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Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +010028-- $Id: INSTALL,v 1.187 2015/07/16 23:59:08 tom Exp $
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +053029---------------------------------------------------------------------
30 How to install Ncurses/Terminfo on your system
31---------------------------------------------------------------------
32
33 ************************************************************
34 * READ ALL OF THIS FILE BEFORE YOU TRY TO INSTALL NCURSES. *
35 ************************************************************
36
37You should be reading the file INSTALL in a directory called ncurses-d.d, where
38d.d is the current version number. There should be several subdirectories,
39including `c++', `form', `man', `menu', 'misc', `ncurses', `panel', `progs',
40and `test'. See the README file for a roadmap to the package.
41
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +010042If you are a distribution integrator or packager, please read and act on the
43section titled IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR below.
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +053044
45If you are converting from BSD curses and do not have root access, be sure
46to read the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below.
47
48If you are trying to build applications using gpm with ncurses,
49read the USING NCURSES WITH GPM section below.
50
51If you are running over the Andrew File System see the note below on
52USING NCURSES WITH AFS.
53
54If you are cross-compiling, see the note below on BUILDING NCURSES WITH A
55CROSS-COMPILER.
56
57If you want to build the Ada95 binding, go to the Ada95 directory and
58follow the instructions there. The Ada95 binding is not covered below.
59
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +053060
61REQUIREMENTS:
62------------
63
64You will need the following to build and install ncurses under UNIX:
65
66 * ANSI C compiler (gcc, for instance)
67 * sh (bash will do)
68 * awk (mawk or gawk will do)
69 * sed
70 * BSD or System V style install (a script is enclosed)
71
72Ncurses has been also built in the OS/2 EMX environment.
73
74
75INSTALLATION PROCEDURE:
76----------------------
77
781. First, decide whether you want ncurses to replace your existing library (in
79 which case you'll need super-user privileges) or be installed in parallel
80 with it.
81
82 The --prefix option to configure changes the root directory for installing
83 ncurses. The default is normally in subdirectories of /usr/local, except
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +010084 for systems where ncurses is normally installed as a system library (see
85 "IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR"). Use --prefix=/usr to replace your
86 default curses distribution.
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +053087
88 The package gets installed beneath the --prefix directory as follows:
89
90 In $(prefix)/bin: tic, infocmp, captoinfo, tset,
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +010091 reset, clear, tput, toe, tabs
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +053092 In $(prefix)/lib: libncurses*.* libcurses.a
93 In $(prefix)/share/terminfo: compiled terminal descriptions
94 In $(prefix)/include: C header files
95 Under $(prefix)/man: the manual pages
96
97 Note that the configure script attempts to locate previous installation of
98 ncurses, and will set the default prefix according to where it finds the
99 ncurses headers.
100
101 Do not use commands such as
102
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100103 make install prefix=XXX
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530104
105 to change the prefix after configuration, since the prefix value is used
106 for some absolute pathnames such as TERMINFO. Instead do this
107
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100108 make install DESTDIR=XXX
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530109
110 See also the discussion of --with-install-prefix.
111
1122. Type `./configure' in the top-level directory of the distribution to
113 configure ncurses for your operating system and create the Makefiles.
114 Besides --prefix, various configuration options are available to customize
115 the installation; use `./configure --help' to list the available options.
116
117 If your operating system is not supported, read the PORTABILITY section in
118 the file ncurses/README for information on how to create a configuration
119 file for your system.
120
121 The `configure' script generates makefile rules for one or more object
122 models and their associated libraries:
123
124 libncurses.a (normal)
125
126 libcurses.a (normal, a link to libncurses.a)
127 This gets left out if you configure with --disable-overwrite.
128
129 libncurses.so (shared)
130
131 libncurses_g.a (debug)
132
133 libncurses_p.a (profile)
134
135 libncurses.la (libtool)
136
137 If you configure using the --enable-widec option, a "w" is appended to the
138 library names (e.g., libncursesw.a), and the resulting libraries support
139 wide-characters, e.g., via a UTF-8 locale. The corresponding header files
140 are compatible with the non-wide-character configuration; wide-character
141 features are provided by ifdef's in the header files. The wide-character
142 library interfaces are not binary-compatible with the non-wide-character
143 version. Building and running the wide-character code relies on a fairly
144 recent implementation of libiconv. We have built this configuration on
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100145 various systems using libiconv, sometimes requiring libutf8.
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530146
147 If you configure using the --with-pthread option, a "t" is appended to
148 the library names (e.g., libncursest.a, libncursestw.a).
149
150 If you do not specify any models, the normal and debug libraries will be
151 configured. Typing `configure' with no arguments is equivalent to:
152
153 ./configure --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
154
155 Typing
156
157 ./configure --with-shared
158
159 makes the shared libraries the default, resulting in
160
161 ./configure --with-shared --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite
162
163 If you want only shared libraries, type
164
165 ./configure --with-shared --without-normal --without-debug
166
167 Rules for generating shared libraries are highly dependent upon the choice
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100168 of host system and compiler. We've been testing shared libraries on
169 several systems, but more work needs to be done to make shared libraries
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530170 work on other systems.
171
172 If you have libtool installed, you can type
173
174 ./configure --with-libtool
175
176 to generate the appropriate static and/or shared libraries for your
177 platform using libtool.
178
179 You can make curses and terminfo fall back to an existing file of termcap
180 definitions by configuring with --enable-termcap. If you do this, the
181 library will search /etc/termcap before the terminfo database, and will
182 also interpret the contents of the TERM environment variable. See the
183 section BSD CONVERSION NOTES below.
184
1853. Type `make'. Ignore any warnings, no error messages should be produced.
186 This should compile the ncurses library, the terminfo compiler tic(1),
187 captoinfo(1), infocmp(1), toe(1), clear(1) tset(1), reset(1), and tput(1)
188 programs (see the manual pages for explanation of what they do), some test
189 programs, and the panels, menus, and forms libraries.
190
1914. Run ncurses and several other test programs in the test directory to
192 verify that ncurses functions correctly before doing an install that
193 may overwrite system files. Read the file test/README for details on
194 the test programs.
195
196 NOTE: You must have installed the terminfo database, or set the
197 environment variable $TERMINFO to point to a SVr4-compatible terminfo
198 database before running the test programs. Not all vendors' terminfo
199 databases are SVr4-compatible, but most seem to be. Exceptions include
200 DEC's Digital Unix (formerly known as OSF/1).
201
202 If you run the test programs WITHOUT installing terminfo, ncurses may
203 read the termcap file and cache that in $HOME/.terminfo, which will
204 thereafter be used instead of the terminfo database. See the comments
205 on "--enable-getcap-cache", to see why this is a Bad Thing.
206
207 It is possible to configure ncurses to use other terminfo database formats.
208 A few are provided as examples in the include-directory (see --with-caps).
209
210 The ncurses program is designed specifically to test the ncurses library.
211 You can use it to verify that the screen highlights work correctly, that
212 cursor addressing and window scrolling works OK, etc.
213
2145. Once you've tested, you can type `make install' to install libraries,
215 the programs, the terminfo database and the manual pages. Alternately, you
216 can type `make install' in each directory you want to install. In the
217 top-level directory, you can do a partial install using these commands:
218
219 'make install.progs' installs tic, infocmp, etc...
220 'make install.includes' installs the headers.
221 'make install.libs' installs the libraries (and the headers).
222 'make install.data' installs the terminfo data. (Note: `tic' must
223 be installed before the terminfo data can be
224 compiled).
225 'make install.man' installs the manual pages.
226
227 ############################################################################
228 # CAVEAT EMPTOR: `install.data' run as root will NUKE any existing #
229 # terminfo database. If you have any custom or unusual entries SAVE them #
230 # before you install ncurses. I have a file called terminfo.custom for #
231 # this purpose. Don't forget to run tic on the file once you're done. #
232 ############################################################################
233
234 The terminfo(5) manual page must be preprocessed with tbl(1) before
235 being formatted by nroff(1). Modern man(1) implementations tend to do
236 this by default, but you may want to look at your version's manual page
237 to be sure. You may also install the manual pages after preprocessing
238 with tbl(1) by specifying the configure option --with-manpage-tbl.
239
240 If the system already has a curses library that you need to keep using
241 you'll need to distinguish between it and ncurses. See the discussion of
242 --disable-overwrite. If ncurses is installed outside the standard
243 directories (/usr/include and /usr/lib) then all your users will need to
244 use the -I option to compile programs and -L to link them.
245
246 If you have another curses installed in your system and you accidentally
247 compile using its curses.h you'll end up with a large number of
248 undefined symbols at link time.
249
250 IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ROOT: Change directory to the `progs' subdirectory
251 and run the `capconvert' script. This script will deduce various things
252 about your environment and use them to build you a private terminfo tree,
253 so you can use ncurses applications.
254
255 If more than one user at your site does this, the space for the duplicate
256 trees is wasted. Try to get your site administrators to install a system-
257 wide terminfo tree instead.
258
259 See the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below for a few more details.
260
2616. The c++ directory has C++ classes that are built on top of ncurses and
262 panels. You must have c++ (and its libraries) installed before you can
263 compile and run the demo.
264
265 Use --without-cxx-binding to tell configure to not build the C++ bindings
266 and demo.
267
268 If you do not have C++, you must use the --without-cxx option to tell
269 the configure script to not attempt to determine the type of 'bool'
270 which may be supported by C++. IF YOU USE THIS OPTION, BE ADVISED THAT
271 YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO COMPILE (OR RUN) NCURSES APPLICATIONS WITH C++.
272
273
274SUMMARY OF CONFIGURE OPTIONS:
275----------------------------
276
277 The configure script provides a short list of its options when you type
278
279 ./configure --help
280
281 The --help and several options are common to all configure scripts that are
282 generated with autoconf. Those are all listed before the line
283
284 --enable and --with options recognized:
285
286 The other options are specific to this package. We list them in alphabetic
287 order.
