Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2 | -- Copyright 2018-2023,2024 Thomas E. Dickey -- |
| 3 | -- Copyright 1998-2017,2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc. -- |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 4 | -- -- |
| 5 | -- Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a -- |
| 6 | -- copy of this software and associated documentation files (the -- |
| 7 | -- "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including -- |
| 8 | -- without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, -- |
| 9 | -- distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell copies -- |
| 10 | -- of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished -- |
| 11 | -- to do so, subject to the following conditions: -- |
| 12 | -- -- |
| 13 | -- The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included -- |
| 14 | -- in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. -- |
| 15 | -- -- |
| 16 | -- THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS -- |
| 17 | -- OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF -- |
| 18 | -- MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN -- |
| 19 | -- NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, -- |
| 20 | -- DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR -- |
| 21 | -- OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE -- |
| 22 | -- USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. -- |
| 23 | -- -- |
| 24 | -- Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright -- |
| 25 | -- holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the -- |
| 26 | -- sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written -- |
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| 28 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 29 | -- $Id: INSTALL,v 1.254 2024/04/27 14:21:05 tom Exp $ |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 30 | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 31 | How to install Ncurses/Terminfo on your system |
| 32 | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 33 | |
| 34 | ************************************************************ |
| 35 | * READ ALL OF THIS FILE BEFORE YOU TRY TO INSTALL NCURSES. * |
| 36 | ************************************************************ |
| 37 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 38 | You should be reading the file INSTALL in a directory called ncurses-d.d, |
| 39 | where d.d is the current version number. There should be several |
| 40 | subdirectories, including 'c++', 'form', 'man', 'menu', 'misc', 'ncurses', |
| 41 | 'panel', 'progs', and 'test'. See 'README' for a roadmap to the package. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 42 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 43 | If you are a distribution integrator or packager, please read and act on the |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 44 | section titled FOR SYSTEM INTEGRATORS below. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 45 | |
| 46 | If you are converting from BSD curses and do not have root access, be sure |
| 47 | to read the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below. |
| 48 | |
| 49 | If you are trying to build applications using gpm with ncurses, |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 50 | read the USING GPM section below. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 51 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 52 | If you are cross-compiling, see the note below on |
| 53 | BUILDING WITH A CROSS-COMPILER. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 54 | |
| 55 | If you want to build the Ada95 binding, go to the Ada95 directory and |
| 56 | follow the instructions there. The Ada95 binding is not covered below. |
| 57 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 58 | |
| 59 | REQUIREMENTS: |
| 60 | ------------ |
| 61 | |
| 62 | You will need the following to build and install ncurses under UNIX: |
| 63 | |
| 64 | * ANSI C compiler (gcc, for instance) |
| 65 | * sh (bash will do) |
| 66 | * awk (mawk or gawk will do) |
| 67 | * sed |
| 68 | * BSD or System V style install (a script is enclosed) |
| 69 | |
| 70 | Ncurses has been also built in the OS/2 EMX environment. |
| 71 | |
| 72 | |
| 73 | INSTALLATION PROCEDURE: |
| 74 | ---------------------- |
| 75 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 76 | 1. First, decide whether you want ncurses to replace your existing library |
| 77 | (in which case you'll need super-user privileges) or be installed in |
| 78 | parallel with it. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 79 | |
| 80 | The --prefix option to configure changes the root directory for installing |
| 81 | ncurses. The default is normally in subdirectories of /usr/local, except |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 82 | for systems where ncurses is normally installed as a system library (see |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 83 | "FOR SYSTEM INTEGRATORS"). Use --prefix=/usr to replace your |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 84 | default curses distribution. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 85 | |
| 86 | The package gets installed beneath the --prefix directory as follows: |
| 87 | |
| 88 | In $(prefix)/bin: tic, infocmp, captoinfo, tset, |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 89 | reset, clear, tput, toe, tabs |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 90 | In $(prefix)/lib: libncurses*.* libcurses.a |
| 91 | In $(prefix)/share/terminfo: compiled terminal descriptions |
| 92 | In $(prefix)/include: C header files |
| 93 | Under $(prefix)/man: the manual pages |
| 94 | |
| 95 | Note that the configure script attempts to locate previous installation of |
| 96 | ncurses, and will set the default prefix according to where it finds the |
| 97 | ncurses headers. |
| 98 | |
| 99 | Do not use commands such as |
| 100 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 101 | make install prefix=XXX |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 102 | |
| 103 | to change the prefix after configuration, since the prefix value is used |
| 104 | for some absolute pathnames such as TERMINFO. Instead do this |
| 105 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 106 | make install DESTDIR=XXX |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 107 | |
| 108 | See also the discussion of --with-install-prefix. |
| 109 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 110 | 2. Type './configure' in the top-level directory of the distribution to |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 111 | configure ncurses for your operating system and create the Makefiles. |
| 112 | Besides --prefix, various configuration options are available to customize |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 113 | the installation; use './configure --help' to list the available options. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 114 | |
| 115 | If your operating system is not supported, read the PORTABILITY section in |
| 116 | the file ncurses/README for information on how to create a configuration |
| 117 | file for your system. |
| 118 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 119 | The 'configure' script generates makefile rules for one or more object |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 120 | models and their associated libraries: |
| 121 | |
| 122 | libncurses.a (normal) |
| 123 | |
| 124 | libcurses.a (normal, a link to libncurses.a) |
| 125 | This gets left out if you configure with --disable-overwrite. |
| 126 | |
| 127 | libncurses.so (shared) |
| 128 | |
| 129 | libncurses_g.a (debug) |
| 130 | |
| 131 | libncurses_p.a (profile) |
| 132 | |
| 133 | libncurses.la (libtool) |
| 134 | |
| 135 | If you configure using the --enable-widec option, a "w" is appended to the |
| 136 | library names (e.g., libncursesw.a), and the resulting libraries support |
| 137 | wide-characters, e.g., via a UTF-8 locale. The corresponding header files |
| 138 | are compatible with the non-wide-character configuration; wide-character |
| 139 | features are provided by ifdef's in the header files. The wide-character |
| 140 | library interfaces are not binary-compatible with the non-wide-character |
| 141 | version. Building and running the wide-character code relies on a fairly |
| 142 | recent implementation of libiconv. We have built this configuration on |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 143 | various systems using libiconv, sometimes requiring libutf8. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 144 | |
| 145 | If you configure using the --with-pthread option, a "t" is appended to |
| 146 | the library names (e.g., libncursest.a, libncursestw.a). |
| 147 | |
| 148 | If you do not specify any models, the normal and debug libraries will be |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 149 | configured. Typing 'configure' with no arguments is equivalent to: |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 150 | |
| 151 | ./configure --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite |
| 152 | |
| 153 | Typing |
| 154 | |
| 155 | ./configure --with-shared |
| 156 | |
| 157 | makes the shared libraries the default, resulting in |
| 158 | |
| 159 | ./configure --with-shared --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite |
| 160 | |
| 161 | If you want only shared libraries, type |
| 162 | |
| 163 | ./configure --with-shared --without-normal --without-debug |
| 164 | |
| 165 | Rules for generating shared libraries are highly dependent upon the choice |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 166 | of host system and compiler. We've been testing shared libraries on |
| 167 | several systems, but more work needs to be done to make shared libraries |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 168 | work on other systems. |
| 169 | |
| 170 | If you have libtool installed, you can type |
| 171 | |
| 172 | ./configure --with-libtool |
| 173 | |
| 174 | to generate the appropriate static and/or shared libraries for your |
| 175 | platform using libtool. |
| 176 | |
| 177 | You can make curses and terminfo fall back to an existing file of termcap |
| 178 | definitions by configuring with --enable-termcap. If you do this, the |
| 179 | library will search /etc/termcap before the terminfo database, and will |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 180 | also interpret the contents of the $TERM environment variable. See the |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 181 | section BSD CONVERSION NOTES below. |
| 182 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 183 | 3. Type 'make'. Ignore any warnings; no error messages should be produced. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 184 | This should compile the ncurses library, the terminfo compiler tic(1), |
| 185 | captoinfo(1), infocmp(1), toe(1), clear(1) tset(1), reset(1), and tput(1) |
| 186 | programs (see the manual pages for explanation of what they do), some test |
| 187 | programs, and the panels, menus, and forms libraries. |
| 188 | |
| 189 | 4. Run ncurses and several other test programs in the test directory to |
| 190 | verify that ncurses functions correctly before doing an install that |
| 191 | may overwrite system files. Read the file test/README for details on |
| 192 | the test programs. |
| 193 | |
| 194 | NOTE: You must have installed the terminfo database, or set the |
| 195 | environment variable $TERMINFO to point to a SVr4-compatible terminfo |
