; providing
extensions to the application binary interface (ABI). Although
the source can still be configured to support the <span class=
"main-name">ncurses</span> 5 ABI, the reason for the release is
to reflect improvements to the <span class=
"main-name">ncurses</span> 6 ABI and the supporting utility
programs.</p>
<p>There are numerous other improvements listed in this
announcement.</p>
<p>The most <a href="#h3-bug-fixes">important
bug-fixes/improvements</a> 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
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 6.5 release.</p>
<h3><a name="h3-library" id="h3-library">Library improvements</a></h3>
<h4><a name="h4-term-driver" id="h4-term-driver">Terminal driver
improvements</a></h4>
<p>This release focuses on improvements to the MinGW/Windows
terminal driver. The terminal driver for MinGW32 was introduced
in <a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20090214">2009</a>. A new
version of the terminal driver to support Windows Terminal was
begun in <a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20200829">2020</a>.
However, there were some differences:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Both drivers use <a href=
"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/console/console-reference">
Console API</a>; the later Windows driver also provides for
using character escape sequences.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The MinGW32 driver was designed to imitate POSIX terminal
I/O data types to simplify integration with the existing
sources.</p>
<p>The newer Windows driver did not integrate with the
sources in the same way. In particular, the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html">reset</a> utility was
incomplete.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Windows Terminal support for Console API is incomplete,
lacking mouse support. Additionally, its developers took a
few years to resolve issues with carriage-return versus
line-feed translation.</p>
<p>Reflecting on these problems, both MinGW and Windows
drivers are still provided in ncurses through the current
release.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The two drivers are similar, but in developing the Windows
driver some renaming and refactoring was done. That resulted
in duplicate source files. This release eliminates the
duplication.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>These improvements have been made to the terminal driver:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>made <tt>win_driver.c</tt> obsolete in favor of
<tt>win32_driver.c</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>made <tt>win32_curses.h</tt> obsolete in favor of
<tt>nc_win32.h</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>added configure check for Win32 named pipes feature, using
that to make <tt>nc_mingw.h</tt> obsolete in favor of
<tt>nc_win32.h</tt></p>
</li>
<li>separated the <tt>_NC_WINDOWS</tt> platform macro into
<tt>_NC_WINDOWS_NATIVE</tt>, for MinGW and other native Win32
support, and <tt>_NC_WINDOWS</tt>, to make some Win32 features
available under the Cygwin runtime, in this case the
term-driver.</li>
<li>
<p>modified MinGW32 configuration to account for its use of
Windows-style pathnames in filesystem checks.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>changed <tt>MS_TERMINAL</tt> symbol to
<tt>DEFAULT_TERM_VAR</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>updated <tt>ncurses/wcwidth.c</tt>, for MinGW ports, from
xterm.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>made fixes for reading Unicode characters in MinGW/Windows
port</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improved Windows driver by restoring the scroll buffer and
console mode, e.g., when <tt>reset_prog_mode</tt> or
<tt>endwin</tt> is called</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>simplified include for <tt>wchar.h</tt> in Windows port by
removing the platform ifdef's</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modified driver for MinGW to handle shift-tab and
control-tab as back-tab</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>made fixes for port using clang-cl or cl MSVC</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h4><a name="h4-fixes-library" id="h4-fixes-library">Other
improvements</a></h4>
<p>These are improvements to existing features:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>add comments to generated <tt>term.h</tt> to hint the
configure options used</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>change scope of <tt>TTY</tt>, <tt>GET_TTY</tt> and
<tt>SET_TTY</tt> to ncurses-internals</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improved mouse driver</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>modify <tt>handle_wheel</tt> case 2 to ignore the
event as in case 1 for mouse version 1, since that
corresponds to a button 6 or 7 event which is not
supported with ABI 6.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>use separate read/write pointers in the mouse event
queue to work with too-close events for the
click-detection to work reliably, and further improve
that in case <tt>mouseinterval(0)</tt> is used to
suppress click-detection.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify treatment of <em>“n”</em> parameter for
<tt>waddnstr</tt>, <tt>waddnwstr</tt>, and
<tt>wins_nwstr</tt> to return <em>OK</em> when
<em>“n”</em> is zero, for consistency with other
implementations</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <tt>wattron</tt>/<tt>wattroff</tt> calls in
<tt>form/m_post.c</tt> to call <tt>wattr_on</tt> and
<tt>wattr_off</tt> to omit cast used in the former for X/Open
compatibility</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>change <tt>winwstr</tt> to a generated function, using the
macro definition, moving its handling of negative length
parameter into <tt>winnwstr</tt>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>change <tt>winwstr</tt> to return wide character count
instead of <em>OK</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>disallow directories and block/character devices in
safe-open.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>amend <tt>scr_restore</tt> and <tt>scr_init</tt> to remove
the target window only after validating the source window
which will replace the target</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <tt>_nc_flush</tt> to also flush <em>stderr</em> to
help the <em>flash</em> capability to work in
<tt>bash</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>trim padding from <em>sgr</em> expression used in
<tt>trim_sgr0</tt>, to avoid copying the padding into the
resulting sgr0</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <tt>misc/Makefile.in</tt> and
<tt>misc/run_tic.in</tt> so that <tt>$DESTDIR</tt> is set and
used only in the makefile.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <tt>MKfallback.sh</tt> to eliminate