288
289 --disable-assumed-color
290 With ncurses 5.1, we introduced a new function, assume_default_colors()
291 which allows applications to specify what the default foreground and
292 background color are assumed to be. Most color applications use
293 full-screen color; but a few do not color the background. While the
294 assumed values can be overridden by invoking assume_default_colors(),
295 you may find it useful to set the assumed values to the pre-5.1
296 convention, using this configure option.
297
298 --disable-big-core
299 Assume machine has little memory. The configure script attempts to
300 determine if your machine has enough memory (about 6Mb) to compile the
301 terminfo database without writing portions to disk. Some allocators
302 return deceptive results, so you may have to override the configure
303 script. Or you may be building tic for a smaller machine.
304
305 --disable-big-strings
306 Disable compile-time optimization of predefined tables which puts
307 all of their strings into a very long string, to reduce relocation
308 overhead.
309
310 --disable-database
311 Use only built-in data. The ncurses libraries normally read terminfo
312 and termcap data from disk. You can configure ncurses to have a
313 built-in database, aka "fallback" entries. Embedded applications may
314 have no need for an external database. Some, but not all of the
315 programs are useful in this configuration, e.g., reset and tput versus
316 infocmp and tic.
317
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100318 --disable-db-install
319 Do not install the terminal database. This is used to omit features
320 for packages, as done with --without-progs.
321
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530322 --disable-ext-funcs
323 Disable function-extensions. Configure ncurses without the functions
324 that are not specified by XSI. See ncurses/modules for the exact
325 list of library modules that would be suppressed.
326
327 --disable-hashmap
328 Compile without hashmap scrolling-optimization code. This algorithm is
329 the default.
330
331 --disable-home-terminfo
332 The $HOME/.terminfo directory is normally added to ncurses' search
333 list for reading/writing terminfo entries, since that directory is
334 more likely writable than the system terminfo database. Use this
335 option to disable the feature altogether.
336
337 --disable-largefile
338 Disable compiler flags needed to use large-file interfaces.
339
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100340 --disable-lib-suffixes
341 Suppress the "w", "t" or "tw" suffixes which normally would be added
342 to the library names for the --enable-widec and --with-pthread options.
343
344 --disable-libtool-version
345 when using --with-libtool, control how the major/minor version numbers
346 are used for constructing the library name.
347
348 The default uses the -version-number feature of libtool, which makes
349 the library names compatible (though not identical) with the standard
350 build using --with-shared.
351
352 Use --disable-libtool-version to use the libtool -version-info feature.
353 This corresponds to the setting used before patch 20100515.
354
355 Starting with patch 20141115, using this option causes the configure
356 script to apply the top-level VERSION file to the ABI version used
357 for libtool.
358
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530359 --disable-leaks
360 For testing, compile-in code that frees memory that normally would not
361 be freed, to simplify analysis of memory-leaks.
362
363 Any implementation of curses must not free the memory associated with
364 a screen, since (even after calling endwin()), it must be available
365 for use in the next call to refresh(). There are also chunks of
366 memory held for performance reasons. That makes it hard to analyze
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100367 curses applications for memory leaks. To work around this, build a
368 debugging version of the ncurses library which frees those chunks
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530369 which it can, and provides the _nc_free_and_exit() function to free
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100370 the remainder and then exit. The ncurses utility and test programs
371 use this feature, e.g., via the ExitProgram() macro.
372
373 Because this lies outside of the library's intended usage, it is not
374 normally considered part of the ABI. If there were some (as yet
375 unplanned) extension which frees memory in a manner that would let the
376 library resume and reallocate memory, then that would not use a "_nc_"
377 prefix.
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530378
379 --disable-lp64
380 The header files will ignore use of the _LP64 symbol to make chtype
381 and mmask_t types 32 bits (they may be long on 64-bit hosts, for
382 compatibility with older releases).
383
384 NOTE: this is potentially an ABI change, depending on existing
385 packages. The default for this option is "disabled" for ncurses
386 ABI 5, and "enabled" for ABI 6.
387
388 --disable-macros
389 For testing, use functions rather than macros. The program will run
390 more slowly, but it is simpler to debug. This defines NCURSES_NOMACROS
391 at build time. See also the --enable-expanded option.
392
393 --disable-overwrite
394 If you are installing ncurses on a system which contains another
395 development version of curses, or which could be confused by the loader
396 for another version, we recommend that you leave out the link to
397 -lcurses. The ncurses library is always available as -lncurses.
398 Disabling overwrite also causes the ncurses header files to be
399 installed into a subdirectory, e.g., /usr/local/include/ncurses,
400 rather than the include directory. This makes it simpler to avoid
401 compile-time conflicts with other versions of curses.h
402
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100403 Putting the header files into a subdirectory assumes that applications
404 will follow the (standard) practice of including the headers with
405 reference to the subdirectory name. For instance, the normal ncurses
406 header would be included using
407
408 #include <ncurses/curses.h>
409 #include <ncurses/term.h>
410
411 while the ncursesw headers would be found this way:
412
413 #include <ncursesw/curses.h>
414 #include <ncursesw/term.h>
415
416 In either case (with or without the --disable-overwrite option),
417 almost all applications are designed to include a related set of
418 curses header files from the same directory.
419
420 Manipulating the --includedir configure option to put header files
421 directly in a subdirectory of the normal include-directory defeats
422 this, and breaks builds of portable applications. Likewise, putting
423 some headers in /usr/include, and others in a subdirectory is a good
424 way to break builds.
425
426 When configured with --disable-overwrite, the installed header files'
427 embedded #include's are adjusted to use the same style of includes
428 noted above. In particular, the unctrl.h header is included from
429 curses.h, which means that a makefile which tells the compiler to
430 include directly from the subdirectory will fail to compile correctly.
431 Without some special effort, it will either fail to compile at all,
432 or the compiler may find a different unctrl.h file.
433
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530434 --disable-relink
435 If --enable-rpath is given, the generated makefiles normally will
436 rebuild the libraries during install. Use this option to simply
437 copy whatever the linked produced.
438
439 This option is ignored if --enable-rpath is not given.
440
441 --disable-root-environ
442 Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment variables
443 are not available when running as root, or via a setuid/setgid
444 application. These are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow the
445 search path for the terminfo or termcap entry to be customized.
446
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100447 --disable-rpath-hack
448 Normally the configure script helps link libraries found in unusual
449 places by adding an rpath option to the link command. If you are
450 building packages, this feature may be redundant. Use this option
451 to suppress the feature.
452
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530453 --disable-scroll-hints
454 Compile without scroll-hints code. This option is ignored when
455 hashmap scrolling is configured, which is the default.
456
457 --disable-tic-depends
458 When building shared libraries, normally the tic library is linked to
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100459 depend upon the ncurses library (or equivalently, on the tinfo-library
460 if the --with-termlib option was given). The tic- and tinfo-library
461 ABIs do not depend on the --enable-widec option. Some packagers have
462 used this to reduce the number of library files which are packaged by
463 using only one copy of those libraries. To make this work properly,
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530464 the tic library must be built without an explicit dependency on the
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100465 underlying library (ncurses vs ncursesw, tinfo vs tinfow). Use this
466 configure option to do that.
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530467 For example
468 configure --with-ticlib --with-shared --disable-tic-depends
469
470 --disable-tparm-varargs
471 Portable programs should call tparm() using the fixed-length parameter
472 list documented in X/Open. ncurses provides varargs support for this
473 function. Use --disable-tparm-varargs to disable this support.
474
475 --enable-assertions
476 For testing, compile-in assertion code. This is used only for a few
477 places where ncurses cannot easily recover by returning an error code.
478
479 --enable-broken_linker
480 A few platforms have what we consider a broken linker: it cannot link
481 objects from an archive solely by referring to data objects in those
482 files, but requires a function reference. This configure option
483 changes several data references to functions to work around this
484 problem.
485
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100486 NOTE: With ncurses 5.1, this may not be necessary, since we are
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530487 told that some linkers interpret uninitialized global data as a
488 different type of reference which behaves as described above. We have
489 explicitly initialized all of the global data to work around the
490 problem.
491
492 --enable-bsdpad
493 Recognize BSD-style prefix padding. Some ancient BSD programs (such as
494 nethack) call tputs("50") to implement delays.
495
496 --enable-colorfgbg
497 Compile with experimental $COLORFGBG code. That environment variable
498 is set by some terminal emulators as a hint to applications, by
499 advertising the default foreground and background colors. During
500 initialization, ncurses sets color pair 0 to match this.
501
502 --enable-const
503 The curses interface as documented in XSI is rather old, in fact
504 including features that precede ANSI C. The prototypes generally do
505 not make effective use of "const". When using stricter compilers (or
506 gcc with appropriate warnings), you may see warnings about the mismatch
507 between const and non-const data. We provide a configure option which
508 changes the interfaces to use const - quieting these warnings and
509 reflecting the actual use of the parameters more closely. The ncurses
510 library uses the symbol NCURSES_CONST for these instances of const,
511 and if you have asked for compiler warnings, will add gcc's const-qual
512 warning. There will still be warnings due to subtle inconsistencies
513 in the interface, but at a lower level.
514
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100515 NOTE: configuring ncurses with this option may detract from the
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530516 portability of your applications by encouraging you to use const in
517 places where the XSI curses interface would not allow them. Similar
518 issues arise when porting to SVr4 curses, which uses const in even
519 fewer places.
520
521 --enable-echo
522 Use the option --disable-echo to make the build-log less verbose by
523 suppressing the display of the compile and link commands. This makes
524 it easier to see the compiler warnings. (You can always use "make -n"
525 to see the options that are used).