| 196 | database before running the test programs. Not all vendors' terminfo |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 197 | databases are SVr4-compatible, but most seem to be. |
| 198 | |
| 199 | It is possible to configure ncurses to use other terminfo database |
| 200 | formats. A few are provided as examples in the include-directory (see |
| 201 | --with-caps). |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 202 | |
| 203 | If you run the test programs WITHOUT installing terminfo, ncurses may |
| 204 | read the termcap file and cache that in $HOME/.terminfo, which will |
| 205 | thereafter be used instead of the terminfo database. See the comments |
| 206 | on "--enable-getcap-cache", to see why this is a Bad Thing. |
| 207 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 208 | The ncurses program is designed specifically to test the ncurses library. |
| 209 | You can use it to verify that the screen highlights work correctly, that |
| 210 | cursor addressing and window scrolling works OK, etc. |
| 211 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 212 | 5. Once you've tested, you can type 'make install' to install libraries, |
| 213 | the programs, the terminfo database and the manual pages. Alternately, |
| 214 | you can type 'make install' in each directory you want to install. In the |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 215 | top-level directory, you can do a partial install using these commands: |
| 216 | |
| 217 | 'make install.progs' installs tic, infocmp, etc... |
| 218 | 'make install.includes' installs the headers. |
| 219 | 'make install.libs' installs the libraries (and the headers). |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 220 | 'make install.data' installs the terminfo data. (Note: 'tic' must |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 221 | be installed before the terminfo data can be |
| 222 | compiled). |
| 223 | 'make install.man' installs the manual pages. |
| 224 | |
| 225 | ############################################################################ |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 226 | # CAVEAT EMPTOR: 'install.data' run as root will NUKE any existing # |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 227 | # terminfo database. If you have any custom or unusual entries SAVE them # |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 228 | # before you install ncurses. # |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 229 | ############################################################################ |
| 230 | |
| 231 | The terminfo(5) manual page must be preprocessed with tbl(1) before |
| 232 | being formatted by nroff(1). Modern man(1) implementations tend to do |
| 233 | this by default, but you may want to look at your version's manual page |
| 234 | to be sure. You may also install the manual pages after preprocessing |
| 235 | with tbl(1) by specifying the configure option --with-manpage-tbl. |
| 236 | |
| 237 | If the system already has a curses library that you need to keep using |
| 238 | you'll need to distinguish between it and ncurses. See the discussion of |
| 239 | --disable-overwrite. If ncurses is installed outside the standard |
| 240 | directories (/usr/include and /usr/lib) then all your users will need to |
| 241 | use the -I option to compile programs and -L to link them. |
| 242 | |
| 243 | If you have another curses installed in your system and you accidentally |
| 244 | compile using its curses.h you'll end up with a large number of |
| 245 | undefined symbols at link time. |
| 246 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 247 | IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ROOT: Change directory to the 'progs' subdirectory |
| 248 | and run the 'capconvert' script. This script will deduce various things |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 249 | about your environment and use them to build you a private terminfo tree, |
| 250 | so you can use ncurses applications. |
| 251 | |
| 252 | If more than one user at your site does this, the space for the duplicate |
| 253 | trees is wasted. Try to get your site administrators to install a system- |
| 254 | wide terminfo tree instead. |
| 255 | |
| 256 | See the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below for a few more details. |
| 257 | |
| 258 | 6. The c++ directory has C++ classes that are built on top of ncurses and |
| 259 | panels. You must have c++ (and its libraries) installed before you can |
| 260 | compile and run the demo. |
| 261 | |
| 262 | Use --without-cxx-binding to tell configure to not build the C++ bindings |
| 263 | and demo. |
| 264 | |
| 265 | If you do not have C++, you must use the --without-cxx option to tell |
| 266 | the configure script to not attempt to determine the type of 'bool' |
| 267 | which may be supported by C++. IF YOU USE THIS OPTION, BE ADVISED THAT |
| 268 | YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO COMPILE (OR RUN) NCURSES APPLICATIONS WITH C++. |
| 269 | |
| 270 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 271 | CONFIGURE OPTIONS: |
| 272 | ----------------- |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 273 | |
| 274 | The configure script provides a short list of its options when you type |
| 275 | |
| 276 | ./configure --help |
| 277 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 278 | The --help and several options are common to all configure scripts that |
| 279 | are generated with autoconf. Those are all listed before the line |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 280 | |
| 281 | --enable and --with options recognized: |
| 282 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 283 | The other options are specific to this package. We list them in |
| 284 | alphabetic order. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 285 | |
| 286 | --disable-assumed-color |
| 287 | With ncurses 5.1, we introduced a new function, assume_default_colors() |
| 288 | which allows applications to specify what the default foreground and |
| 289 | background color are assumed to be. Most color applications use |
| 290 | full-screen color; but a few do not color the background. While the |
| 291 | assumed values can be overridden by invoking assume_default_colors(), |
| 292 | you may find it useful to set the assumed values to the pre-5.1 |
| 293 | convention, using this configure option. |
| 294 | |
| 295 | --disable-big-core |
| 296 | Assume machine has little memory. The configure script attempts to |
| 297 | determine if your machine has enough memory (about 6Mb) to compile the |
| 298 | terminfo database without writing portions to disk. Some allocators |
| 299 | return deceptive results, so you may have to override the configure |
| 300 | script. Or you may be building tic for a smaller machine. |
| 301 | |
| 302 | --disable-big-strings |
| 303 | Disable compile-time optimization of predefined tables which puts |
| 304 | all of their strings into a very long string, to reduce relocation |
| 305 | overhead. |
| 306 | |
| 307 | --disable-database |
| 308 | Use only built-in data. The ncurses libraries normally read terminfo |
| 309 | and termcap data from disk. You can configure ncurses to have a |
| 310 | built-in database, aka "fallback" entries. Embedded applications may |
| 311 | have no need for an external database. Some, but not all of the |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 312 | programs are useful in this configuration, e.g., tset and tput versus |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 313 | infocmp and tic. |
| 314 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 315 | --disable-db-install |
| 316 | Do not install the terminal database. This is used to omit features |
| 317 | for packages, as done with --without-progs. |
| 318 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 319 | --disable-echo |
| 320 | Use the option --disable-echo to make the build-log less verbose by |
| 321 | suppressing the display of the compile and link commands. This makes |
| 322 | it easier to see the compiler warnings. (You can always use "make -n" |
| 323 | to see the options that are used). |
| 324 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 325 | --disable-ext-funcs |
| 326 | Disable function-extensions. Configure ncurses without the functions |
| 327 | that are not specified by XSI. See ncurses/modules for the exact |
| 328 | list of library modules that would be suppressed. |
| 329 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 330 | --disable-gnat-projects |
| 331 | Disable GNAT projects even if usable, for testing old makefile rules. |
| 332 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 333 | --disable-hashmap |
| 334 | Compile without hashmap scrolling-optimization code. This algorithm is |
| 335 | the default. |
| 336 | |
| 337 | --disable-home-terminfo |
| 338 | The $HOME/.terminfo directory is normally added to ncurses' search |
| 339 | list for reading/writing terminfo entries, since that directory is |
| 340 | more likely writable than the system terminfo database. Use this |
| 341 | option to disable the feature altogether. |
| 342 | |
| 343 | --disable-largefile |
| 344 | Disable compiler flags needed to use large-file interfaces. |
| 345 | |
| 346 | --disable-leaks |
| 347 | For testing, compile-in code that frees memory that normally would not |
| 348 | be freed, to simplify analysis of memory-leaks. |
| 349 | |
| 350 | Any implementation of curses must not free the memory associated with |
| 351 | a screen, since (even after calling endwin()), it must be available |
| 352 | for use in the next call to refresh(). There are also chunks of |
| 353 | memory held for performance reasons. That makes it hard to analyze |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 354 | curses applications for memory leaks. To work around this, build a |
| 355 | debugging version of the ncurses library which frees those chunks |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 356 | which it can, and provides the _nc_free_and_exit() function to free |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 357 | the remainder and then exit. The ncurses utility and test programs |
| 358 | use this feature, e.g., via the ExitProgram() macro. |
| 359 | |
| 360 | Because this lies outside of the library's intended usage, it is not |
| 361 | normally considered part of the ABI. If there were some (as yet |
| 362 | unplanned) extension which frees memory in a manner that would let the |
| 363 | library resume and reallocate memory, then that would not use a "_nc_" |
| 364 | prefix. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 365 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 366 | --disable-lib-suffixes |
| 367 | Suppress the "w", "t" or "tw" suffixes which normally would be added |
| 368 | to the library names for the --enable-widec and --with-pthread options. |
| 369 | |
| 370 | --disable-libtool-version |
| 371 | when using --with-libtool, control how the major/minor version numbers |
| 372 | are used for constructing the library name. |
| 373 | |
| 374 | The default uses the -version-number feature of libtool, which makes |
| 375 | the library names compatible (though not identical) with the standard |
| 376 | build using --with-shared. |
| 377 | |
| 378 | Use --disable-libtool-version to use the libtool -version-info feature. |
| 379 | This corresponds to the setting used before patch 20100515. |
| 380 | |
| 381 | Starting with patch 20141115, using this option causes the configure |
| 382 | script to apply the top-level VERSION file to the ABI version used |
| 383 | for libtool. |
| 384 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 385 | --disable-lp64 |