<tt>TERMINFO</tt> environment variable.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <tt>-x</tt> option to <tt>infocmp</tt> in
<tt>MKfallback.sh</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>limit value from <tt>ESCDELAY</tt> environment variable to
30 seconds, like other delay limits.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>limit values from <tt>LINES</tt> and <tt>COLUMNS</tt>
environment variables to 512</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>added check in <tt>wresize</tt> for out-of-range
dimensions</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improved error-handling in c++ binding</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improved error-reporting in <tt>write_entry.c</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>amended limit used in <tt>alloc_pair</tt>, by applying an
adjustment for default colors only when the maximum number of
color pairs is greater than the maximum number of colors</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>added limit-checks in <tt>alloc_entry.c</tt> and
<tt>alloc_ttype.c</tt> to avoid indexing errors when using
<tt>infocmp</tt> to compare all capabilities when processing
a malformed terminfo binary which has a valid header</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>added a null pointer check in mouse-initialization, for
the Windows driver</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>added some null-pointer checks after <tt>malloc</tt>s in
test-programs.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>These are corrections to existing features:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>removed test in <tt>wgetch</tt> which applied
<tt>notimeout</tt> to the initial read of a character</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>added check for special case of <tt>wcrtomb</tt>
converting a single byte code to a different single byte
code, which glibc does for code 160 in the KOI8-R
encoding</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>corrected <tt>_nc_to_char</tt> for the case when
<tt>wctob</tt> is not found by configure script</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>revised loop in <tt>wins_nwstr</tt>, to ensure that
non-spacing characters are combined with the base spacing
character</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modified checks in <tt>delwin</tt> to avoid checking if
the window is a pad until first checking if it is still on
the active window-list</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3><a name="h3-programs" id="h3-programs">Program
improvements</a></h3>
<h4><a name="h4-utilities">Utilities</a></h4>
<p>Several improvements were made to the
utility programs.</p>
<dl>
<dt><span class="part-name"><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/infocmp.1m.html">infocmp</a></span>
</dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>
<p>improved <tt>infocmp</tt> <tt>-E</tt>/<tt>-e</tt>
fallback feature</p>
<ul>
<li>prefix names with “<tt>ti_</tt>” if
they begin with a digit, e.g., 9term</li>
<li>escape backslashes and double-quotes in description
fields</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>modified <tt>infocmp</tt> <tt>-E</tt>/<tt>-e</tt>
fallback feature to reduce stricter compiler warnings for
the extended capability data.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modified <tt>infocmp</tt> and <tt>tabs</tt> to use
actual name in usage and header.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improved error-message from <tt>infocmp</tt> when a
terminal entry cannot be opened</p>
</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name"><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html">tic</a></span>
</dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>
<p>increased limit on use-clauses from 32 to 40, warn but
allow entries which exceed the old limit.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>added check for infinite loop in <tt>tic</tt>'s
use-resolution.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>added a buffer-limit check in
<tt>postprocess_termcap</tt></p>
</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name"><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1m.html">tput</a></span>
</dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Warn about capabilities which expect parameters where
none are given. Also, repair the feature where multiple
capabilities can be handled on a single line.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</dd>
</dl>
<h4><a name="h4-examples" id="h4-examples">Examples</a></h4>
<p>Along with the library and utilities, improvements were made
to the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>add help-popup for <tt>test_instr.c</tt>,
<tt>test_inwstr.c</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add options to <tt>test/worm.c</tt> for benchmarking.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve <tt>-t</tt> option of <tt>test/gdc.c</tt>,
allowing hours only, or hours and minutes only.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>correct dimensions in <tt>test/popup_msg.c</tt>, fixing an
overrun.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <tt>test/demo_keyok.c</tt> to accept <tt>^Q</tt>
for quit, for consistency.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add option “<tt>-c</tt>” to test programs to
illustrate a non-blank character in the window background
property.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>reserve <tt>-c</tt>/<tt>-l</tt> options in
<tt>test/*.c</tt> for command/logging like <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/vttest/">vttest</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>There is one new demo/test program:</p>
<dl>
<dt><span class=
"part-name"><em>ncurses/report_ctype.c</em></span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>Shows a chart of the first 256 character codes, which are
not as consistent across platforms for ctype versus wctype as
some suppose.</p>
</dd>
</dl>
<h3><a name="h3-database" id="h3-database">Terminal database</a></h3>
<p>There are several new terminal descriptions:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ghostty"><tt>ghostty</tt></a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-illumos"><tt>illumos</tt></a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-sun-16color"><tt>sun-16color</tt></a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-sun-256color"><tt>sun-256color</tt></a>,
and <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-sun-direct"><tt>sun-direct</tt></a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ms-terminal-direct"><tt>ms-terminal-direct</tt></a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-pangoterm"><tt>pangoterm</tt></a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-rlogin-color"><tt>rlogin-color</tt></a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-sclp"><tt>sclp</tt></a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt520-w"><tt>vt520-w</tt></a>