526
527 --enable-expanded
528 For testing, generate functions for certain macros to make them visible
529 as such to the debugger. See also the --disable-macros option.
530
531 --enable-ext-colors
532 Extend the cchar_t structure to allow more than 16 colors to be
533 encoded. This applies only to the wide-character (--enable-widec)
534 configuration.
535
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100536 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530537 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
538 applications which have an array of cchar_t's must be recompiled.
539
540 --enable-ext-mouse
541 Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th mouse button.
542 That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel mouse with xterm or
543 similar X terminal emulators.
544
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100545 NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary-
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530546 compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but
547 applications which have mouse mask mmask_t's must be recompiled.
548
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100549 --enable-ext-putwin
550 Modify the file-format written by putwin() to use printable text rather
551 than binary files, allowing getwin() to read screen dumps written by
552 differently-configured ncurses libraries. The extended getwin() can
553 still read binary screen dumps from the "same" configuration of
554 ncurses. This does not change the ABI (the binary interface seen by
555 calling applications).
556
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530557 --enable-getcap
558 Use the 4.4BSD getcap code if available, or a bundled version of it to
559 fetch termcap entries. Entries read in this way cannot use (make
560 cross-references to) the terminfo tree, but it is faster than reading
561 /etc/termcap.
562
563 If configured for one of the *BSD systems, this automatically uses
564 the hashed database system produced using cap_mkdb or similar tools.
565 In that case, there is no advantage in using the --enable-getcap-cache
566 option.
567
568 See also the --with-hashed-db option.
569
570 --enable-getcap-cache
571 Cache translated termcaps under the directory $HOME/.terminfo
572
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100573 NOTE: this sounds good - it makes ncurses run faster the second time.
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530574 But look where the data comes from - an /etc/termcap containing lots of
575 entries that are not up to date. If you configure with this option and
576 forget to install the terminfo database before running an ncurses
577 application, you will end up with a hidden terminfo database that
578 generally does not support color and will miss some function keys.
579
580 --enable-hard-tabs
581 Compile-in cursor-optimization code that uses hard-tabs. We would make
582 this a standard feature except for the concern that the terminfo entry
583 may not be accurate, or that your stty settings have disabled the use
584 of tabs.
585
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100586 --enable-interop
587 Compile-in experimental interop bindings. These provide generic types
588 for the form-library.
589
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530590 --enable-mixed-case
591 Controls whether the filesystem on which the terminfo database resides
592 supports mixed-case filenames (normal for UNIX, but not on other
593 systems). If you do not specify this option, the configure script
594 checks the current filesystem.
595
596 --enable-no-padding
597 Compile-in support for the $NCURSES_NO_PADDING environment variable,
598 which allows you to suppress the effect of non-mandatory padding in
599 terminfo entries. This is the default, unless you have disabled the
600 extended functions.
601
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100602 --enable-pc-files
603 If pkg-config is found (see --with-pkg-config), generate ".pc" files
604 for each of the libraries, and install them in pkg-config's library
605 directory.
606
607 --enable-pthreads-eintr
608 add logic in threaded configuration to ensure that a read(2) system
609 call can be interrupted for SIGWINCH.
610
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530611 --enable-reentrant
612 Compile experimental configuration which improves reentrant use of the
613 library by reducing global and static variables. This option is also
614 set if --with-pthread is used.
615
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100616 Enabling this option adds a "t" to the library names, except for the
617 special case when --enable-weak-symbols is also used.
618
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530619 --enable-rpath
620 Use rpath option when generating shared libraries, and (with some
621 restrictions) when linking the corresponding programs. This originally
622 (in 1997) applied mainly to systems using the GNU linker (read the
623 manpage).
624
625 More recently it is useful for systems that require special treatment
626 shared libraries in "unusual" locations. The "system" libraries reside
627 in directories which are on the loader's default search-path. While
628 you may be able to use workarounds such as the $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
629 environment variable, they do not work with setuid applications since
630 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable would be unset in that situation.
631
632 This option does not apply to --with-libtool, since libtool makes
633 extra assumptions about rpath.
634
635 --enable-safe-sprintf
636 Compile with experimental safe-sprintf code. You may consider using
637 this if you are building ncurses for a system that has neither
638 vsnprintf() or vsprintf(). It is slow, however.
639
640 --enable-sigwinch
641 Compile support for ncurses' SIGWINCH handler. If your application has
642 its own SIGWINCH handler, ncurses will not use its own. The ncurses
643 handler causes wgetch() to return KEY_RESIZE when the screen-size
644 changes. This option is the default, unless you have disabled the
645 extended functions.
646
647 --enable-signed-char
648 The term.h header declares a Booleans[] array typed "char". But it
649 stores signed values there and "char" is not necessarily signed.
650 Some packagers choose to alter the type of Booleans[] though this
651 is not strictly compatible. This option allows one to implement this
652 alteration without patching the source code.
653
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100654 --enable-sp-funcs
655 Compile-in support for extended functions which accept a SCREEN pointer,
656 reducing the need for juggling the global SP value with set_term() and
657 delscreen().
658
659 --enable-string-hacks
660 Controls whether strlcat and strlcpy may be used. The same issue
661 applies to OpenBSD's warnings about snprintf, noting that this function
662 is weakly standardized.
663
664 Aside from stifling these warnings, there is no functional improvement
665 in ncurses.
666
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530667 --enable-symlinks
668 If your system supports symbolic links, make tic use symbolic links
669 rather than hard links to save diskspace when writing aliases in the
670 terminfo database.
671
672 --enable-tcap-names
673 Compile-in support for user-definable terminal capabilities. Use the
674 -x option of tic and infocmp to treat unrecognized terminal
675 capabilities as user-defined strings. This option is the default,
676 unless you have disabled the extended functions.
677
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100678 --enable-term-driver
679 Enable experimental terminal-driver. This is currently used for the
680 MinGW port, by providing a way to substitute the low-level terminfo
681 library with different terminal drivers.
682
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530683 --enable-termcap
684 Compile in support for reading terminal descriptions from termcap if no
685 match is found in the terminfo database. See also the --enable-getcap
686 and --enable-getcap-cache options.
687
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100688 Termcap support requires run-time parsing rather than loading
689 predigested data. If you have specified --with-ticlib, then you
690 cannot have termcap support since run-time parsing is done in the
691 tic library, which is intentionally not part of normal linkage
692 dependencies.
693
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530694 --enable-warnings
695 Turn on GCC compiler warnings. There should be only a few.
696
697 --enable-weak-symbols
698 If the --with-pthread option is set, check if the compiler supports
699 weak-symbols. If it does, then name the thread-capable library without
700 the "t" (libncurses rather than libncursest), and provide for
701 dynamically loading the pthreads entrypoints at runtime. This allows
702 one to reduce the number of library files for ncurses.
703
704 --enable-wgetch-events
705 Compile with experimental wgetch-events code. See ncurses/README.IZ
706
707 --enable-widec
708 Compile with wide-character code. This makes a different version of
709 the libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so), which stores characters as
710 wide-characters,
711
712 NOTE: applications compiled with this configuration are not compatible
713 with those built for 8-bit characters. You cannot simply make a
714 symbolic link to equate libncurses.so with libncursesw.so
715
716 NOTE: the Ada95 binding may be built against either version of the the
717 ncurses library, but you must decide which: the binding installs the
718 same set of files for either version. Currently (2002/6/22) it does
719 not use the extended features from the wide-character code, so it is
720 probably better to not install the binding for that configuration.
721
722 --enable-xmc-glitch
723 Compile-in support experimental xmc (magic cookie) code.
724
725 --with-abi-version=NUM
726 Override the ABI version, which is used in shared library filenames.
727 Normally this is the same as the release version; some ports have
728 special requirements for compatibility.
729
730 This option does not affect linking with libtool, which uses the
731 release major/minor numbers.
732
733 --with-ada-compiler=CMD
734 Specify the Ada95 compiler command (default "gnatmake")
735
736 --with-ada-include=DIR
737 Tell where to install the Ada includes (default:
738 PREFIX/lib/ada/adainclude)
739
740 --with-ada-objects=DIR
741 Tell where to install the Ada objects (default: PREFIX/lib/ada/adalib)
742
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100743 --with-ada-sharedlib
744 Build a shared library for Ada95 binding, if the compiler permits.
745
746 NOTE: You must also set the --with-shared option on some platforms
747 for a successful build. You need not use this option when you set
748 --with-shared, unless you want to use the Ada shared library.
749
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530750 --with-bool=TYPE
751 If --without-cxx is specified, override the type used for the "bool"
752 declared in curses.h (normally the type is automatically chosen to
753 correspond with that in <stdbool.h>, or defaults to platform-specific
754 sizes).
755
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100756 --with-build-cpp=XXX
757 This option is provided by the same macro used for $BUILD_CC, etc.,
758 but is not directly used by ncurses.
759
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530760 --with-build-cc=XXX
761 If cross-compiling, specify a host C compiler, which is needed to
762 compile a few utilities which generate source modules for ncurses.
763 If you do not give this option, the configure script checks if the
764 $BUILD_CC variable is set, and otherwise defaults to gcc or cc.
765
766 --with-build-cflags=XXX
767 If cross-compiling, specify the host C compiler-flags. You might need
768 to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse the
769 host compiler.
770
771 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_CFLAGS rather than
772 use this option.
773
774 --with-build-cppflags=XXX
775 If cross-compiling, specify the host C preprocessor-flags. You might
776 need to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse
777 the host compiler.
778
779 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_CPPFLAGS rather than
780 use this option.
781
782 --with-build-ldflags=XXX
783 If cross-compiling, specify the host linker-flags. You might need to
784 do this if the target linker has unusual flags which confuse the host
785 compiler.