| 386 | The header files will ignore use of the _LP64 symbol to make chtype |
| 387 | and mmask_t types 32 bits (they may be long on 64-bit hosts, for |
| 388 | compatibility with older releases). |
| 389 | |
| 390 | NOTE: this is potentially an ABI change, depending on existing |
| 391 | packages. The default for this option is "disabled" for ncurses |
| 392 | ABI 5, and "enabled" for ABI 6. |
| 393 | |
| 394 | --disable-macros |
| 395 | For testing, use functions rather than macros. The program will run |
| 396 | more slowly, but it is simpler to debug. This defines NCURSES_NOMACROS |
| 397 | at build time. See also the --enable-expanded option. |
| 398 | |
| 399 | --disable-overwrite |
| 400 | If you are installing ncurses on a system which contains another |
| 401 | development version of curses, or which could be confused by the loader |
| 402 | for another version, we recommend that you leave out the link to |
| 403 | -lcurses. The ncurses library is always available as -lncurses. |
| 404 | Disabling overwrite also causes the ncurses header files to be |
| 405 | installed into a subdirectory, e.g., /usr/local/include/ncurses, |
| 406 | rather than the include directory. This makes it simpler to avoid |
| 407 | compile-time conflicts with other versions of curses.h |
| 408 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 409 | Putting the header files into a subdirectory assumes that applications |
| 410 | will follow the (standard) practice of including the headers with |
| 411 | reference to the subdirectory name. For instance, the normal ncurses |
| 412 | header would be included using |
| 413 | |
| 414 | #include <ncurses/curses.h> |
| 415 | #include <ncurses/term.h> |
| 416 | |
| 417 | while the ncursesw headers would be found this way: |
| 418 | |
| 419 | #include <ncursesw/curses.h> |
| 420 | #include <ncursesw/term.h> |
| 421 | |
| 422 | In either case (with or without the --disable-overwrite option), |
| 423 | almost all applications are designed to include a related set of |
| 424 | curses header files from the same directory. |
| 425 | |
| 426 | Manipulating the --includedir configure option to put header files |
| 427 | directly in a subdirectory of the normal include-directory defeats |
| 428 | this, and breaks builds of portable applications. Likewise, putting |
| 429 | some headers in /usr/include, and others in a subdirectory is a good |
| 430 | way to break builds. |
| 431 | |
| 432 | When configured with --disable-overwrite, the installed header files' |
| 433 | embedded #include's are adjusted to use the same style of includes |
| 434 | noted above. In particular, the unctrl.h header is included from |
| 435 | curses.h, which means that a makefile which tells the compiler to |
| 436 | include directly from the subdirectory will fail to compile correctly. |
| 437 | Without some special effort, it will either fail to compile at all, |
| 438 | or the compiler may find a different unctrl.h file. |
| 439 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 440 | In addition to the curses library, a system may provide its own |
| 441 | versions of the add-on libraries (form, menu, panel), which would |
| 442 | not be compatible with ncurses. These options allow you to rename |
| 443 | ncurses' add-on libraries to avoid conflicts when linking: |
| 444 | |
| 445 | --with-form-libname=XXX |
| 446 | --with-menu-libname=XXX |
| 447 | --with-panel-libname=XXX |
| 448 | |
| 449 | Rather than renaming them arbitrarily, a prefix or suffix is |
| 450 | recommended. An "n" prefix provides consistency with ncurses versus |
| 451 | curses, i.e., |
| 452 | |
| 453 | --with-form-libname=nform |
| 454 | --with-menu-libname=nmenu |
| 455 | --with-panel-libname=npanel |
| 456 | |
| 457 | --disable-pkg-ldflags |
| 458 | Omit options in $LDFLAGS and $EXTRA_LDFLAGS from the pkg-config ".pc" |
| 459 | and corresponding ncurses*-config script which normally are listed via |
| 460 | the "--libs" option. These options are normally used to facilitate |
| 461 | linking to ncurses when it was configured to use the rpath feature. |
| 462 | |
| 463 | See also --enable-rpath and --disable-rpath-hack. |
| 464 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 465 | --disable-relink |
| 466 | If --enable-rpath is given, the generated makefiles normally will |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 467 | rebuild shared libraries during install. Use this option to simply |
| 468 | copy whatever the linker produced. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 469 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 470 | Static libraries cannot simply be copied because tools use timestamps |
| 471 | to determine if the library's symbol table is up to date. If your |
| 472 | install program supports the "-p" (preserve timestamp) option, that |
| 473 | is used when --disable-relink is given, to avoid rebuilding the symbol |
| 474 | table. |
| 475 | |
| 476 | Finally, some tools ignore the subsecond timestamps supported by some |
| 477 | filesystems. This option adds a 1-second sleep to help those tools |
| 478 | avoid unnecessary relinking during the install process. |
| 479 | |
| 480 | --disable-root-access |
| 481 | Compile with environment restriction, so most file-access is limited |
| 482 | when running as root, or via a setuid/setgid application. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 483 | |
| 484 | --disable-root-environ |
| 485 | Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment variables |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 486 | are not available when running as root. These are (for example |
| 487 | $TERMINFO) those that allow the search path for the terminfo or termcap |
| 488 | entry to be customized. |
| 489 | |
| 490 | Disabling the root environment variables also disables the setuid |
| 491 | environment variables by default. Use the --disable-setuid-environ |
| 492 | option to modify this behavior. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 493 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 494 | --disable-rpath-hack |
| 495 | Normally the configure script helps link libraries found in unusual |
| 496 | places by adding an rpath option to the link command. If you are |
| 497 | building packages, this feature may be redundant. Use this option |
| 498 | to suppress the feature. |
| 499 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 500 | --disable-scroll-hints |
| 501 | Compile without scroll-hints code. This option is ignored when |
| 502 | hashmap scrolling is configured, which is the default. |
| 503 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 504 | --disable-stripping |
| 505 | Do not strip installed executables. |
| 506 | |
| 507 | --disable-setuid-environ |
| 508 | Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment variables |
| 509 | are not available when running via a setuid/setgid application. These |
| 510 | are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow the search path for the |
| 511 | terminfo or termcap entry to be customized. |
| 512 | |
| 513 | A setuid/setgid application inherits its environment variables from |
| 514 | the current user, in contrast to sudo which may limit the environment |
| 515 | variables that ncurses uses. |
| 516 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 517 | --disable-tic-depends |
| 518 | When building shared libraries, normally the tic library is linked to |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 519 | depend upon the ncurses library (or equivalently, on the tinfo-library |
| 520 | if the --with-termlib option was given). The tic- and tinfo-library |
| 521 | ABIs do not depend on the --enable-widec option. Some packagers have |
| 522 | used this to reduce the number of library files which are packaged by |
| 523 | using only one copy of those libraries. To make this work properly, |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 524 | the tic library must be built without an explicit dependency on the |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 525 | underlying library (ncurses vs ncursesw, tinfo vs tinfow). Use this |
| 526 | configure option to do that. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 527 | For example |
| 528 | configure --with-ticlib --with-shared --disable-tic-depends |
| 529 | |
| 530 | --disable-tparm-varargs |
| 531 | Portable programs should call tparm() using the fixed-length parameter |
| 532 | list documented in X/Open. ncurses provides varargs support for this |
| 533 | function. Use --disable-tparm-varargs to disable this support. |
| 534 | |
| 535 | --enable-assertions |
| 536 | For testing, compile-in assertion code. This is used only for a few |
| 537 | places where ncurses cannot easily recover by returning an error code. |
| 538 | |
| 539 | --enable-broken_linker |
| 540 | A few platforms have what we consider a broken linker: it cannot link |
| 541 | objects from an archive solely by referring to data objects in those |
| 542 | files, but requires a function reference. This configure option |
| 543 | changes several data references to functions to work around this |
| 544 | problem. |
| 545 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 546 | NOTE: With ncurses 5.1, this may not be necessary, since we are |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 547 | told that some linkers interpret uninitialized global data as a |
| 548 | different type of reference which behaves as described above. We have |
| 549 | explicitly initialized all of the global data to work around the |
| 550 | problem. |
| 551 | |
| 552 | --enable-bsdpad |
| 553 | Recognize BSD-style prefix padding. Some ancient BSD programs (such as |
| 554 | nethack) call tputs("50") to implement delays. |
| 555 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 556 | --enable-check-size |
| 557 | Compile-in feature to detect screensize for terminals which do not |
| 558 | advertise their screensize, e.g., serial terminals. |
| 559 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 560 | --enable-colorfgbg |
| 561 | Compile with experimental $COLORFGBG code. That environment variable |
| 562 | is set by some terminal emulators as a hint to applications, by |
| 563 | advertising the default foreground and background colors. During |
| 564 | initialization, ncurses sets color pair 0 to match this. |
| 565 | |
| 566 | --enable-const |
| 567 | The curses interface as documented in XSI is rather old, in fact |
| 568 | including features that precede ANSI C. The prototypes generally do |
| 569 | not make effective use of "const". When using stricter compilers (or |
| 570 | gcc with appropriate warnings), you may see warnings about the mismatch |
| 571 | between const and non-const data. We provide a configure option which |
| 572 | changes the interfaces to use const - quieting these warnings and |
| 573 | reflecting the actual use of the parameters more closely. The ncurses |
| 574 | library uses the symbol NCURSES_CONST for these instances of const, |
| 575 | and if you have asked for compiler warnings, will add gcc's const-qual |
| 576 | warning. There will still be warnings due to subtle inconsistencies |
| 577 | in the interface, but at a lower level. |
| 578 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 579 | NOTE: configuring ncurses with this option may detract from the |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 580 | portability of your applications by encouraging you to use const in |
| 581 | places where the XSI curses interface would not allow them. Similar |
| 582 | issues arise when porting to SVr4 curses, which uses const in even |