and <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt525-w"><tt>vt525-w</tt></a></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>along with building blocks</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-linux_lockeys"><tt>linux+lockeys</tt></a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_r5_lockeys"><tt>xterm+r5+lockeys</tt></a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_r5_fkeys"><tt>xterm+r5+fkeys</tt></a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt100_pf1-pf4"><tt>vt100+pf1-pf4</tt></a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt220_ufkeys"><tt>vt220+ufkeys</tt></a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt220_sfkeys"><tt>vt220+sfkeys</tt></a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ecma_standout"><tt>ecma+standout</tt></a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ecma_underline"><tt>ecma+underline</tt></a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-wyse+cvis"><tt>wyse+cvis</tt></a></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some
were updates to several descriptions, using the
<code>infocmp</code> “<code>-u</code>” option in a
script to determine which <em>building-block</em> entries could
be used to replace multiple capability settings (and trim
redundant information).</p>
<p>Other changes include:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>use <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_keypad">xterm+keypad</a>
in <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-pccon_base">pccon+base</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>use <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-bracketed_paste">bracketed+paste</a>
in <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-nsterm">nsterm</a>,
<a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-rlogin-color">rlogin-color</a>,
<a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-screen">screen</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-terminology">terminology</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>use extended-keys in <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-djgpp">djgpp</a> 2.05</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>update/correct some of the rv/xr strings, checked with</p>
<p><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">tack</a></p>
<ul>
<li>add rv code for <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-alacritty">alacritty</a></li>
<li>add xr code for <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-putty">putty</a></li>
<li>add rv/xr codes for <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-domterm">domterm</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-mintty">mintty</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-mlterm">mlterm</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-contour">contour</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ghostty">ghostty</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-iterm2">iterm2</a>,
<a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-kitty">kitty</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-konsole">konsole</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vscode">vscode</a>,
<a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vte">vte</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-wezterm">wezterm</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve use-clauses: <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ansi_cup">ansi+cup</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ansi_idl1">ansi+idl1</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ansi_rca">ansi+rca</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ansi_rca2">ansi+rca2</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ansi_sgrso">ansi+sgrso</a>,
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ansi_sgrul">ansi+sgrul</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-sclp">sclp</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>add kf1 to kf5</li>
<li>use <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ansi_rca">ansi+rca</a></li>
<li>use <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt220_pcedit">vt220+pcedit</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt525">vt525</a></p>
<ul>
<li>add color</li>
<li>add op</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-wezterm">wezterm</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>use <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_alt_title">xterm+alt+title</a></li>
<li>omit its broken left/right margin feature</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>update <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-contour">contour</a></li>
<li>
<p>update <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ms-terminal">ms-terminal</a></p>
<ul>
<li>add XM/xm to ms-terminal, to enable mouse with
experimental Windows driver</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>update <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-st">st</a> to 0.8.5</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>update <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-teraterm">teraterm</a> to
5.0</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>update <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-foot">foot</a> to
1.18.1</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>update <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-iterm2">iTerm2</a> to
3.5.0</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3><a name="h3-documentation" id=
"h3-documentation">Documentation</a></h3>
<p>As usual, this release</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>improves documentation by describing new features,</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>attempts to improve the description of features which
users have found confusing</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>fills in overlooked descriptions of features which were
described in the <a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html">NEWS</a> file
but treated sketchily in manual pages.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>In addition to providing background information to explain
these features and show how they evolved, there are corrections,
clarifications, etc.:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Corrections:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>corrected note about box() in curs_border.3x</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>added note on scrolling and lower-right corner to
waddch and wadd_wch manual pages.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Other improvements:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>This release has many changes to improve the