786
787 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_LDFLAGS rather than
788 use this option.
789
790 --with-build-libs=XXX
791 If cross-compiling, the host libraries. You might need to do this if
792 the target environment requires unusual libraries.
793
794 You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_LIBS rather than
795 use this option.
796
797 --with-caps=XXX
798 Specify an alternate terminfo capabilities file, which makes the
799 configure script look for "include/Caps.XXX". A few systems, e.g.,
800 AIX 4.x use the same overall file-format as ncurses for terminfo
801 data, but use different alignments within the tables to support
802 legacy applications. For those systems, you can configure ncurses
803 to use a terminfo database which is compatible with the native
804 applications.
805
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100806 --with-ccharw-max=XXX
807 Override the size of the wide-character array in cchar_t structures.
808 Changing this will alter the binary interface. This defaults to 5.
809
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530810 --with-chtype=TYPE
811 Override type of chtype, which stores the video attributes and (if
812 --enable-widec is not given) a character. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this
813 was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it may be unsigned.
814 Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility with 64-bit
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100815 executables, e.g., by setting "--with-chtype=long" (the configure
816 script supplies "unsigned").
817
818 --with-cxx-shared
819 When --with-shared is set, build libncurses++ as a shared library.
820 This implicitly relies upon building with gcc/g++, since other
821 compiler suites may have differences in the way shared libraries are
822 built. libtool by the way has similar limitations.
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530823
824 --with-database=XXX
825 Specify the terminfo source file to install. Usually you will wish
826 to install ncurses' default (misc/terminfo.src). Certain systems
827 have special requirements, e.g, OS/2 EMX has a customized terminfo
828 source file.
829
830 --with-dbmalloc
831 For testing, compile and link with Conor Cahill's dbmalloc library.
832 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
833
834 --with-debug
835 Generate debug-libraries (default). These are named by adding "_g"
836 to the root, e.g., libncurses_g.a
837
838 --with-default-terminfo-dir=XXX
839 Specify the default terminfo database directory. This is normally
840 DATADIR/terminfo, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo.
841
842 --with-dmalloc
843 For testing, compile and link with Gray Watson's dmalloc library.
844 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
845
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100846 --with-export-syms[=XXX]
847 Limit exported symbols using libtool. The configure script
848 automatically chooses an appropriate ".sym" file, which lists the
849 symbols which are part of the ABI.
850
851 --with-extra-suffix[=XXX]
852 Add the given suffix to header- and library-names to simplify
853 installing incompatible ncurses libraries, e.g., those using a
854 different ABI. The renaming affects the name of the
855 include-subdirectory if --disable-overwrite is given.
856
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530857 --with-fallbacks=XXX
858 Specify a list of fallback terminal descriptions which will be
859 compiled into the ncurses library. See CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES.
860
861 --with-gpm
862 use Alessandro Rubini's GPM library to provide mouse support on the
863 Linux console. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this introduced a dependency on
864 the GPM library.
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100865
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530866 Currently ncurses uses the dlsym() function to bind to the library at
867 runtime, so it is only necessary that the library be present when
868 ncurses is built, to obtain the filename (or soname) used in the
869 corresponding dlopen() call. If you give a value for this option,
870 e.g.,
871
872 --with-gpm=$HOME/tmp/test-gpm.so
873
874 that overrides the configure check for the soname.
875
876 See also --without-dlsym
877
878 --with-hashed-db[=XXX]
879 Use a hashed database for storing terminfo data rather than storing
880 each compiled entry in a separate binary file within a directory
881 tree.
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100882
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530883 In particular, this uses the Berkeley database 1.8.5 interface, as
884 provided by that and its successors db 2, 3, and 4. The actual
885 interface is slightly different in the successor versions of the
886 Berkeley database. The database should have been configured using
887 "--enable-compat185".
888
889 If you use this option for configuring ncurses, tic will only be able
890 to write entries in the hashed database. infocmp can still read
891 entries from a directory tree as well as reading entries from the
892 hashed database. To do this, infocmp determines whether the $TERMINFO
893 variable points to a directory or a file, and reads the directory-tree
894 or hashed database respectively.
895
896 You cannot have a directory containing both hashed-database and
897 filesystem-based terminfo entries.
898
899 Use the parameter value to give the install-prefix used for the
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100900 database, e.g.,
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530901 --with-hashed-db=/usr/local/BigBase
902 to find the corresponding include- and lib-directories under the
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100903 given directory. Alternatively, you can specify a directory leaf
904 name, e.g.,
905 --with-hashed-db=db4
906 to make the configure script look for files in a subdirectory such as
907 /usr/include/db4/db.h
908 /usr/lib/db4/libdb.so
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530909
910 See also the --enable-getcap option.
911
912 --with-install-prefix=XXX
913 Allows you to specify an alternate location for installing ncurses
914 after building it. The value you specify is prepended to the "real"
915 install location. This simplifies making binary packages. The
916 makefile variable DESTDIR is set by this option. It is also possible
917 to use
918 make install DESTDIR=XXX
919 since the makefiles pass that variable to subordinate makes.
920
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100921 NOTE: a few systems build shared libraries with fixed pathnames; this
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530922 option probably will not work for those configurations.
923
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100924 --with-lib-prefix=XXX
925 OS/2 EMX used a different naming convention from most Unix-like
926 platforms. It required that the "lib" part of a library name was
927 omitted. Newer EMX as part of eComStation does not follow that
928 convention. Use this option to override the configure script's
929 assumptions about the library-prefix. If this option is omitted, it
930 uses the original OS/2 EMX convention for that platform. Use
931 "--with-lib-prefix=lib" for the newer EMX in eComStation. Use
932 "--without-lib-prefix" to suppress it for other odd platforms.
933
934 --with-libtool[=XXX]
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530935 Generate libraries with libtool. If this option is selected, then it
936 overrides all other library model specifications. Note that libtool
937 must already be installed, uses makefile rules dependent on GNU make,
938 and does not promise to follow the version numbering convention of
939 other shared libraries on your system. However, if the --with-shared
940 option does not succeed, you may get better results with this option.
941
942 If a parameter value is given, it must be the full pathname of the
943 particular version of libtool, e.g.,
944 /usr/bin/libtool-1.2.3
945
946 It is possible to rebuild the configure script to use the automake
947 macros for libtool, e.g., AC_PROG_LIBTOOL. See the comments in
948 aclocal.m4 for CF_PROG_LIBTOOL, and ensure that you build configure
949 using the appropriate patch for autoconf from
950 http://invisible-island.net/autoconf/
951
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100952 --with-libtool-opts=XXX
953 Specify additional libtool options.
954
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530955 --with-manpage-aliases
956 Tell the configure script you wish to create entries in the
957 man-directory for aliases to manpages which list them, e.g., the
958 functions in the panel manpage. This is the default. You can disable
959 it if your man program does this. You can also disable
960 --with-manpage-symlinks to install files containing a ".so" command
961 rather than symbolic links.
962
963 --with-manpage-format=XXX
964 Tell the configure script how you would like to install man-pages. The
965 option value must be one of these: gzip, compress, BSDI, normal,
966 formatted. If you do not give this option, the configure script
967 attempts to determine which is the case.
968
969 --with-manpage-renames=XXX
970 Tell the configure script that you wish to rename the manpages while
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100971 installing. Currently the only distribution which does this is Debian.
972 The option value specifies the name of a file that lists the renamed
973 files, e.g., $srcdir/man/man_db.renames
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530974
975 --with-manpage-symlinks
976 Tell the configure script that you wish to make symbolic links in the
977 man-directory for aliases to the man-pages. This is the default, but
978 can be disabled for systems that provide this automatically. Doing
979 this on systems that do not support symbolic links will result in
980 copying the man-page for each alias.
981
982 --with-manpage-tbl
983 Tell the configure script that you with to preprocess the manpages
984 by running them through tbl to generate tables understandable by
985 nroff.
986
987 --with-mmask-t=TYPE
988 Override type of mmask_t, which stores the mouse mask. Prior to
989 ncurses 5.5, this was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it
990 may be unsigned. Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility
991 with 64-bit executables.
992
993 --with-normal
994 Generate normal (i.e., static) libraries (default).
995
996 Note: on Linux, the configure script will attempt to use the GPM
997 library via the dlsym() function call. Use --without-dlsym to disable
998 this feature, or --without-gpm, depending on whether you wish to use
999 GPM.
1000
1001 --with-ospeed=TYPE
1002 Override type of ospeed variable, which is part of the termcap
1003 compatibility interface. In termcap, this is a 'short', which works
1004 for a wide range of baudrates because ospeed is not the actual speed
1005 but the encoded value, e.g., B9600 would be a small number such as 13.
1006 However the encoding scheme originally allowed for values "only" up to
1007 38400bd. A newer set of definitions past 38400bd is not encoded as
1008 compactly, and is not guaranteed to fit into a short (see the function
1009 cfgetospeed(), which returns a speed_t for this reason). In practice,
1010 applications that required knowledge of the ospeed variable, i.e.,
1011 those using termcap, do not use the higher speeds. Your application
1012 (or system, in general) may or may not.
1013
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001014 --with-pc-suffix=SUFFIX
1015 If ".pc" files are installed, optionally add a suffix to the files
1016 and corresponding package names to separate unusual configurations.
1017 If no option value is given (or if it is "none"), no suffix is added.
1018
1019 --with-pkg-config=[DIR]
1020 Check for pkg-config, optionally specifying its path.
1021
1022 --with-pkg-config-libdir=[DIR]
1023 If pkg-config was found, override the automatic check for its library
1024 path.