| 583 | fewer places. |
| 584 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 585 | --enable-expanded |
| 586 | For testing, generate functions for certain macros to make them visible |
| 587 | as such to the debugger. See also the --disable-macros option. |
| 588 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 589 | --enable-exp-win32 |
| 590 | When configuring for MinGW, use the experimental Windows 10 driver. |
| 591 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 592 | --enable-ext-colors |
| 593 | Extend the cchar_t structure to allow more than 16 colors to be |
| 594 | encoded. This applies only to the wide-character (--enable-widec) |
| 595 | configuration. |
| 596 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 597 | NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary- |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 598 | compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but |
| 599 | applications which have an array of cchar_t's must be recompiled. |
| 600 | |
| 601 | --enable-ext-mouse |
| 602 | Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th mouse button. |
| 603 | That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel mouse with xterm or |
| 604 | similar X terminal emulators. |
| 605 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 606 | NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary- |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 607 | compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but |
| 608 | applications which have mouse mask mmask_t's must be recompiled. |
| 609 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 610 | --enable-ext-putwin |
| 611 | Modify the file-format written by putwin() to use printable text rather |
| 612 | than binary files, allowing getwin() to read screen dumps written by |
| 613 | differently-configured ncurses libraries. The extended getwin() can |
| 614 | still read binary screen dumps from the "same" configuration of |
| 615 | ncurses. This does not change the ABI (the binary interface seen by |
| 616 | calling applications). |
| 617 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 618 | --enable-fvisibility |
| 619 | Use the gcc "-fvisibility=hidden" option to make symbols which are not |
| 620 | explicitly exported, "hidden". Doing this may reduce the number of |
| 621 | symbols exported in the C++ binding; it should have less effect on the |
| 622 | C libraries when symbol-versioning is used. |
| 623 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 624 | --enable-getcap |
| 625 | Use the 4.4BSD getcap code if available, or a bundled version of it to |
| 626 | fetch termcap entries. Entries read in this way cannot use (make |
| 627 | cross-references to) the terminfo tree, but it is faster than reading |
| 628 | /etc/termcap. |
| 629 | |
| 630 | If configured for one of the *BSD systems, this automatically uses |
| 631 | the hashed database system produced using cap_mkdb or similar tools. |
| 632 | In that case, there is no advantage in using the --enable-getcap-cache |
| 633 | option. |
| 634 | |
| 635 | See also the --with-hashed-db option. |
| 636 | |
| 637 | --enable-getcap-cache |
| 638 | Cache translated termcaps under the directory $HOME/.terminfo |
| 639 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 640 | NOTE: this sounds good - it makes ncurses run faster the second time. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 641 | But look where the data comes from - an /etc/termcap containing lots of |
| 642 | entries that are not up to date. If you configure with this option and |
| 643 | forget to install the terminfo database before running an ncurses |
| 644 | application, you will end up with a hidden terminfo database that |
| 645 | generally does not support color and will miss some function keys. |
| 646 | |
| 647 | --enable-hard-tabs |
| 648 | Compile-in cursor-optimization code that uses hard-tabs. We would make |
| 649 | this a standard feature except for the concern that the terminfo entry |
| 650 | may not be accurate, or that your stty settings have disabled the use |
| 651 | of tabs. |
| 652 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 653 | --enable-interop |
| 654 | Compile-in experimental interop bindings. These provide generic types |
| 655 | for the form-library. |
| 656 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 657 | --enable-mixed-case |
| 658 | Controls whether the filesystem on which the terminfo database resides |
| 659 | supports mixed-case filenames (normal for UNIX, but not on other |
| 660 | systems). If you do not specify this option, the configure script |
| 661 | checks the current filesystem. |
| 662 | |
| 663 | --enable-no-padding |
| 664 | Compile-in support for the $NCURSES_NO_PADDING environment variable, |
| 665 | which allows you to suppress the effect of non-mandatory padding in |
| 666 | terminfo entries. This is the default, unless you have disabled the |
| 667 | extended functions. |
| 668 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 669 | --enable-opaque-curses |
| 670 | --enable-opaque-form |
| 671 | --enable-opaque-menu |
| 672 | --enable-opaque-panel |
| 673 | Define symbol in curses.h controlling whether some library structures |
| 674 | are opaque, meaning that their members are accessible only via the |
| 675 | documented API. The --enable-opaque-curses option may be overridden |
| 676 | by the --enable-reentrant option. |
| 677 | |
| 678 | Enabling opaque-curses enables opaque for the form, menu, and panel |
| 679 | libraries. Use their corresponding options to disable the feature |
| 680 | individually. |
| 681 | |
| 682 | NOTE: beginning with ncurses 6.5 this option is enabled by default; |
| 683 | older versions disable it by default. |
| 684 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 685 | --enable-pc-files |
| 686 | If pkg-config is found (see --with-pkg-config), generate ".pc" files |
| 687 | for each of the libraries, and install them in pkg-config's library |
| 688 | directory. |
| 689 | |
| 690 | --enable-pthreads-eintr |
| 691 | add logic in threaded configuration to ensure that a read(2) system |
| 692 | call can be interrupted for SIGWINCH. |
| 693 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 694 | --enable-reentrant |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 695 | Compile configuration which improves reentrant use of the library by |
| 696 | reducing global and static variables. This option is also set if |
| 697 | --with-pthread is used. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 698 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 699 | Enabling this option adds a "t" to the library names, except for the |
| 700 | special case when --enable-weak-symbols is also used. |
| 701 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 702 | --enable-rpath |
| 703 | Use rpath option when generating shared libraries, and (with some |
| 704 | restrictions) when linking the corresponding programs. This originally |
| 705 | (in 1997) applied mainly to systems using the GNU linker (read the |
| 706 | manpage). |
| 707 | |
| 708 | More recently it is useful for systems that require special treatment |
| 709 | shared libraries in "unusual" locations. The "system" libraries reside |
| 710 | in directories which are on the loader's default search-path. While |
| 711 | you may be able to use workarounds such as the $LD_LIBRARY_PATH |
| 712 | environment variable, they do not work with setuid applications since |
| 713 | the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable would be unset in that situation. |
| 714 | |
| 715 | This option does not apply to --with-libtool, since libtool makes |
| 716 | extra assumptions about rpath. |
| 717 | |
| 718 | --enable-safe-sprintf |
| 719 | Compile with experimental safe-sprintf code. You may consider using |
| 720 | this if you are building ncurses for a system that has neither |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 721 | vsnprintf() or vsprintf(). It is slow, however, and is used only on |
| 722 | very old systems which lack vsnprintf(). |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 723 | |
| 724 | --enable-signed-char |
| 725 | The term.h header declares a Booleans[] array typed "char". But it |
| 726 | stores signed values there and "char" is not necessarily signed. |
| 727 | Some packagers choose to alter the type of Booleans[] though this |
| 728 | is not strictly compatible. This option allows one to implement this |
| 729 | alteration without patching the source code. |
| 730 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 731 | --enable-sigwinch |
| 732 | Compile support for ncurses' SIGWINCH handler. If your application has |
| 733 | its own SIGWINCH handler, ncurses will not use its own. The ncurses |
| 734 | handler causes wgetch() to return KEY_RESIZE when the screen-size |
| 735 | changes. This option is the default, unless you have disabled the |
| 736 | extended functions. |
| 737 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 738 | --enable-sp-funcs |
| 739 | Compile-in support for extended functions which accept a SCREEN pointer, |
| 740 | reducing the need for juggling the global SP value with set_term() and |
| 741 | delscreen(). |
| 742 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 743 | --enable-stdnoreturn |
| 744 | When enabled, check if the <stdnoreturn.h> header exists, and if found |
| 745 | define GCC_NORETURN to _Noreturn rather than either the gcc-specific |
| 746 | __attribute__((noreturn)) or an empty token. Doing this may require |
| 747 | calling programs which use GCC_NORETURN in their own function |
| 748 | definitions to be modified, because _Noreturn is only accepted as |
| 749 | the first token in a declaration. |
| 750 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 751 | --enable-string-hacks |
| 752 | Controls whether strlcat and strlcpy may be used. The same issue |
| 753 | applies to OpenBSD's warnings about snprintf, noting that this function |
| 754 | is weakly standardized. |
| 755 | |
| 756 | Aside from stifling these warnings, there is no functional improvement |
| 757 | in ncurses. |
| 758 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 759 | --enable-symlinks |
| 760 | If your system supports symbolic links, make tic use symbolic links |
| 761 | rather than hard links to save diskspace when writing aliases in the |
| 762 | terminfo database. |
| 763 | |
| 764 | --enable-tcap-names |
| 765 | Compile-in support for user-definable terminal capabilities. Use the |
| 766 | -x option of tic and infocmp to treat unrecognized terminal |
| 767 | capabilities as user-defined strings. This option is the default, |
| 768 | unless you have disabled the extended functions. |
| 769 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 770 | --enable-term-driver |
| 771 | Enable experimental terminal-driver. This is currently used for the |
| 772 | MinGW port, by providing a way to substitute the low-level terminfo |
| 773 | library with different terminal drivers. |
| 774 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 775 | --enable-termcap |
| 776 | Compile in support for reading terminal descriptions from termcap if no |
| 777 | match is found in the terminfo database. See also the --enable-getcap |
| 778 | and --enable-getcap-cache options. |
| 779 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 780 | Termcap support requires run-time parsing rather than loading |
| 781 | predigested data. If you have specified --with-ticlib, then you |
| 782 | cannot have termcap support since run-time parsing is done in the |