formatting and style of the man pages.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Table layout in the man pages has been revised.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/howto/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html">ncurses
HOWTO</a> and its sample programs has been updated.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>There are no new manual pages (all of the manual page updates
are to existing pages).</p>
<h3><a name="h3-bug-fixes" id="h3-bug-fixes">Interesting
bug-fixes</a></h3>
<h3><a name="h3-config-config" id=
"h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a></h3>
<h4><a name="h4-config-major" id="h4-config-major">Major
changes</a></h4>
<p>Improvements made to configure checks include</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>improve configure check for “install”.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add check for build-time utilities, in case
cross-compiling is setup with an invalid
<tt>$BUILD_CC</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add configure check for <tt><sys/fsuid.h></tt>,
which may be needed for flatpacks</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add a consistency-check for termio(s)/tty headers, to help
with cross-compiles</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify configure check for
<tt>MAKEFLAGS</tt>/<tt>MFLAGS</tt> to ignore existing value
of these environment variables</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve configurability of <tt>alloca</tt> as used in
Windows ports.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify configure script checks for <tt>stdbool.h</tt> to
fix build with older gcc version.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <new> to the possible headers declaring the C++
<tt>std::bad_alloc</tt>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify check for <tt>stdbool.h</tt> to be more
conservative in case the headers are used with a compiler
other than that which was used to configure</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>remove dependency on <tt>stdbool.h</tt> from configure
script check for type of <em>bool</em> when C++ binding is
omitted.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h4><a name="h4-config-options" id=
"h4-config-options">Configuration options</a></h4>
<p>There are a few new configure options:</p>
<dl>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/INSTALL.html#option:enable-install-prefix"><tt>--enable-install-prefix</tt></a>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>Modify behavior of <tt>$DESTDIR</tt> to merge or replace
the value set by <tt>--prefix</tt>.</p>
</dd>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/INSTALL.html#option:enable-named-pipes"><tt>--enable-named-pipes</tt></a>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>The Windows driver uses named pipes for communicating with
a pseudo console, allowing it to use escape sequences rather
than Console API. This works well with mintty. On the
downside, this feature may not work well with the Windows
Terminal due to a longstanding bug in <tt>conhost.exe</tt>
(<a href=
"https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/9461">#9461</a>).</p>
</dd>
</dl>
<p>These configure options are modified:</p>
<dl>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/INSTALL.html#option:enable-exp-win32"><tt>--enable-exp-win32</tt></a>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>This option is obsolete, replaced by
<tt>--enable-named-pipes</tt>.</p>
</dd>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/INSTALL.html#option:enable-term-driver"><tt>--enable-term-driver</tt></a>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>This is enabled by default on platforms where the Windows
driver can be compiled, e.g., Cygwin, MinGW32 and MSYS2.</p>
</dd>
</dl>
<h4><a name="h4-config-package" id="h4-config-package">Package
configuration scripts</a></h4>
<p>The configure script and makefiles optionally generate a
script which reports the compiler and linker options needed to
build a program with ncurses, as well as a data file which is
used via pkg-config for the same purpose. Several improvements
were made for these scripts:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>improved filtering of <tt>-L</tt> options in
<tt>misc/gen-pkgconfig.in</tt> and in
<tt>misc/ncurses-config.in</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modified <tt>ncurses*-config</tt> to add <tt>-I</tt>
option in <tt>--cflag</tt> where needed for
<tt>--disable-overwrite</tt> to match ".pc" files.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>suppressed <tt>-g</tt> and <tt>-fXXX</tt> flags from
<tt>CFLAGS</tt> in <tt>misc/ncurses-config.in</tt></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modified configure script to allow for <tt>pkg-config</tt>
using DOS/Windows pathname syntax</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modified <tt>misc/ncurses-config.in</tt>, improved match
with <tt>pkg-config output</tt>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>adjusted naming of test packages for MinGW
<tt>*-config</tt> scripts to match the <tt>pkg-config</tt>
names</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>added <tt>--cflags-only-I</tt> and
<tt>--cflags-only-other</tt> options to
<tt>misc/ncurses-config.in</tt></p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3><a name="h3-portability" id="h3-portability">Portability</a></h3>
<p>Many of the portability changes are implemented via the
configure script:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>disallow configure options which apply only to multiuser
systems, to improve ports to single-user systems such as
Haiku</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add warning to configure script to address conflict
between the <tt>--enable-lp64</tt> option and the options for
overriding the types used for <tt>chtype</tt> and
<tt>mmask_t</tt>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify configure script cases for $host_os, to accommodate
64-bit big-endian POWER Linux with glibc</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify configure script and misc/Makefile to accept glob
expressions that include Windows/DOS drive-letters</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>change <tt>Ada95/configure</tt> to use
<tt>--with-screen</tt> option rather than
<tt>--enable-widec</tt>, to provide more choices of
underlying curses library.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify configure script to work around broken gnatgcc
script found in gcc-13 builds.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Other portability fixes include:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>improve pattern used for configure
<tt>--with-xterm-kbs</tt> option.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify recursive make rules to avoid interference with GNU
make's "-j" option</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>when installing the terminfo database, check if symbolic