1025
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301026 --with-profile
1027 Generate profile-libraries These are named by adding "_p" to the root,
1028 e.g., libncurses_p.a
1029
1030 --with-pthread
1031 Link with POSIX threads, set --enable-reentrant. The use_window() and
1032 use_screen() functions will use mutex's, allowing rudimentary support
1033 for multithreaded applications.
1034
1035 --with-rcs-ids
1036 Compile-in RCS identifiers. Most of the C files have an identifier.
1037
1038 --with-rel-version=NUM
1039 Override the release version, which may be used in shared library
1040 filenames. This consists of a major and minor version number separated
1041 by ".". Normally the major version number is the same as the ABI
1042 version; some ports have special requirements for compatibility.
1043
1044 --with-shared
1045 Generate shared-libraries. The names given depend on the system for
1046 which you are building, typically using a ".so" suffix, along with
1047 symbolic links that refer to the release version.
1048
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001049 NOTE: Unless you override the configure script by setting the $CFLAGS
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301050 environment variable, these will not be built with the -g debugging
1051 option.
1052
1053 NOTE: For some configurations, e.g., installing a new version of
1054 ncurses shared libraries on a machine which already has ncurses
1055 shared libraries, you may encounter problems with the linker.
1056 For example, it may prevent you from running the build tree's
1057 copy of tic (for installing the terminfo database) because it
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001058 loads the system's copy of the ncurses shared libraries.
1059
1060 In that case, using the misc/shlib script may be helpful, since it
1061 sets $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the build tree, e.g.,
1062
1063 ./misc/shlib make install
1064
1065 Alternatively, for most platforms, the linker accepts a list of
1066 directories which will be searched for libraries at run-time. The
1067 configure script allows you to modify this list using the
1068 RPATH_LIST environment variable. It is a colon-separated list of
1069 directories (default: the "libdir" set via the configure script).
1070 If you set that to put "../lib" first in the list, the linker will
1071 look first at the build-directory, and avoid conflict with libraries
1072 already installed. One drawback to this approach is that libraries
1073 can be accidentally searched in any "../lib" directory.
1074
1075 NOTE: If you use the --with-ada-sharedlib option, you should also
1076 set this option, to ensure that C-language modules needed for the
1077 Ada binding use appropriate compiler options.
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301078
1079 --with-shlib-version=XXX
1080 Specify whether to use the release or ABI version for shared libraries.
1081 This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of system
1082 which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure script.
1083
1084 --with-sysmouse
1085 use FreeBSD sysmouse interface provide mouse support on the console.
1086
1087 --with-system-type=XXX
1088 For testing, override the derived host system-type which is used to
1089 decide things such as the linker commands used to build shared
1090 libraries. This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of
1091 system which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure
1092 script.
1093
1094 --with-terminfo-dirs=XXX
1095 Specify a search-list of terminfo directories which will be compiled
1096 into the ncurses library (default: DATADIR/terminfo)
1097
1098 --with-termlib[=XXX]
1099 When building the ncurses library, organize this as two parts: the
1100 curses library (libncurses) and the low-level terminfo library
1101 (libtinfo). This is done to accommodate applications that use only
1102 the latter. The terminfo library is about half the size of the total.
1103
1104 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the terminfo
1105 library. For instance, if the wide-character version is built, the
1106 terminfo library would be named libtinfow. But the libtinfow interface
1107 is upward compatible from libtinfo, so it would be possible to overlay
1108 libtinfo.so with a "wide" version of libtinfow.so by renaming it with
1109 this option.
1110
1111 --with-termpath=XXX
1112 Specify a search-list of termcap files which will be compiled into the
1113 ncurses library (default: /etc/termcap:/usr/share/misc/termcap)
1114
1115 --with-ticlib[=XXX]
1116 When building the ncurses library, build a separate library for
1117 the modules that are used only by the utility programs. Normally
1118 those would be bundled with the termlib or ncurses libraries.
1119
1120 If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the tic
1121 library. As in termlib, there is no ABI difference between the
1122 "wide" libticw.so and libtic.so
1123
1124 NOTE: Overriding the name of the tic library may be useful if you are
1125 also using the --with-termlib option to rename libtinfo. If you are
1126 not doing that, renaming the tic library can result in conflicting
1127 library dependencies for tic and other programs built with the tic
1128 library.
1129
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001130 --with-tparm-arg[=XXX]
1131 Override the type used for tparm() arguments, which normally is a
1132 "long". However the function must assume that its arguments can hold a
1133 pointer to char's which is not always workable for 64-bit platforms. A
1134 better choice would be intptr_t, which was not available at the time
1135 tparm's interface was defined.
1136
1137 If the option is not given, this defaults to "long".
1138
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301139 --with-trace
1140 Configure the trace() function as part of the all models of the ncurses
1141 library. Normally it is part of the debug (libncurses_g) library only.
1142
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001143 --with-versioned-syms[=XXX]
1144 The Solaris, GNU and reportedly some other linkers (ld) accept a
1145 "--version-script" option which tells the linker to annotate the
1146 resulting objects with version identifiers.
1147
1148 Use "objdump -T" on a library to see the annotations.
1149
1150 The configure script attempts to automatically apply a suitable ".map"
1151 file to provide this information for Linux. Solaris mapfiles differ:
1152
1153 a) comments are not accepted
1154 b) wildcards are not accepted, except for a special case of "_*".
1155 c) each symbol listed in the map file must exist in the library
1156
1157 The Solaris limitations conflict with the development goal of providing
1158 a small set of ".map" files as examples, which cover the most common
1159 configurations. Because that coverage is done by merging together
1160 several builds, some symbols will be listed in the the ".map" files
1161 that do not happen to be present in one configuration or another.
1162
1163 The sample ".map" (and ".sym") files are generated using a set of
1164 scripts which build several configurations for each release version,
1165 checking to see which of the "_nc_" symbols can be made local. In
1166 addition to the ncurses libraries and programs, the symbols used
1167 by the "tack" program are made global.
1168
1169 These sample ".map" files will not cover all possible combinations.
1170 In some cases, e.g., when using the --with-weak-symbols option, you
1171 may prefer to use a different ".map" file by setting this option's
1172 value.
1173
1174 --with-xterm-kbs=XXX
1175 Configure xterm's terminfo entries to use either BS (^H, i.e., ASCII
1176 backspace) or DEL (^?, or 127). XXX can be BS (or bs, 8) or DEL
1177 (or del, 127).
1178
1179 During installation, the makefile and scripts modifies the "xterm+kbs"
1180 terminfo entry to use this setting.
1181
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301182 --with-valgrind
1183 For testing, compile with debug option.
1184 This also sets the --disable-leaks option.
1185
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001186 --with-wrap-prefix=XXX
1187 When using the --enable-reentrant option, ncurses redefines variables
1188 that would be global in curses, e.g., LINES, as a macro that calls a
1189 "wrapping" function which fetches the data from the current SCREEN
1190 structure. Normally that function is named by prepending "_nc_" to the
1191 variable's name. The function is technically private (since portable
1192 applications would not refer directly to it). But according to one
1193 line of reasoning, it is not the same type of "private" as functions
1194 which applications should not call even via a macro. This configure
1195 option lets you choose the prefix for these wrapped variables.
1196
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301197 --without-ada
1198 Suppress the configure script's check for Ada95, do not build the
1199 Ada95 binding and related demo.
1200
1201 --without-curses-h
1202 Don't install the ncurses header with the name "curses.h". Rather,
1203 install as "ncurses.h" and modify the installed headers and manpages
1204 accordingly.
1205
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001206 Likewise, do not install an alias "curses" for the ncurses manpage.
1207
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301208 --without-cxx
1209 XSI curses declares "bool" as part of the interface. C++ also declares
1210 "bool". Neither specifies the size and type of booleans, but both
1211 insist on the same name. We chose to accommodate this by making the
1212 configure script check for the size and type (e.g., unsigned or signed)
1213 that your C++ compiler uses for booleans. If you do not wish to use
1214 ncurses with C++, use this option to tell the configure script to not
1215 adjust ncurses bool to match C++.
1216
1217 --without-cxx-binding
1218 Suppress the configure script's check for C++, do not build the
1219 C++ binding and related demo.
1220
1221 --without-develop
1222 Disable development options. This does not include those that change
1223 the interface, such as --enable-widec.
1224
1225 --without-dlsym
1226 Do not use dlsym() to load GPM dynamically.
1227
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001228 --without-manpages
1229 Tell the configure script to suppress the install of ncurses' manpages.
1230
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301231 --without-progs
1232 Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' application
1233 programs (e.g., tic). The test applications will still be built if you
1234 type "make", though not if you simply do "make install".
1235
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001236 --without-tests
1237 Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' test
1238 programs.
1239
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301240 --without-xterm-new
1241 Tell the configure script to use "xterm-old" for the entry used in
1242 the terminfo database. This will work with variations such as
1243 X11R5 and X11R6 xterm.
1244
1245
1246COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER VERSIONS OF NCURSES:
1247--------------------------------------------
1248
1249 Because ncurses implements the X/Open Curses Specification, its interface
1250 is fairly stable. That does not mean the interface does not change.
1251 Changes are made to the documented interfaces when we find differences
1252 between ncurses and X/Open or implementations which they certify (such as
1253 Solaris). We add extensions to those interfaces to solve problems not
1254 addressed by the original curses design, but those must not conflict with
1255 the X/Open documentation.
1256
1257 Here are some of the major interface changes, and related problems which
1258 you may encounter when building a system with different versions of
1259 ncurses:
1260
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001261 6.0 (??? ??, 2015)
1262
1263 5.9 (Apr 04, 2011)
1264 5.8 (Feb 26, 2011)
1265 Interface changes:
1266
1267 + add an alternate library configuration, i.e., "terminal driver" to
1268 support port to Windows, built with MinGW. There are two drivers
1269 (terminfo and Windows console). The terminfo driver works on other
1270 platforms.