| 783 | tic library, which is intentionally not part of normal linkage |
| 784 | dependencies. |
| 785 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 786 | --enable-warnings |
| 787 | Turn on GCC compiler warnings. There should be only a few. |
| 788 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 789 | --enable-wattr-macros |
| 790 | The 6.0 ABI adds support for extended colors and for extended mouse. |
| 791 | The former is a noticeable problem when developers inadvertently |
| 792 | compile using the ncurses6 header files and link with an ncurses5 |
| 793 | library, because the wattr* macros use a new field in the WINDOW |
| 794 | structure. These macros are used in several applications. |
| 795 | |
| 796 | Since ncurses provides an actual function for each of these macros, |
| 797 | suppressing them from the curses.h header allows the ncurses5 libraries |
| 798 | to be used in most applications. |
| 799 | |
| 800 | NOTE: The extended colors also are used in the cchar_t structure, but |
| 801 | fewer applications use that. |
| 802 | |
| 803 | NOTE: This workaround does not help with mismatches in the ncurses |
| 804 | mouse version. The extended mouse feature uses one less fewer bit for |
| 805 | each button, so that only the first button will work as expected with |
| 806 | a mismatch between header and library. Again, most applications will |
| 807 | work, since most use only the first button. |
| 808 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 809 | --enable-weak-symbols |
| 810 | If the --with-pthread option is set, check if the compiler supports |
| 811 | weak-symbols. If it does, then name the thread-capable library without |
| 812 | the "t" (libncurses rather than libncursest), and provide for |
| 813 | dynamically loading the pthreads entrypoints at runtime. This allows |
| 814 | one to reduce the number of library files for ncurses. |
| 815 | |
| 816 | --enable-wgetch-events |
| 817 | Compile with experimental wgetch-events code. See ncurses/README.IZ |
| 818 | |
| 819 | --enable-widec |
| 820 | Compile with wide-character code. This makes a different version of |
| 821 | the libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so), which stores characters as |
| 822 | wide-characters, |
| 823 | |
| 824 | NOTE: applications compiled with this configuration are not compatible |
| 825 | with those built for 8-bit characters. You cannot simply make a |
| 826 | symbolic link to equate libncurses.so with libncursesw.so |
| 827 | |
| 828 | NOTE: the Ada95 binding may be built against either version of the the |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 829 | ncurses library, but you must decide which: the binding installs the |
| 830 | same set of files for either version. Currently (2023/10/21) it does |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 831 | not use the extended features from the wide-character code, so it is |
| 832 | probably better to not install the binding for that configuration. |
| 833 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 834 | NOTE: beginning with ncurses 6.5 this option is enabled by default; |
| 835 | older versions disable it by default. |
| 836 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 837 | --enable-xmc-glitch |
| 838 | Compile-in support experimental xmc (magic cookie) code. |
| 839 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 840 | --with-abi-altered=NUM |
| 841 | Override the displayed (rather than compiled-in) ABI. Only packagers |
| 842 | who have created configurations where the ABI differs from ncurses |
| 843 | should be interested in this option. |
| 844 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 845 | --with-abi-version=NUM |
| 846 | Override the ABI version, which is used in shared library filenames. |
| 847 | Normally this is the same as the release version; some ports have |
| 848 | special requirements for compatibility. |
| 849 | |
| 850 | This option does not affect linking with libtool, which uses the |
| 851 | release major/minor numbers. |
| 852 | |
| 853 | --with-ada-compiler=CMD |
| 854 | Specify the Ada95 compiler command (default "gnatmake") |
| 855 | |
| 856 | --with-ada-include=DIR |
| 857 | Tell where to install the Ada includes (default: |
| 858 | PREFIX/lib/ada/adainclude) |
| 859 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 860 | --with-ada-libname=NAME |
| 861 | Override the name of the Ada binding (default: "AdaCurses") |
| 862 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 863 | --with-ada-objects=DIR |
| 864 | Tell where to install the Ada objects (default: PREFIX/lib/ada/adalib) |
| 865 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 866 | --with-ada-sharedlib |
| 867 | Build a shared library for Ada95 binding, if the compiler permits. |
| 868 | |
| 869 | NOTE: You must also set the --with-shared option on some platforms |
| 870 | for a successful build. You need not use this option when you set |
| 871 | --with-shared, unless you want to use the Ada shared library. |
| 872 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 873 | --with-bool=TYPE |
| 874 | If --without-cxx is specified, override the type used for the "bool" |
| 875 | declared in curses.h (normally the type is automatically chosen to |
| 876 | correspond with that in <stdbool.h>, or defaults to platform-specific |
| 877 | sizes). |
| 878 | |
| 879 | --with-build-cc=XXX |
| 880 | If cross-compiling, specify a host C compiler, which is needed to |
| 881 | compile a few utilities which generate source modules for ncurses. |
| 882 | If you do not give this option, the configure script checks if the |
| 883 | $BUILD_CC variable is set, and otherwise defaults to gcc or cc. |
| 884 | |
| 885 | --with-build-cflags=XXX |
| 886 | If cross-compiling, specify the host C compiler-flags. You might need |
| 887 | to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse the |
| 888 | host compiler. |
| 889 | |
| 890 | You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_CFLAGS rather than |
| 891 | use this option. |
| 892 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 893 | --with-build-cpp=XXX |
| 894 | This option is provided by the same macro used for $BUILD_CC, etc., |
| 895 | but is not directly used by ncurses. |
| 896 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 897 | --with-build-cppflags=XXX |
| 898 | If cross-compiling, specify the host C preprocessor-flags. You might |
| 899 | need to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse |
| 900 | the host compiler. |
| 901 | |
| 902 | You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_CPPFLAGS rather than |
| 903 | use this option. |
| 904 | |
| 905 | --with-build-ldflags=XXX |
| 906 | If cross-compiling, specify the host linker-flags. You might need to |
| 907 | do this if the target linker has unusual flags which confuse the host |
| 908 | compiler. |
| 909 | |
| 910 | You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_LDFLAGS rather than |
| 911 | use this option. |
| 912 | |
| 913 | --with-build-libs=XXX |
| 914 | If cross-compiling, the host libraries. You might need to do this if |
| 915 | the target environment requires unusual libraries. |
| 916 | |
| 917 | You can also set the environment variable $BUILD_LIBS rather than |
| 918 | use this option. |
| 919 | |
| 920 | --with-caps=XXX |
| 921 | Specify an alternate terminfo capabilities file, which makes the |
| 922 | configure script look for "include/Caps.XXX". A few systems, e.g., |
| 923 | AIX 4.x use the same overall file-format as ncurses for terminfo |
| 924 | data, but use different alignments within the tables to support |
| 925 | legacy applications. For those systems, you can configure ncurses |
| 926 | to use a terminfo database which is compatible with the native |
| 927 | applications. |
| 928 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 929 | --with-ccharw-max=XXX |
| 930 | Override the size of the wide-character array in cchar_t structures. |
| 931 | Changing this will alter the binary interface. This defaults to 5. |
| 932 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 933 | --with-chtype=TYPE |
| 934 | Override type of chtype, which stores the video attributes and (if |
| 935 | --enable-widec is not given) a character. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this |
| 936 | was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it may be unsigned. |
| 937 | Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility with 64-bit |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 938 | executables, e.g., by setting "--with-chtype=long" (the configure |
| 939 | script supplies "unsigned"). |
| 940 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 941 | --with-config-suffix=XXX |
| 942 | Specify an suffix for "ncurses*" in the ncurses*-config filename to |
| 943 | work around conflicts with packages. The suffix is placed before the |
| 944 | dash. |
| 945 | |
| 946 | --with-cxx-libname=NAME |
| 947 | Override the basename of the ncurses++ library (default: "ncurses++") |
| 948 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 949 | --with-cxx-shared |
| 950 | When --with-shared is set, build libncurses++ as a shared library. |
| 951 | This implicitly relies upon building with gcc/g++, since other |
| 952 | compiler suites may have differences in the way shared libraries are |
| 953 | built. libtool by the way has similar limitations. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 954 | |
| 955 | --with-database=XXX |
| 956 | Specify the terminfo source file to install. Usually you will wish |
| 957 | to install ncurses' default (misc/terminfo.src). Certain systems |
| 958 | have special requirements, e.g, OS/2 EMX has a customized terminfo |
| 959 | source file. |
| 960 | |
| 961 | --with-dbmalloc |
| 962 | For testing, compile and link with Conor Cahill's dbmalloc library. |
| 963 | This also sets the --disable-leaks option. |
| 964 | |
| 965 | --with-debug |
| 966 | Generate debug-libraries (default). These are named by adding "_g" |
| 967 | to the root, e.g., libncurses_g.a |
| 968 | |
| 969 | --with-default-terminfo-dir=XXX |
| 970 | Specify the default terminfo database directory. This is normally |
| 971 | DATADIR/terminfo, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo. |
| 972 | |
| 973 | --with-dmalloc |
| 974 | For testing, compile and link with Gray Watson's dmalloc library. |
| 975 | This also sets the --disable-leaks option. |
| 976 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 977 | --with-export-syms[=XXX] |
| 978 | Limit exported symbols using libtool. The configure script |
| 979 | automatically chooses an appropriate ".sym" file, which lists the |
| 980 | symbols which are part of the ABI. |
| 981 | |
| 982 | --with-extra-suffix[=XXX] |
| 983 | Add the given suffix to header- and library-names to simplify |
| 984 | installing incompatible ncurses libraries, e.g., those using a |
| 985 | different ABI. The renaming affects the name of the |
| 986 | include-subdirectory if --disable-overwrite is given. |
| 987 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 988 | --with-fallbacks=XXX |
| 989 | Specify a list of fallback terminal descriptions which will be |
| 990 | compiled into the ncurses library. See CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES. |
| 991 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 992 | See also "--with-tic-path" and "--with-infocmp-path". |
| 993 | |
| 994 | --with-form-libname=NAME |
| 995 | Override the basename of the form library (default: "form") |
| 996 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 997 | --with-gpm |
| 998 | use Alessandro Rubini's GPM library to provide mouse support on the |