links are supported before attemping to link lib/terminfo
from share/terminfo</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve logic in misc/run_tic.in for constructing symbolic
link when <tt>$DESTDIR</tt> is set.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>build-fix for ncurses-examples with newer PDCurses, which
no longer has stubs for unimplemented features.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>change <tt>etip.h.in</tt> to include either/both of
<tt><new></tt> and <tt><exception></tt>, needed
for another old BSD.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>correct conditional-compile for a case when the C compiler
does not have a bool type.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve <tt>MKlib_gen.sh</tt> handling of
“bool” type, for building link_test.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <tt>ncurses/tinfo/MKfallback.sh</tt> to work with
MacOS <tt>sed</tt>, which lacks BSD-style <tt>\<</tt> and
<tt>\></tt>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <tt>MKlib_gen.c</tt> to allow for Solaris's
definition of <tt>NULL</tt> as <tt>0L</tt>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>widen pattern in pc/*-config scripts to disallow more
linker options.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>avoid redefining bool in <tt>curses.h</tt> if the platform
already supports that type.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>move include <tt><curses.h></tt> from
<tt>etip.h.in</tt> to <tt>cursesw.h</tt>, to work around
breakage in Apple's port of ncurses.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h2><a name="h2-features" id="h2-features">Features of
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a></h2>
<p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> package is fully
upward-compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>All of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are
documented).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> supports the
features of SVr4 curses including keyboard mapping, color,
form drawing with ACS characters, and automatic recognition
of keypad and function keys.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> provides work-alike
replacements of SVr4 supplemental libraries based on curses,
but which were not specified by X/Open Curses:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>the panel library, permitting windows to stack and
overlap</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the menu library, supporting a uniform but flexible
interface for menu programming</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the form library, supporting data collection through
on-screen forms</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span>'s terminal database
is fully compatible with that used by SVr4 curses.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> supports
user-defined capabilities that it can see, but which are
hidden from SVr4 curses applications using the
<em>same</em> terminal database.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>It can be optionally configured to match the format
used in related systems such as AIX and Tru64.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Alternatively, <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
can be configured to use hashed databases rather than the
directory of files used by SVr4 curses.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> utilities have
options to allow you to filter terminfo entries for use with
less capable <em>curses</em>/<em>terminfo</em> versions such
as the HP-UX and AIX ports.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> package also has
many useful extensions over SVr4:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the
X/Open Curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it
implements all <em>BASE</em> level features, and almost all
<em>EXTENDED</em> 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).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Unlike SVr3 curses, <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if
your terminal has an insert-character capability.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Ada95 and C++ bindings.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and
FreeBSD and OS/2 console windows.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm
package.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The function <code>wresize</code> allows you to resize
windows, preserving their data.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The function <code>use_default_colors</code> allows you to
use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair,
achieving the effect of transparent colors.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The functions <code>keyok</code> and
<code>define_key</code> allow you to better control the use
of function keys, e.g., disabling the <span class=
"main-name">ncurses</span> KEY_MOUSE, or by defining more
than one control sequence to map to a given key code.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Support for direct-color terminals, such as modern
xterm.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Support for 16-color terminals, such as <em>aixterm</em>
and <em>modern xterm</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now
features a cursor-local-movement computation more efficient
than either BSD's or System V's.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>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
<code>quickch</code> routine.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>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.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>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).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html"><span class=
"part-name">tic</span></a>/<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo</a> utility
provided with <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> has the
ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and
AT&T extension sets.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A BSD-like <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html"><span class=
"part-name">tset</span></a> utility is provided.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 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.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>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.)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>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.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The table-of-entries utility <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html"><span class=
"part-name">toe</span></a> makes it easy for users to see