1271
1272 + add a new set of functions which accept a SCREEN* parameter, in
1273 contrast with the original set which use the global value "sp".
1274 By default, these names end with "_sp", and are otherwise
1275 functionally identical with the originals.
1276
1277 In addition to the "_sp" functions, there are a few new functions
1278 associated with this feature: ceiling_panel, ground_panel,
1279 new_prescr.
1280
1281 If the library is not built with the sp-funcs extension, there
1282 are no related interface changes.
1283
1284 + add tiparm function based on review of X/Open Curses Issue 7.
1285
1286 + change internal _nc_has_mouse function to public has_mouse function
1287
1288 Added extensions:
1289
1290 + add a few more functions to support the NCURSES_OPAQUE feature:
1291 get_escdelay, is_pad, is_subwin
1292
1293 Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants):
1294 _nc_curscr_of
1295 _nc_format_slks
1296 _nc_get_alias_table
1297 _nc_get_hash_info
1298 _nc_insert_wch
1299 _nc_newscr_of
1300 _nc_outc_wrapper
1301 _nc_retrace_char
1302 _nc_retrace_int_attr_t
1303 _nc_retrace_mmask_t
1304 _nc_setup_tinfo
1305 _nc_stdscr_of
1306 _nc_tinfo_cmdch
1307
1308 Removed internal functions:
1309 _nc_makenew (some configurations replace by _nc_makenew_sp)
1310
1311 Modified internal functions:
1312 _nc_UpdateAttrs
1313 _nc_get_hash_table
1314 _nc_has_mouse
1315 _nc_insert_ch
1316 _nc_wgetch
1317
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301318 5.7 (November 2, 2008)
1319 Interface changes:
1320
1321 + generate linkable stubs for some macros:
1322 getattrs
1323
1324 + Add new library configuration for tic-library (the non-curses portion
1325 of the ncurses library used for the tic program as well as some
1326 others such as tack. There is no API change, but makefiles would be
1327 changed to use the tic-library built separately.
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001328
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301329 tack, distributed separately from ncurses, uses some of the internal
1330 _nc_XXX functions, which are declared in the tic.h header file.
1331
1332 The reason for providing this separate library is that none of the
1333 functions in it are suitable for threaded applications.
1334
1335 + Add new library configuration (ncursest, ncurseswt) which provides
1336 rudimentary support for POSIX threads. This introduces opaque
1337 access functions to the WINDOW structure and adds a parameter to
1338 several internal functions.
1339
1340 + move most internal variables (except tic-library) into data blocks
1341 _nc_globals and _nc_prescreen to simplify analysis. Those were
1342 globally accessible, but since they were not part of the documented
1343 API, there is no ABI change.
1344
1345 + changed static tables of strings to be indices into long strings, to
1346 improve startup performance. This changes parameter lists for some
1347 of the internal functions.
1348
1349 Added extensions:
1350
1351 + add NCURSES_OPAQUE definition in curses.h to control whether internal
1352 details of the WINDOW structure are visible to an application. This
1353 is always defined when the threaded library is built, and is optional
1354 otherwise. New functions for this: is_cleared, is_idcok, is_idlok,
1355 is_immedok, is_keypad, is_leaveok, is_nodelay, is_notimeout,
1356 is_scrollok, is_syncok, wgetparent and wgetscrreg.
1357
1358 + the threaded library (ncursest) also disallows direct updating of
1359 global curses-level variables, providing functions (via macros) for
1360 obtaining their value. A few of those variables can be modified by
1361 the application, using new functions: set_escdelay, set_tabsize
1362
1363 + added functions use_window() and use_screen() which wrap a mutex
1364 (if threading is configured) around a call to a user-supplied
1365 function.
1366
1367 Added internal functions:
1368 _nc_get_alias_table
1369 _nc_get_screensize
1370 _nc_keyname
1371 _nc_screen_of
1372 _nc_set_no_padding
1373 _nc_tracechar
1374 _nc_tracemouse
1375 _nc_unctrl
1376 _nc_ungetch
1377
1378 These are used for leak-testing, and are stubs for
1379 ABI compatibility when ncurses is not configured for that
1380 using the --disable-leaks configure script option:
1381
1382 _nc_free_and_exit
1383 _nc_leaks_tinfo
1384
1385 Removed internal functions:
1386 none
1387
1388 Modified internal functions:
1389 _nc_fifo_dump
1390 _nc_find_entry
1391 _nc_handle_sigwinch
1392 _nc_init_keytry
1393 _nc_keypad
1394 _nc_locale_breaks_acs
1395 _nc_timed_wait
1396 _nc_update_screensize
1397
1398 Use new typedef TRIES to replace "struct tries":
1399
1400 _nc_add_to_try
1401 _nc_expand_try
1402 _nc_remove_key
1403 _nc_remove_string
1404 _nc_trace_tries
1405
1406 5.6 (December 17, 2006)
1407 Interface changes:
1408
1409 + generate linkable stubs for some macros:
1410
1411 getbegx, getbegy, getcurx, getcury, getmaxx, getmaxy, getparx,
1412 getpary, getpary,
1413
1414 and (for libncursesw)
1415
1416 wgetbkgrnd
1417
1418 Added extensions:
1419 nofilter()
1420 use_legacy_coding()
1421
1422 Added internal functions:
1423 _nc_first_db
1424 _nc_get_source
1425 _nc_handle_sigwinch
1426 _nc_is_abs_path
1427 _nc_is_dir_path
1428 _nc_is_file_path
1429 _nc_keep_tic_dir
1430 _nc_keep_tic_dir
1431 _nc_last_db
1432 _nc_next_db
1433 _nc_read_termtype
1434 _nc_tic_dir
1435
1436 Also (if using the hashed database configuration):
1437
1438 _nc_db_close
1439 _nc_db_first
1440 _nc_db_get
1441 _nc_db_have_data
1442 _nc_db_have_index
1443 _nc_db_next
1444 _nc_db_open
1445 _nc_db_put
1446
1447 otherwise
1448
1449 _nc_hashed_db
1450
1451 Removed internal functions:
1452 none
1453
1454 Modified internal functions:
1455 _nc_add_to_try
1456 _nc_do_color
1457 _nc_expand_try
1458 _nc_remove_key
1459 _nc_setupscreen
1460
1461 5.5 (October 10, 2005)
1462 Interface changes:
1463
1464 + terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
1465 "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
1466
1467 + terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
1468 still use ncurses 4.2).
1469
1470 + modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing
1471 initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are
1472 still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old
1473 compilers.
1474
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001475 + form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data.
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301476 Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the
1477 FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw, since
1478 that no longer points to an array of char. The set_field_buffer()
1479 and field_buffer() functions translate to/from the actual field
1480 data.
1481
1482 + change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure that
1483 libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason for this
1484 is that the corresponding data which belongs to the upper-level
1485 ncurses library has a different size in each model.
1486
1487 + winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
1488 wide-character configuration.
1489
1490 + assume_default_colors() no longer requires that use_default_colors()
1491 be called first.
1492
1493 + data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
1494
1495 + slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
1496 multicolumn characters.
1497
1498 + start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started.
1499 start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
1500
1501 + pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if it
1502 corresponds to the default-color.
1503
1504 + unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond
1505 to an unsigned char.
1506
1507 Added extensions:
1508 Experimental mouse version 2 supports wheel mice with buttons
1509 4 and 5. This requires ABI 6 because it modifies the encoding
1510 of mouse events.
1511
1512 Experimental extended colors allows encoding of 256 foreground
1513 and background colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
1514 xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6 because
1515 it changes the size of cchar_t.
1516
1517 Added internal functions:
1518 _nc_check_termtype2
1519 _nc_resolve_uses2
1520 _nc_retrace_cptr
1521 _nc_retrace_cvoid_ptr
1522 _nc_retrace_void_ptr
1523 _nc_setup_term
1524
1525 Removed internal functions:
1526 none
1527
1528 Modified internal functions:
1529 _nc_insert_ch
1530 _nc_save_str
1531 _nc_trans_string
1532
1533 5.4 (February 8, 2004)
1534 Interface changes:
1535
1536 + add the remaining functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1537 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1538 --enable-widec option.
1539 pecho_wchar()
1540 slk_wset()
1541
1542 + write getyx() and related 2-return macros in terms of getcury(),
1543 getcurx(), etc.
1544
1545 + simplify ifdef for bool declaration in curses.h
1546
1547 + modify ifdef's in curses.h that disabled use of __attribute__() for
1548 g++, since recent versions implement the cases which ncurses uses.
1549
1550 + change some interfaces to use const:
1551 define_key()
1552 mvprintw()
1553 mvwprintw()
1554 printw()
1555 vw_printw()
1556 winsnstr()
1557 wprintw()
1558
1559 Added extensions:
1560 key_defined()
1561
1562 Added internal functions:
1563 _nc_get_locale()
1564 _nc_insert_ch()
1565 _nc_is_charable() wide
1566 _nc_locale_breaks_acs()
1567 _nc_pathlast()
1568 _nc_to_char() wide
1569 _nc_to_widechar() wide
1570 _nc_tparm_analyze()
1571 _nc_trace_bufcat() debug
1572 _nc_unicode_locale()
1573
1574 Removed internal functions:
1575 _nc_outstr()
1576 _nc_sigaction()
1577
1578 Modified internal functions:
1579 _nc_remove_string()
1580 _nc_retrace_chtype()
1581
1582 5.3 (October 12, 2002)
1583 Interface changes:
1584
1585 + change type for bool used in headers to NCURSES_BOOL, which usually
1586 is the same as the compiler's definition for 'bool'.