| 999 | Linux console. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this introduced a dependency on |
| 1000 | the GPM library. |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1001 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1002 | Currently ncurses uses the dlsym() function to bind to the library at |
| 1003 | runtime, so it is only necessary that the library be present when |
| 1004 | ncurses is built, to obtain the filename (or soname) used in the |
| 1005 | corresponding dlopen() call. If you give a value for this option, |
| 1006 | e.g., |
| 1007 | |
| 1008 | --with-gpm=$HOME/tmp/test-gpm.so |
| 1009 | |
| 1010 | that overrides the configure check for the soname. |
| 1011 | |
| 1012 | See also --without-dlsym |
| 1013 | |
| 1014 | --with-hashed-db[=XXX] |
| 1015 | Use a hashed database for storing terminfo data rather than storing |
| 1016 | each compiled entry in a separate binary file within a directory |
| 1017 | tree. |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1018 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1019 | In particular, this uses the Berkeley database 1.8.5 interface, as |
| 1020 | provided by that and its successors db 2, 3, and 4. The actual |
| 1021 | interface is slightly different in the successor versions of the |
| 1022 | Berkeley database. The database should have been configured using |
| 1023 | "--enable-compat185". |
| 1024 | |
| 1025 | If you use this option for configuring ncurses, tic will only be able |
| 1026 | to write entries in the hashed database. infocmp can still read |
| 1027 | entries from a directory tree as well as reading entries from the |
| 1028 | hashed database. To do this, infocmp determines whether the $TERMINFO |
| 1029 | variable points to a directory or a file, and reads the directory-tree |
| 1030 | or hashed database respectively. |
| 1031 | |
| 1032 | You cannot have a directory containing both hashed-database and |
| 1033 | filesystem-based terminfo entries. |
| 1034 | |
| 1035 | Use the parameter value to give the install-prefix used for the |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1036 | database, e.g., |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1037 | --with-hashed-db=/usr/local/BigBase |
| 1038 | to find the corresponding include- and lib-directories under the |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1039 | given directory. Alternatively, you can specify a directory leaf |
| 1040 | name, e.g., |
| 1041 | --with-hashed-db=db4 |
| 1042 | to make the configure script look for files in a subdirectory such as |
| 1043 | /usr/include/db4/db.h |
| 1044 | /usr/lib/db4/libdb.so |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1045 | |
| 1046 | See also the --enable-getcap option. |
| 1047 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1048 | --with-infocmp-path[=XXX] |
| 1049 | Use this option to override the automatic detection of infocmp in your |
| 1050 | $PATH when building fallbacks (see "--with-fallbacks"). |
| 1051 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1052 | --with-install-prefix=XXX |
| 1053 | Allows you to specify an alternate location for installing ncurses |
| 1054 | after building it. The value you specify is prepended to the "real" |
| 1055 | install location. This simplifies making binary packages. The |
| 1056 | makefile variable DESTDIR is set by this option. It is also possible |
| 1057 | to use |
| 1058 | make install DESTDIR=XXX |
| 1059 | since the makefiles pass that variable to subordinate makes. |
| 1060 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1061 | NOTE: a few systems build shared libraries with fixed pathnames; this |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1062 | option probably will not work for those configurations. |
| 1063 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1064 | --with-lib-prefix=XXX |
| 1065 | OS/2 EMX used a different naming convention from most Unix-like |
| 1066 | platforms. It required that the "lib" part of a library name was |
| 1067 | omitted. Newer EMX as part of eComStation does not follow that |
| 1068 | convention. Use this option to override the configure script's |
| 1069 | assumptions about the library-prefix. If this option is omitted, it |
| 1070 | uses the original OS/2 EMX convention for that platform. Use |
| 1071 | "--with-lib-prefix=lib" for the newer EMX in eComStation. Use |
| 1072 | "--without-lib-prefix" to suppress it for other odd platforms. |
| 1073 | |
| 1074 | --with-libtool[=XXX] |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1075 | Generate libraries with libtool. If this option is selected, then it |
| 1076 | overrides all other library model specifications. Note that libtool |
| 1077 | must already be installed, uses makefile rules dependent on GNU make, |
| 1078 | and does not promise to follow the version numbering convention of |
| 1079 | other shared libraries on your system. However, if the --with-shared |
| 1080 | option does not succeed, you may get better results with this option. |
| 1081 | |
| 1082 | If a parameter value is given, it must be the full pathname of the |
| 1083 | particular version of libtool, e.g., |
| 1084 | /usr/bin/libtool-1.2.3 |
| 1085 | |
| 1086 | It is possible to rebuild the configure script to use the automake |
| 1087 | macros for libtool, e.g., AC_PROG_LIBTOOL. See the comments in |
| 1088 | aclocal.m4 for CF_PROG_LIBTOOL, and ensure that you build configure |
| 1089 | using the appropriate patch for autoconf from |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1090 | https://invisible-island.net/autoconf/ |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1091 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1092 | --with-libtool-opts=XXX |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1093 | Allow user to pass additional libtool options into the library creation |
| 1094 | and link steps. The main use for this is to do something like |
| 1095 | ./configure --with-libtool-opts=-static |
| 1096 | to get the same behavior as automake-flavored |
| 1097 | ./configure --enable-static |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1098 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1099 | --with-manpage-aliases |
| 1100 | Tell the configure script you wish to create entries in the |
| 1101 | man-directory for aliases to manpages which list them, e.g., the |
| 1102 | functions in the panel manpage. This is the default. You can disable |
| 1103 | it if your man program does this. You can also disable |
| 1104 | --with-manpage-symlinks to install files containing a ".so" command |
| 1105 | rather than symbolic links. |
| 1106 | |
| 1107 | --with-manpage-format=XXX |
| 1108 | Tell the configure script how you would like to install man-pages. The |
| 1109 | option value must be one of these: gzip, compress, BSDI, normal, |
| 1110 | formatted. If you do not give this option, the configure script |
| 1111 | attempts to determine which is the case. |
| 1112 | |
| 1113 | --with-manpage-renames=XXX |
| 1114 | Tell the configure script that you wish to rename the manpages while |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1115 | installing. Currently the only distribution which does this is Debian. |
| 1116 | The option value specifies the name of a file that lists the renamed |
| 1117 | files, e.g., $srcdir/man/man_db.renames |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1118 | |
| 1119 | --with-manpage-symlinks |
| 1120 | Tell the configure script that you wish to make symbolic links in the |
| 1121 | man-directory for aliases to the man-pages. This is the default, but |
| 1122 | can be disabled for systems that provide this automatically. Doing |
| 1123 | this on systems that do not support symbolic links will result in |
| 1124 | copying the man-page for each alias. |
| 1125 | |
| 1126 | --with-manpage-tbl |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1127 | Tell the configure script that you wish to preprocess the manpages |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1128 | by running them through tbl to generate tables understandable by |
| 1129 | nroff. |
| 1130 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1131 | --with-menu-libname=NAME |
| 1132 | Override the basename of the menu library (default: "menu") |
| 1133 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1134 | --with-mmask-t=TYPE |
| 1135 | Override type of mmask_t, which stores the mouse mask. Prior to |
| 1136 | ncurses 5.5, this was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it |
| 1137 | may be unsigned. Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility |
| 1138 | with 64-bit executables. |
| 1139 | |
| 1140 | --with-normal |
| 1141 | Generate normal (i.e., static) libraries (default). |
| 1142 | |
| 1143 | Note: on Linux, the configure script will attempt to use the GPM |
| 1144 | library via the dlsym() function call. Use --without-dlsym to disable |
| 1145 | this feature, or --without-gpm, depending on whether you wish to use |
| 1146 | GPM. |
| 1147 | |
| 1148 | --with-ospeed=TYPE |
| 1149 | Override type of ospeed variable, which is part of the termcap |
| 1150 | compatibility interface. In termcap, this is a 'short', which works |
| 1151 | for a wide range of baudrates because ospeed is not the actual speed |
| 1152 | but the encoded value, e.g., B9600 would be a small number such as 13. |
| 1153 | However the encoding scheme originally allowed for values "only" up to |
| 1154 | 38400bd. A newer set of definitions past 38400bd is not encoded as |
| 1155 | compactly, and is not guaranteed to fit into a short (see the function |
| 1156 | cfgetospeed(), which returns a speed_t for this reason). In practice, |
| 1157 | applications that required knowledge of the ospeed variable, i.e., |
| 1158 | those using termcap, do not use the higher speeds. Your application |
| 1159 | (or system, in general) may or may not. |
| 1160 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1161 | --with-panel-libname=NAME |
| 1162 | Override the basename of the panel library (default: "panel") |
| 1163 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1164 | --with-pc-suffix=SUFFIX |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1165 | If ".pc" files are installed (see --enable-pc-files), optionally add a |
| 1166 | suffix to the files and corresponding package names to separate |
| 1167 | unusual configurations. If no option value is given (or if it is |
| 1168 | "none"), no suffix is added. |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1169 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1170 | --with-pcre2 |
| 1171 | Add PCRE2 (Perl-compatible regular expressions v2) to the build if it |
| 1172 | is available and the user requests it. Assume the application will |
| 1173 | otherwise use the POSIX interface. |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1174 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1175 | This is useful for MinGW builds because the usual POSIX interface is |
| 1176 | not supplied by the development environment, while ncurses' form |
| 1177 | library uses a regular expression feature for one of the field types. |
| 1178 | |
| 1179 | --with-pkg-config[=CMD] |
| 1180 | Check for pkg-config, optionally specifying its pathname. |
| 1181 | |
| 1182 | --with-pkg-config-libdir[=DIR] |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1183 | If pkg-config was found, override the automatic check for its library |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1184 | path. The optional DIR value can be |
| 1185 | |
| 1186 | "auto", automatically use pkg-config's library directory, or |
| 1187 | |