exactly what terminal types are available on the system.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>X/Open Curses permits most functions it specifies to be
made available as macros as well. ncurses does this</p>
<ul>
<li>to improve performance, e.g., for operations composed
of simpler functions such as cursor movement following by
adding text to the screen,</li>
<li>to simplify the implementation by reusing functions
which use common parameters, e.g., the standard screen
<code>stdscr</code>, and</li>
<li>to provide functions that return values via their
parameters</li>
</ul>
<p>Except for the last case, ncurses provides a non-macro
implementation of the function. If the macro definition is
disabled with <code>#undef</code>, or by defining
<code>NCURSES_NOMACROS</code> the function may be linked (and
its calls will be checked against the prototype).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Extensive documentation is provided (see the <em><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#additional_reading">Additional
Reading</a></em> section of the <em><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html"><span class=
"main-name">ncurses</span> FAQ</a></em> for online
documentation).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2><a name="h2-who-uses" id="h2-who-uses">Applications using
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a></h2>
<p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> distribution
includes a selection of test programs (including a few games).
These are available separately as <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a></p>
<p>The ncurses library has been tested with a wide variety of
applications including:</p>
<blockquote>
<dl>
<dt><span class="part-name">aptitude</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>FrontEnd to Apt, the debian package manager</p>
<p><a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude">https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">cdk</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>Curses Development Kit</p>
<p><a href="https://invisible-island.net/cdk/">https://invisible-island.net/cdk/</a><br>
</p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">ded</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>directory-editor</p>
<p><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ded/">https://invisible-island.net/ded/</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">dialog</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>the underlying application used in Slackware's setup,
and the basis for similar install/configure applications on
many systems.</p>
<p><a href="https://invisible-island.net/dialog/">https://invisible-island.net/dialog/</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">lynx</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>the text WWW browser</p>
<p><a href=
"https://lynx.invisible-island.net/">https://lynx.invisible-island.net/</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">mutt</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>mail utility</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mutt.org/">http://www.mutt.org/</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">ncftp</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>file-transfer utility</p>
<p><a href=
"https://www.ncftp.com/">https://www.ncftp.com/</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">nvi</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>New vi uses ncurses.</p>
<p><a href=
"https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/the-berkeley-vi-editor-home-page">
https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/the-berkeley-vi-editor-home-page</a><br>
</p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">ranger</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>A console file manager with VI key bindings in
<em>Python</em>.</p>
<p><a href=
"https://ranger.github.io/">https://ranger.github.io/</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">tin</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>newsreader, supporting color, MIME</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tin.org/">http://www.tin.org/</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">vifm</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>File manager with vi like keybindings</p>
<p><a href="https://vifm.info/">https://vifm.info/</a></p>
</dd>
</dl>
</blockquote>
<p>as well as some that use <span class=
"main-name">ncurses</span> for the terminfo support alone:</p>
<blockquote>
<dl>
<dt><span class="part-name">minicom</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>terminal emulator for serial modem connections</p>
<p><a href=
"https://salsa.debian.org/minicom-team/minicom">https://salsa.debian.org/minicom-team/minicom</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">mosh</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>a replacement for <code>ssh</code>.</p>
<p><a href="https://mosh.org/">https://mosh.org/</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">tack</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>terminfo action checker</p>
<p><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">tmux</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>terminal multiplexor</p>
<p><a href=
"https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki">https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">vile</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p><em>vi-like-emacs</em> may be built to use the terminfo,
termcap or curses interfaces.</p>
<p><a href="https://invisible-island.net/vile/">https://invisible-island.net/vile/</a></p>
</dd>
</dl>
</blockquote>
<p>and finally, those which use only the termcap interface:</p>
<blockquote>
<dl>
<dt><span class="part-name">emacs</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>text editor</p>
<p><a href=
"https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">less</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>The most commonly used <em>pager</em> (a program that
displays text files).</p>
<p><a href=
"http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/">http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">screen</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>terminal multiplexor</p>
<p><a href=
"https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/">https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/</a></p>
</dd>
<dt><span class="part-name">vim</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<p>text editor</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vim.org/">https://www.vim.org/</a></p>
</dd>
</dl>
</blockquote>
<h2><a name="h2-development" id="h2-development">Development
activities</a></h2>
<p>Zeyd Ben-Halim started <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
from a previous package pcurses, written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S.