1587
1588 + add all but two functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
1589 These are only available if the library is configured using the
1590 --enable-widec option. Missing functions are
1591 pecho_wchar()
1592 slk_wset()
1593
1594 + add environment variable $NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS to modify the
1595 assume_default_colors() extension.
1596
1597 Added extensions:
1598 is_term_resized()
1599 resize_term()
1600
1601 Added internal functions:
1602 _nc_altcharset_name() debug
1603 _nc_reset_colors()
1604 _nc_retrace_bool() debug
1605 _nc_retrace_unsigned() debug
1606 _nc_rootname()
1607 _nc_trace_ttymode() debug
1608 _nc_varargs() debug
1609 _nc_visbufn() debug
1610 _nc_wgetch()
1611
1612 Removed internal functions:
1613 _nc_background()
1614
1615 Modified internal functions:
1616 _nc_freeall() debug
1617
1618 5.2 (October 21, 2000)
1619 Interface changes:
1620
1621 + revert termcap ospeed variable to 'short' (see discussion of the
1622 --with-ospeed configure option).
1623
1624 5.1 (July 8, 2000)
1625 Interface changes:
1626
1627 + made the extended terminal capabilities
1628 (configure --enable-tcap-names) a standard feature. This should
1629 be transparent to applications that do not require it.
1630
1631 + removed the trace() function and related trace support from the
1632 production library.
1633
1634 + modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict
1635 with C++ STL.
1636
1637 Added extensions: assume_default_colors().
1638
1639 5.0 (October 23, 1999)
1640 Interface changes:
1641
1642 + implemented the wcolor_set() and slk_color() functions.
1643
1644 + move macro winch to a function, to hide details of struct ldat
1645
1646 + corrected prototypes for slk_* functions, using chtype rather than
1647 attr_t.
1648
1649 + the slk_attr_{set,off,on} functions need an additional void*
1650 parameter according to XSI.
1651
1652 + modified several prototypes to correspond with 1997 version of X/Open
1653 Curses: [w]attr_get(), [w]attr_set(), border_set() have different
1654 parameters. Some functions were renamed or misspelled:
1655 erase_wchar(), in_wchntr(), mvin_wchntr(). Some developers have used
1656 attr_get().
1657
1658 Added extensions: keybound(), curses_version().
1659
1660 Terminfo database changes:
1661
1662 + change translation for termcap 'rs' to terminfo 'rs2', which is
1663 the documented equivalent, rather than 'rs1'.
1664
1665 The problems are subtler in recent releases.
1666
1667 a) This release provides users with the ability to define their own
1668 terminal capability extensions, like termcap. To accomplish this,
1669 we redesigned the TERMTYPE struct (in term.h). Very few
1670 applications use this struct. They must be recompiled to work with
1671 the 5.0 library.
1672
1673 a) If you use the extended terminfo names (i.e., you used configure
1674 --enable-tcap-names), the resulting terminfo database can have some
1675 entries which are not readable by older versions of ncurses. This
1676 is a bug in the older versions:
1677
1678 + the terminfo database stores booleans, numbers and strings in
1679 arrays. The capabilities that are listed in the arrays are
1680 specified by X/Open. ncurses recognizes a number of obsolete and
1681 extended names which are stored past the end of the specified
1682 entries.
1683
1684 + a change to read_entry.c in 951001 made the library do an lseek()
1685 call incorrectly skipping data which is already read from the
1686 string array. This happens when the number of strings in the
1687 terminfo data file is greater than STRCOUNT, the number of
1688 specified and obsolete or extended strings.
1689
1690 + as part of alignment with the X/Open final specification, in the
1691 990109 patch we added two new terminfo capabilities:
1692 set_a_attributes and set_pglen_inch). This makes the indices for
1693 the obsolete and extended capabilities shift up by 2.
1694
1695 + the last two capabilities in the obsolete/extended list are memu
1696 and meml, which are found in most terminfo descriptions for xterm.
1697
1698 When trying to read this terminfo entry, the spurious lseek()
1699 causes the library to attempt to read the final portion of the
1700 terminfo data (the text of the string capabilities) 4 characters
1701 past its starting point, and reads 4 characters too few. The
1702 library rejects the data, and applications are unable to
1703 initialize that terminal type.
1704
1705 FIX: remove memu and meml from the xterm description. They are
1706 obsolete, not used by ncurses. (It appears that the feature was
1707 added to xterm to make it more like hpterm).
1708
1709 This is not a problem if you do not use the -x option of tic to
1710 create a terminfo database with extended names. Note that the
1711 user-defined terminal capabilities are not affected by this bug,
1712 since they are stored in a table after the older terminfo data ends,
1713 and are invisible to the older libraries.
1714
1715 c) Some developers did not wish to use the C++ binding, and used the
1716 configure --without-cxx option. This causes problems if someone
1717 uses the ncurses library from C++ because that configure test
1718 determines the type for C++'s bool and makes ncurses match it, since
1719 both C++ and curses are specified to declare bool. Calling ncurses
1720 functions with the incorrect type for bool will cause execution
1721 errors. In 5.0 we added a configure option "--without-cxx-binding"
1722 which controls whether the binding itself is built and installed.
1723
1724 4.2 (March 2, 1998)
1725 Interface changes:
1726
1727 + correct prototype for termattrs() as per XPG4 version 2.
1728
1729 + add placeholder prototypes for color_set(), erasewchar(),
1730 term_attrs(), wcolor_set() as per XPG4 version 2.
1731
1732 + add macros getcur[xy] getbeg[xy] getpar[xy], which are defined in
1733 SVr4 headers.
1734
1735 New extensions: keyok() and define_key().
1736
1737 Terminfo database changes:
1738
1739 + corrected definition in curses.h for ACS_LANTERN, which was 'I'
1740 rather than 'i'.
1741
1742 4.1 (May 15, 1997)
1743
1744 We added these extensions: use_default_colors(). Also added
1745 configure option --enable-const, to support the use of const where
1746 X/Open should have, but did not, specify.
1747
1748 The terminfo database content changed the representation of color for
1749 most entries that use ANSI colors. SVr4 curses treats the setaf/setab
1750 and setf/setb capabilities differently, interchanging the red/blue
1751 colors in the latter.
1752
1753 4.0 (December 24, 1996)
1754
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001755 We bumped to version 4.0 because the newly released Linux dynamic
1756 loader (ld.so.1.8.5) did not load shared libraries whose ABI and REL
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301757 versions were inconsistent. At that point, ncurses ABI was 3.4 and the
1758 REL was 1.9.9g, so we made them consistent.
1759
1760 1.9.9g (December 1, 1996)
1761
1762 This fixed most of the problems with 1.9.9e, and made these interface
1763 changes:
1764
1765 + remove tparam(), which had been provided for compatibility with
1766 some termcap. tparm() is standard, and does not conflict with
1767 application's fallback for missing tparam().
1768
1769 + turn off hardware echo in initscr(). This changes the sense of the
1770 echo() function, which was initialized to echoing rather than
1771 nonechoing (the latter is specified). There were several other
1772 corrections to the terminal I/O settings which cause applications to
1773 behave differently.
1774
1775 + implemented several functions (such as attr_on()) which were
1776 available only as macros.
1777
1778 + corrected several typos in curses.h.in (i.e., the mvXXXX macros).
1779
1780 + corrected prototypes for delay_output(),
1781 has_color, immedok() and idcok().
1782
1783 + corrected misspelled getbkgd(). Some applications used the
1784 misspelled name.
1785
1786 + added _yoffset to WINDOW. The size of WINDOW does not impact
1787 applications, since they use only pointers to WINDOW structs.
1788
1789 These changes were made to the terminfo database:
1790
1791 + removed boolean 'getm' which was available as an extended name.
1792
1793 We added these extensions: wresize(), resizeterm(), has_key() and
1794 mcprint().
1795
1796 1.9.9e (March 24, 1996)
1797
1798 not recommended (a last-minute/untested change left the forms and
1799 menus libraries unusable since they do not repaint the screen).
1800 Foreground/background colors are combined incorrectly, working properly
1801 only on a black background. When this was released, the X/Open
1802 specification was available only in draft form.
1803
1804 Some applications (such as lxdialog) were "fixed" to work with the
1805 incorrect color scheme.
1806
1807
1808IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR:
1809------------------------------
1810
1811 Configuration and Installation:
1812
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001813 On platforms where ncurses is assumed to be installed in /usr/lib,
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301814 the configure script uses "/usr" as a default:
1815
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001816 GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Cygwin
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301817
1818 For other platforms, the default is "/usr/local". See the discussion
1819 of the "--disable-overwrite" option.
1820
1821 The location of the terminfo is set indirectly by the "--datadir"
1822 configure option, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo, given a datadir of
1823 /usr/share. You may want to override this if you are installing
1824 ncurses libraries in nonstandard locations, but wish to share the
1825 terminfo database.
1826
1827 Normally the ncurses library is configured in a pure-terminfo mode;
1828 that is, with the --disable-termcap option. This makes the ncurses
1829 library smaller and faster. The ncurses library includes a termcap
1830 emulation that queries the terminfo database, so even applications that
1831 use raw termcap to query terminal characteristics will win (providing
1832 you recompile and relink them!).
1833
1834 If you must configure with termcap fallback enabled, you may also wish
1835 to use the --enable-getcap option. This speeds up termcap-based
1836 startups, at the expense of not allowing personal termcap entries to
1837 reference the terminfo tree. See comments in
1838 ncurses/tinfo/read_termcap.c for further details.
1839
1840 Note that if you have $TERMCAP set, ncurses will use that value
1841 to locate termcap data. In particular, running from xterm will
1842 set $TERMCAP to the contents of the xterm's termcap entry.