| 1188 | "libdir", use a ${libdir}/pkgconfig (based on the configuration), or |
| 1189 | |
| 1190 | a directory path, i.e., beginning with "/". |
| 1191 | |
| 1192 | The configure script allows only a single directory, because |
| 1193 | that is used as the directory in which to install ".pc" files. |
| 1194 | |
| 1195 | The automatic check for the library path prefers the first directory |
| 1196 | which currently exists. If none of the directories listed by |
| 1197 | pkg-config exist, the check prefers a pkgconfig directory under the |
| 1198 | "libdir" set by the configure script (which may not be the system |
| 1199 | default), or if pkg-config lists nothing suitable, the first one which |
| 1200 | is listed by pkg-config is used. |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1201 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1202 | --with-profile |
| 1203 | Generate profile-libraries These are named by adding "_p" to the root, |
| 1204 | e.g., libncurses_p.a |
| 1205 | |
| 1206 | --with-pthread |
| 1207 | Link with POSIX threads, set --enable-reentrant. The use_window() and |
| 1208 | use_screen() functions will use mutex's, allowing rudimentary support |
| 1209 | for multithreaded applications. |
| 1210 | |
| 1211 | --with-rcs-ids |
| 1212 | Compile-in RCS identifiers. Most of the C files have an identifier. |
| 1213 | |
| 1214 | --with-rel-version=NUM |
| 1215 | Override the release version, which may be used in shared library |
| 1216 | filenames. This consists of a major and minor version number separated |
| 1217 | by ".". Normally the major version number is the same as the ABI |
| 1218 | version; some ports have special requirements for compatibility. |
| 1219 | |
| 1220 | --with-shared |
| 1221 | Generate shared-libraries. The names given depend on the system for |
| 1222 | which you are building, typically using a ".so" suffix, along with |
| 1223 | symbolic links that refer to the release version. |
| 1224 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1225 | NOTE: Unless you override the configure script by setting the $CFLAGS |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1226 | environment variable, these will not be built with the -g debugging |
| 1227 | option. |
| 1228 | |
| 1229 | NOTE: For some configurations, e.g., installing a new version of |
| 1230 | ncurses shared libraries on a machine which already has ncurses |
| 1231 | shared libraries, you may encounter problems with the linker. |
| 1232 | For example, it may prevent you from running the build tree's |
| 1233 | copy of tic (for installing the terminfo database) because it |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1234 | loads the system's copy of the ncurses shared libraries. |
| 1235 | |
| 1236 | In that case, using the misc/shlib script may be helpful, since it |
| 1237 | sets $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the build tree, e.g., |
| 1238 | |
| 1239 | ./misc/shlib make install |
| 1240 | |
| 1241 | Alternatively, for most platforms, the linker accepts a list of |
| 1242 | directories which will be searched for libraries at run-time. The |
| 1243 | configure script allows you to modify this list using the |
| 1244 | RPATH_LIST environment variable. It is a colon-separated list of |
| 1245 | directories (default: the "libdir" set via the configure script). |
| 1246 | If you set that to put "../lib" first in the list, the linker will |
| 1247 | look first at the build-directory, and avoid conflict with libraries |
| 1248 | already installed. One drawback to this approach is that libraries |
| 1249 | can be accidentally searched in any "../lib" directory. |
| 1250 | |
| 1251 | NOTE: If you use the --with-ada-sharedlib option, you should also |
| 1252 | set this option, to ensure that C-language modules needed for the |
| 1253 | Ada binding use appropriate compiler options. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1254 | |
| 1255 | --with-shlib-version=XXX |
| 1256 | Specify whether to use the release or ABI version for shared libraries. |
| 1257 | This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of system |
| 1258 | which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure script. |
| 1259 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1260 | --with-strip-program=XXX |
| 1261 | When stripping executables during install, use the specified program |
| 1262 | rather than "strip". |
| 1263 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1264 | --with-sysmouse |
| 1265 | use FreeBSD sysmouse interface provide mouse support on the console. |
| 1266 | |
| 1267 | --with-system-type=XXX |
| 1268 | For testing, override the derived host system-type which is used to |
| 1269 | decide things such as the linker commands used to build shared |
| 1270 | libraries. This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of |
| 1271 | system which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure |
| 1272 | script. |
| 1273 | |
| 1274 | --with-terminfo-dirs=XXX |
| 1275 | Specify a search-list of terminfo directories which will be compiled |
| 1276 | into the ncurses library (default: DATADIR/terminfo) |
| 1277 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1278 | This is a colon-separated list, like the $TERMINFO_DIRS environment |
| 1279 | variable. |
| 1280 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1281 | --with-termlib[=XXX] |
| 1282 | When building the ncurses library, organize this as two parts: the |
| 1283 | curses library (libncurses) and the low-level terminfo library |
| 1284 | (libtinfo). This is done to accommodate applications that use only |
| 1285 | the latter. The terminfo library is about half the size of the total. |
| 1286 | |
| 1287 | If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the terminfo |
| 1288 | library. For instance, if the wide-character version is built, the |
| 1289 | terminfo library would be named libtinfow. But the libtinfow interface |
| 1290 | is upward compatible from libtinfo, so it would be possible to overlay |
| 1291 | libtinfo.so with a "wide" version of libtinfow.so by renaming it with |
| 1292 | this option. |
| 1293 | |
| 1294 | --with-termpath=XXX |
| 1295 | Specify a search-list of termcap files which will be compiled into the |
| 1296 | ncurses library (default: /etc/termcap:/usr/share/misc/termcap) |
| 1297 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1298 | --with-tic-path[=XXX] |
| 1299 | Use this option to override the automatic detection of tic in your |
| 1300 | $PATH when building fallbacks (see "--with-fallbacks"). |
| 1301 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1302 | --with-ticlib[=XXX] |
| 1303 | When building the ncurses library, build a separate library for |
| 1304 | the modules that are used only by the utility programs. Normally |
| 1305 | those would be bundled with the termlib or ncurses libraries. |
| 1306 | |
| 1307 | If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the tic |
| 1308 | library. As in termlib, there is no ABI difference between the |
| 1309 | "wide" libticw.so and libtic.so |
| 1310 | |
| 1311 | NOTE: Overriding the name of the tic library may be useful if you are |
| 1312 | also using the --with-termlib option to rename libtinfo. If you are |
| 1313 | not doing that, renaming the tic library can result in conflicting |
| 1314 | library dependencies for tic and other programs built with the tic |
| 1315 | library. |
| 1316 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1317 | --with-tparm-arg[=XXX] |
| 1318 | Override the type used for tparm() arguments, which normally is a |
| 1319 | "long". However the function must assume that its arguments can hold a |
| 1320 | pointer to char's which is not always workable for 64-bit platforms. A |
| 1321 | better choice would be intptr_t, which was not available at the time |
| 1322 | tparm's interface was defined. |
| 1323 | |
| 1324 | If the option is not given, this defaults to "long". |
| 1325 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1326 | --with-trace |
| 1327 | Configure the trace() function as part of the all models of the ncurses |
| 1328 | library. Normally it is part of the debug (libncurses_g) library only. |
| 1329 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1330 | --with-valgrind |
| 1331 | For testing, compile with debug option. |
| 1332 | This also sets the --disable-leaks option. |
| 1333 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1334 | --with-versioned-syms[=XXX] |
| 1335 | The Solaris, GNU and reportedly some other linkers (ld) accept a |
| 1336 | "--version-script" option which tells the linker to annotate the |
| 1337 | resulting objects with version identifiers. |
| 1338 | |
| 1339 | Use "objdump -T" on a library to see the annotations. |
| 1340 | |
| 1341 | The configure script attempts to automatically apply a suitable ".map" |
| 1342 | file to provide this information for Linux. Solaris mapfiles differ: |
| 1343 | |
| 1344 | a) comments are not accepted |
| 1345 | b) wildcards are not accepted, except for a special case of "_*". |
| 1346 | c) each symbol listed in the map file must exist in the library |
| 1347 | |
| 1348 | The Solaris limitations conflict with the development goal of providing |
| 1349 | a small set of ".map" files as examples, which cover the most common |
| 1350 | configurations. Because that coverage is done by merging together |
| 1351 | several builds, some symbols will be listed in the the ".map" files |
| 1352 | that do not happen to be present in one configuration or another. |
| 1353 | |
| 1354 | The sample ".map" (and ".sym") files are generated using a set of |
| 1355 | scripts which build several configurations for each release version, |
| 1356 | checking to see which of the "_nc_" symbols can be made local. In |
| 1357 | addition to the ncurses libraries and programs, the symbols used |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1358 | by the "tack" program before version 1.08 are made global. |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1359 | |
| 1360 | These sample ".map" files will not cover all possible combinations. |
| 1361 | In some cases, e.g., when using the --with-weak-symbols option, you |
| 1362 | may prefer to use a different ".map" file by setting this option's |
| 1363 | value. |
| 1364 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1365 | --with-wrap-prefix=XXX |
| 1366 | When using the --enable-reentrant option, ncurses redefines variables |
| 1367 | that would be global in curses, e.g., LINES, as a macro that calls a |
| 1368 | "wrapping" function which fetches the data from the current SCREEN |
| 1369 | structure. Normally that function is named by prepending "_nc_" to the |
| 1370 | variable's name. The function is technically private (since portable |
| 1371 | applications would not refer directly to it). But according to one |
| 1372 | line of reasoning, it is not the same type of "private" as functions |
| 1373 | which applications should not call even via a macro. This configure |
| 1374 | option lets you choose the prefix for these wrapped variables. |
| 1375 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1376 | --with-x11-rgb=FILE |
| 1377 | Provide a pathname for the X11 rgb file, used by the picsmap program. |
| 1378 | This overrides a configure check which usually works, but is needed |
| 1379 | due to the lack of standardization for X11's files. |
| 1380 | |
| 1381 | --with-xterm-kbs=XXX |
| 1382 | Configure xterm's terminfo entries to use either BS (^H, i.e., ASCII |
| 1383 | backspace) or DEL (^?, or 127). XXX can be BS (or bs, 8) or DEL |
| 1384 | (or del, 127). If XXX is "auto", the configure script chooses BS or |