Raymond continued development. Jürgen Pfeifer wrote most of
the form and menu libraries.</p>
<p>Ongoing development work is done by <a href=
"mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net">Thomas E. Dickey</a>. Thomas
E. Dickey has acted as the maintainer for the Free Software
Foundation, which held a <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html">copyright on ncurses</a> 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 <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#relicensed">ncurses FAQ</a> for
additional information).</p>
<p>Contact the current maintainers at</p>
<blockquote>
<a href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">bug-ncurses@gnu.org</a>
</blockquote>
<p>To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to</p>
<blockquote>
<a href=
"mailto:bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org">bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org</a>
</blockquote>
containing the line:
<blockquote>
<p><code>subscribe</code>
<em><name>@<host.domain></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the
development and testing of this package.</p>
<p>Beta versions of <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> are
made available at</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/current/">https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/current/</a>
and<br>
<a href=
"https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/</a> .</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Patches to the current release are made available at</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/6.5/">https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/6.5/</a>
and<br>
<a href=
"https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.5/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.5/</a> .</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is an archive of the mailing list here:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
"https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses">https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses</a> .</p>
</blockquote>
<h2><a name="h2-this-stuff" id="h2-this-stuff">Related
resources</a></h2>
<p>The release notes make scattered references to these pages,
which may be interesting by themselves:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html"><span class=
"main-name">ncurses</span> licensing</a></li>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html">Symbol versioning
in <span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a></li>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-slang.html">Comments on
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span> versus <span class=
"main-name">slang</span> (S-Lang)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-openbsd.html">Comments on
<span class="main-name">OpenBSD</span></a></li>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">tack – terminfo action
checker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html">tctest – termcap
library checker</a></li>
<li><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.html#download_database">Terminal
Database</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><a name="h2-other-stuff" id="h2-other-stuff">Other
resources</a></h2>
<p>The distribution provides a newer version of the
terminfo-format terminal description file once maintained by
<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/">Eric
Raymond</a> . 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.</p>
<p>You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
not covered in the terminfo file in <a href=
"https://shuford.invisible-island.net/">Richard Shuford's
archive</a> (<a href=
"http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal">original</a>).
The collection of computer manuals at <a href=
"http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/">bitsavers.org</a> has also been
useful.</p>
<div class="nav">
<ul>
<li><a href="#h2-overview">Overview</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#h2-release-notes">Release Notes</a>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#h3-library">Library improvements</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#h4-term-driver">Terminal driver</a></li>
<li><a href="#h4-fixes-library">Other
improvements</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#h3-programs">Program improvements</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#h4-utilities">Utilities</a></li>
<li><a href="#h4-examples">Examples</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#h3-database">Terminal database</a></li>
<li><a href="#h3-documentation">Documentation</a></li>
<li><a href="#h3-bug-fixes">Interesting bug-fixes</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#h4-config-major">Major changes</a></li>
<li><a href="#h4-config-options">Configuration
options</a></li>
<li><a href="#h4-config-package">Package
scripts</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#h3-portability">Portability</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#h2-features">Features of <span class=
"main-name">ncurses</span></a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-who-uses">Applications using <span class=
"main-name">ncurses</span></a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-development">Development activities</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-this-stuff">Related resources</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-other-stuff">Other resources</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</body>
</html>
|