1843 If ncurses sees that, it will not examine /etc/termcap.
1844
1845 Keyboard Mapping:
1846
1847 The terminfo file assumes that Shift-Tab generates \E[Z (the ECMA-48
1848 reverse-tabulation sequence) rather than ^I. Here are the loadkeys -d
1849 mappings that will set this up:
1850
1851 keycode 15 = Tab Tab
1852 alt keycode 15 = Meta_Tab
1853 shift keycode 15 = F26
1854 string F26 ="\033[Z"
1855
1856 Naming the Console Terminal
1857
1858 In various systems there has been a practice of designating the system
1859 console driver type as `console'. Please do not do this! It
1860 complicates peoples' lives, because it can mean that several different
1861 terminfo entries from different operating systems all logically want to
1862 be called `console'.
1863
1864 Please pick a name unique to your console driver and set that up
1865 in the /etc/inittab table or local equivalent. Send the entry to the
1866 terminfo maintainer (listed in the misc/terminfo file) to be included
1867 in the terminfo file, if it's not already there. See the
1868 term(7) manual page included with this distribution for more on
1869 conventions for choosing type names.
1870
1871 Here are some recommended primary console names:
1872
1873 linux -- Linux console driver
1874 freebsd -- FreeBSD
1875 netbsd -- NetBSD
1876 bsdos -- BSD/OS
1877
1878 If you are responsible for integrating ncurses for one of these
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001879 distributions, please either use the recommended name or get back
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301880 to us explaining why you don't want to, so we can work out nomenclature
1881 that will make users' lives easier rather than harder.
1882
1883
1884RECENT XTERM VERSIONS:
1885---------------------
1886
1887 The terminfo database file included with this distribution assumes you
1888 are running a modern xterm based on XFree86 (i.e., xterm-new). The
1889 earlier X11R6 entry (xterm-r6) and X11R5 entry (xterm-r5) is provided
1890 as well. See the --without-xterm-new configure script option if you
1891 are unable to update your system.
1892
1893
1894CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES:
1895----------------------------
1896
1897 In order to support operation of ncurses programs before the terminfo
1898 tree is accessible (that is, in single-user mode or at OS installation
1899 time) the ncurses library can be compiled to include an array of
1900 pre-fetched fallback entries. This must be done on a machine which
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001901 has ncurses' infocmp and terminfo database installed (as well as
1902 ncurses' tic and infocmp programs).
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301903
1904 These entries are checked by setupterm() only when the conventional
1905 fetches from the terminfo tree and the termcap fallback (if configured)
1906 have been tried and failed. Thus, the presence of a fallback will not
1907 shadow modifications to the on-disk entry for the same type, when that
1908 entry is accessible.
1909
1910 By default, there are no entries on the fallback list. After you have
1911 built the ncurses suite for the first time, you can change the list
1912 (the process needs infocmp(1)). To do so, use the script
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001913 ncurses/tinfo/MKfallback.sh. The configure script option
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301914 --with-fallbacks does this (it accepts a comma-separated list of the
1915 names you wish, and does not require a rebuild).
1916
1917 If you wanted (say) to have linux, vt100, and xterm fallbacks, you
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001918 might use the commands
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301919
1920 cd ncurses;
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001921 tinfo/MKfallback.sh \
1922 $TERMINFO \
1923 ../misc/terminfo.src \
1924 `which tic` \
1925 linux vt100 xterm >fallback.c
1926
1927 The first three parameters of the script are normally supplied by
1928 the configured makefiles via the "--with-fallbacks" option. They
1929 are
1930
1931 1) the location of the terminfo database
1932 2) the source for the terminfo entries
1933 3) the location of the tic program, used to create a terminfo
1934 database.
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301935
1936 Then just rebuild and reinstall the library as you would normally.
1937 You can restore the default empty fallback list with
1938
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01001939 tinfo/MKfallback.sh \
1940 $TERMINFO \
1941 ../misc/terminfo.src \
1942 `which tic` \
1943 >fallback.c
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05301944
1945 The overhead for an empty fallback list is one trivial stub function.
1946 Any non-empty fallback list is const-ed and therefore lives in sharable
1947 text space. You can look at the comment trailing each initializer in
1948 the generated ncurses/fallback.c file to see the core cost of the
1949 fallbacks. A good rule of thumb for modern vt100-like entries is that
1950 each one will cost about 2.5K of text space.
1951
1952
1953BSD CONVERSION NOTES:
1954--------------------
1955
1956 If you need to support really ancient BSD programs, you probably
1957 want to configure with the --enable-bsdpad option. What this does
1958 is enable code in tputs() that recognizes a numeric prefix on a
1959 capability as a request for that much trailing padding in milliseconds.
1960 There are old BSD programs that do things like tputs("50").
1961
1962 (If you are distributing ncurses as a support-library component of
1963 an application you probably want to put the remainder of this section
1964 in the package README file.)
1965
1966 The following note applies only if you have configured ncurses with
1967 --enable-termcap.
1968
1969------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
1970
1971If you are installing this application privately (either because you
1972have no root access or want to experiment with it before doing a root
1973installation), there are a couple of details you need to be aware of.
1974They have to do with the ncurses library, which uses terminfo rather
1975than termcap for describing terminal characteristics.
1976
1977Though the ncurses library is terminfo-based, it will interpret your
1978TERMCAP variable (if present), any local termcap files you reference
1979through it, and the system termcap file. However, in order to avoid
1980slowing down your application startup, it will only do this once per
1981terminal type!
1982
1983The first time you load a given terminal type from your termcap
1984database, the library initialization code will automatically write it
1985in terminfo format to a subdirectory under $HOME/.terminfo. After
1986that, the initialization code will find it there and do a (much
1987faster) terminfo fetch.
1988
1989Usually, all this means is that your home directory will silently grow
1990an invisible .terminfo subdirectory which will get filled in with
1991terminfo descriptions of terminal types as you invoke them. If anyone
1992ever installs a global terminfo tree on your system, this will quietly
1993stop happening and your $HOME/.terminfo will become redundant.
1994
1995The objective of all this logic is to make converting from BSD termcap
1996as painless as possible without slowing down your application (termcap
1997compilation is expensive).
1998
1999If you don't have a TERMCAP variable or custom personal termcap file,
2000you can skip the rest of this dissertation.
2001
2002If you *do* have a TERMCAP variable and/or a custom personal termcap file
2003that defines a terminal type, that definition will stop being visible
2004to this application after the first time you run it, because it will
2005instead see the terminfo entry that it wrote to $HOME/terminfo the
2006first time around.
2007
2008Subsequently, editing the TERMCAP variable or personal TERMCAP file
2009will have no effect unless you explicitly remove the terminfo entry
2010under $HOME/terminfo. If you do that, the entry will be recompiled
2011from your termcap resources the next time it is invoked.
2012
2013To avoid these complications, use infocmp(1) and tic(1) to edit the
2014terminfo directory directly.
2015
2016------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------
2017
2018USING NCURSES WITH AFS:
2019 AFS treats each directory as a separate logical filesystem, you
2020 can't hard-link across them. The --enable-symlinks option copes
2021 with this by making tic use symbolic links.
2022
2023USING NCURSES WITH GPM:
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01002024 Ncurses 4.1 and up can be configured to use GPM (General Purpose Mouse)
2025 which is used with Linux console. Be aware that GPM is commonly
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05302026 installed as a shared library which contains a wrapper for the curses
2027 wgetch() function (libcurses.o). Some integrators have simplified
2028 linking applications by combining all or part of libcurses.so into the
2029 libgpm.so file, producing symbol conflicts with ncurses (specifically
2030 the wgetch function). This was originally the BSD curses, but
2031 generally whatever curses library exists on the system.
2032
2033 You may be able to work around this problem by linking as follows:
2034
2035 cc -o foo foo.o -lncurses -lgpm -lncurses
2036
2037 but the linker may not cooperate, producing mysterious errors.
2038 See the FAQ, as well as the discussion under the --with-gpm option:
2039
2040 http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#using_gpm_lib
2041
2042BUILDING NCURSES WITH A CROSS-COMPILER
2043 Ncurses can be built with a cross-compiler. Some parts must be built
2044 with the host's compiler since they are used for building programs
2045 (e.g., ncurses/make_hash and ncurses/make_keys) that generate tables
2046 that are compiled into the ncurses library. The essential thing to do
2047 is set the BUILD_CC environment variable to your host's compiler, and
2048 run the configure script configuring for the cross-compiler.
2049
2050 The configure options --with-build-cc, etc., are provided to make this
2051 simpler. Since make_hash and make_keys use only ANSI C features, it
2052 is normally not necessary to provide the other options such as
2053 --with-build-libs, but they are provided for completeness.
2054
2055 Note that all of the generated source-files which are part of ncurses
2056 will be made if you use
2057
2058 make sources
2059
2060 This would be useful in porting to an environment which has little
2061 support for the tools used to generate the sources, e.g., sed, awk and
2062 Bourne-shell.
2063
2064 When ncurses has been successfully cross-compiled, you may want to use
2065 "make install" (with a suitable target directory) to construct an
2066 install tree. Note that in this case (as with the --with-fallbacks
2067 option), ncurses uses the development platform's tic to do the
2068 "make install.data" portion.
2069
Steve Kondikae271bc2015-11-15 02:50:53 +01002070 The system's tic program is used to install the terminal database,
2071 even for cross-compiles. For best results, the tic program should
2072 be from the most current version of ncurses.
2073
Amit Daniel Kachhape6a01f52011-07-20 11:45:59 +05302074BUGS:
2075 Send any feedback to the ncurses mailing list at
2076 bug-ncurses@gnu.org. To subscribe send mail to
2077 bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with body that reads:
2078 subscribe ncurses <your-email-address-here>
2079
2080 The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines
2081 on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly.
2082
2083-- vile:txtmode