| 1385 | DEL according to platform defaults. |
| 1386 | |
| 1387 | During installation, the makefile and scripts modifies the "xterm+kbs" |
| 1388 | terminfo entry to use this setting. |
| 1389 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1390 | --without-ada |
| 1391 | Suppress the configure script's check for Ada95, do not build the |
| 1392 | Ada95 binding and related demo. |
| 1393 | |
| 1394 | --without-curses-h |
| 1395 | Don't install the ncurses header with the name "curses.h". Rather, |
| 1396 | install as "ncurses.h" and modify the installed headers and manpages |
| 1397 | accordingly. |
| 1398 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1399 | Likewise, do not install an alias "curses" for the ncurses manpage. |
| 1400 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1401 | --without-cxx |
| 1402 | XSI curses declares "bool" as part of the interface. C++ also declares |
| 1403 | "bool". Neither specifies the size and type of booleans, but both |
| 1404 | insist on the same name. We chose to accommodate this by making the |
| 1405 | configure script check for the size and type (e.g., unsigned or signed) |
| 1406 | that your C++ compiler uses for booleans. If you do not wish to use |
| 1407 | ncurses with C++, use this option to tell the configure script to not |
| 1408 | adjust ncurses bool to match C++. |
| 1409 | |
| 1410 | --without-cxx-binding |
| 1411 | Suppress the configure script's check for C++, do not build the |
| 1412 | C++ binding and related demo. |
| 1413 | |
| 1414 | --without-develop |
| 1415 | Disable development options. This does not include those that change |
| 1416 | the interface, such as --enable-widec. |
| 1417 | |
| 1418 | --without-dlsym |
| 1419 | Do not use dlsym() to load GPM dynamically. |
| 1420 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1421 | --without-manpages |
| 1422 | Tell the configure script to suppress the install of ncurses' manpages. |
| 1423 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1424 | --without-progs |
| 1425 | Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' application |
| 1426 | programs (e.g., tic). The test applications will still be built if you |
| 1427 | type "make", though not if you simply do "make install". |
| 1428 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1429 | --without-tests |
| 1430 | Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' test |
| 1431 | programs. |
| 1432 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1433 | --without-xterm-new |
| 1434 | Tell the configure script to use "xterm-old" for the entry used in |
| 1435 | the terminfo database. This will work with variations such as |
| 1436 | X11R5 and X11R6 xterm. |
| 1437 | |
| 1438 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1439 | COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER RELEASES: |
| 1440 | --------------------------------- |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1441 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1442 | Because ncurses implements X/Open Curses, its interface is fairly stable. |
| 1443 | That does not mean the interface does not change. Changes are made to the |
| 1444 | documented interfaces when we find differences between ncurses and X/Open |
| 1445 | or implementations which largely correspond to X/Open (such as Solaris). |
| 1446 | We add extensions to those interfaces to solve problems not addressed by |
| 1447 | the original curses design, but those must not conflict with the X/Open |
| 1448 | documentation. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1449 | |
| 1450 | Here are some of the major interface changes, and related problems which |
| 1451 | you may encounter when building a system with different versions of |
| 1452 | ncurses: |
| 1453 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 1454 | 6.5 (Apt 27, 2024) |
| 1455 | Interface changes: |
| 1456 | |
| 1457 | + the WINDOW structure and some related internal data types declared |
| 1458 | in <curses.h> have been made opaque by default; |
| 1459 | + the FORM, MENU, and PANEL structures and related internal data types |
| 1460 | from their corresponding header files have been made opqaue by |
| 1461 | default; and |
| 1462 | + support for wide characters is now enabled by default. |
| 1463 | |
| 1464 | Added extensions: |
| 1465 | |
| 1466 | + is_cbreak, is_echo, is_nl, and is_raw, as well as "_sp" variants |
| 1467 | |
| 1468 | + tiparm_s and tiscan_s |
| 1469 | |
| 1470 | Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants): |
| 1471 | |
| 1472 | + _nc_env_access |
| 1473 | |
| 1474 | Removed internal functions: |
| 1475 | |
| 1476 | + none |
| 1477 | |
| 1478 | Modified internal functions: |
| 1479 | |
| 1480 | + These now pass a const parameter: _nc_delink_entry, _nc_str_copy, |
| 1481 | and _nc_trans_string |
| 1482 | |
| 1483 | 6.4 (Dec 31, 2022) |
| 1484 | Interface changes: |
| 1485 | |
| 1486 | + none |
| 1487 | |
| 1488 | Added extensions: |
| 1489 | |
| 1490 | + none |
| 1491 | |
| 1492 | Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants): |
| 1493 | |
| 1494 | + add _nc_free_termtype1 and _nc_free_tparm, for memory-leaks |
| 1495 | |
| 1496 | Removed internal functions: |
| 1497 | |
| 1498 | + none |
| 1499 | |
| 1500 | Modified internal functions: |
| 1501 | |
| 1502 | + none |
| 1503 | |
| 1504 | 6.3 (Oct 21, 2021) |
| 1505 | Interface changes: |
| 1506 | |
| 1507 | + the definition of TERMTYPE2 is now internal, not visible in the ABI, |
| 1508 | like the enclosing TERMINAL which was previously made opaque. This |
| 1509 | was done to provide SCREEN-specific "static" variables in terminfo. |
| 1510 | |
| 1511 | Added extensions: |
| 1512 | |
| 1513 | + add sp-funcs for erasewchar, killwchar. |
| 1514 | |
| 1515 | Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants): |
| 1516 | |
| 1517 | + _nc_safe_fopen and _nc_safe_open3 limit privileges if possible when |
| 1518 | opening a file; otherwise disallow access for updating files. |
| 1519 | |
| 1520 | + _nc_tiparm is a variant of tiparm which is used when all of the |
| 1521 | parameters are known to be numbers rather than possibly strings. |
| 1522 | |
| 1523 | + _nc_reset_tparm improves tic's checks by resetting the terminfo |
| 1524 | "static variables" before calling functions which may update them. |
| 1525 | |
| 1526 | Removed internal functions: |
| 1527 | |
| 1528 | + none |
| 1529 | |
| 1530 | Modified internal functions: |
| 1531 | |
| 1532 | + _nc_trace_ttymode passes pointer to const data |
| 1533 | |
| 1534 | + _nc_tparm_analyze passes pointer to int*, not int[] |
| 1535 | |
| 1536 | 6.2 (Feb 12, 2020) |
| 1537 | Interface changes: |
| 1538 | |
| 1539 | + the terminal database must be compiled with ncurses 6.2 tic; |
| 1540 | older versions of tic/infocmp will not work. Aside from that, |
| 1541 | the compiled database will work with older applications. |
| 1542 | |
| 1543 | + "*.pc" and "ncurses*-config" files give the same information. |
| 1544 | |
| 1545 | + vwprintw and vwscanw are deprecated. |
| 1546 | |
| 1547 | Added extensions: |
| 1548 | |
| 1549 | + These make it simpler to substitute a debug-configuration of the |
| 1550 | library for non-debug: |
| 1551 | curses_trace |
| 1552 | exit_curses |
| 1553 | exit_terminfo |
| 1554 | |
| 1555 | Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants): |
| 1556 | |
| 1557 | + These provide fast-lookup of common user-defined capabilities: |
| 1558 | _nc_find_user_entry |
| 1559 | _nc_get_userdefs_table |
| 1560 | _nc_get_hash_user |
| 1561 | |
| 1562 | + This is added to work around compiler-warnings: |
| 1563 | _nc_fmt_funcptr |
| 1564 | |
| 1565 | Removed internal functions: |
| 1566 | |
| 1567 | + _nc_import_termtype |
| 1568 | |
| 1569 | Modified internal functions: |
| 1570 | |
| 1571 | + _nc_reserve_pairs no longer returns a value |
| 1572 | |
| 1573 | 6.1 (Jan 27, 2018) |
| 1574 | Interface changes: |
| 1575 | |
| 1576 | + X/Open Curses specifies a "reserved" void* parameter in several |
| 1577 | functions, saying that it must be NULL. In this release, if the |
| 1578 | parameter is non-NULL, it is interpreted as a point to an integer |
| 1579 | containing a color pair. In previous releases, a non-NULL parameter |
| 1580 | caused an error return. Portable applications are unaffected. Here |
| 1581 | are the functions which have been extended: |
| 1582 | attr_get |
| 1583 | attr_off |
| 1584 | attr_on |
| 1585 | attr_set |
| 1586 | chgat |
| 1587 | color_set |
| 1588 | mvchgat |
| 1589 | mvwchgat |
| 1590 | slk_attr_off |
| 1591 | slk_attr_on |
| 1592 | slk_attr_set |
| 1593 | wattr_get |
| 1594 | wattr_on |
| 1595 | wattr_off |
| 1596 | wattr_set |
| 1597 | wchgat |
| 1598 | wcolor_set |
| 1599 | |
| 1600 | + the TERMINAL structure declared in <term.h> has been made opaque, |
| 1601 | and its size increased to handle the increased size of color pair |
| 1602 | and color value, as well as other numeric capabilities. |
| 1603 | |
| 1604 | A few applications required change, e.g., to use def_prog_mode; |
| 1605 | only one application (tack) is known to have a valid reason for |
| 1606 | accessing these internal details, and that was addressed by the |
| 1607 | release of tack 1.08 in 2017. Internal functions marked as used |
| 1608 | by tack will be deprecated in future releases. |
| 1609 | |
| 1610 | Added extensions: |
| 1611 | |
| 1612 | + Several new functions were added to manipulate extended color pairs |
| 1613 | and color values. These include: |
| 1614 | alloc_pair |
| 1615 | extended_color_content |
| 1616 | extended_pair_content |
| 1617 | extended_slk_color |
| 1618 | find_pair |
| 1619 | free_pair |
| 1620 | init_extended_color |
| 1621 | init_extended_pair |
| 1622 | reset_color_pairs |
| 1623 | |
| 1624 | as well as corresponding sp-functions. |
| 1625 | |
| 1626 | + A new terminfo capability "RGB" tells the ncurses library that the |
| 1627 | color values are red/green/blue, to eliminate the need for palettes |
| 1628 | in that special case for the color_content function. |
| 1629 | |
| 1630 | Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants): |
| 1631 | _nc_copy_termtype2 |
| 1632 | _nc_export_termtype2 |
| 1633 | _nc_fallback2 |
| 1634 | _nc_find_prescr |
| 1635 | _nc_forget_prescr |
| 1636 | _nc_free_termtype2 |
| 1637 | _nc_read_entry2 |
| 1638 | _nc_write_object |
| 1639 | |
| 1640 | Removed internal functions: |
| 1641 | _nc_check_termtype |
| 1642 | _nc_resolve_uses |
| 1643 | |
| 1644 | Modified internal functions: |
| 1645 | |
| 1646 | + symbols are used by tic/infocmp/toe: |
| 1647 | _nc_align_termtype - change parameters to TERMTYPE2* |
| 1648 | _nc_check_termtype2 - change parameter to TERMTYPE2* |
| 1649 | _nc_read_file_entry - change parameter to TERMTYPE2* |
| 1650 | _nc_read_termtype - change parameter to TERMTYPE2* |
| 1651 | _nc_trim_sgr0 - change parameter to TERMTYPE2* |
| 1652 | _nc_write_entry - change parameter to TERMTYPE2* |
| 1653 | |
| 1654 | + symbols used only within the library: |
| 1655 | _nc_fallback - change return type to TERMTYPE2* |
| 1656 | _nc_init_termtype - change parameter to TERMTYPE2* |
| 1657 | |
| 1658 | 6.0 (Aug 08, 2015) |
| 1659 | Interface changes: |
| 1660 | |
| 1661 | + The 6.0 ABI modifies the defaults for these configure options: |
| 1662 | --enable-const |
| 1663 | --enable-ext-colors |
| 1664 | --enable-ext-mouse |
| 1665 | --enable-ext-putwin |
| 1666 | --enable-interop |
| 1667 | --enable-lp64 |
| 1668 | --enable-sp-funcs |
| 1669 | --with-chtype=uint32_t |
| 1670 | --with-mmask_t=uint32_t |
| 1671 | --with-tparm-arg=intptr_t |
| 1672 | |
| 1673 | + ncurses supports symbol versioning. If you use this feature, about |
| 1674 | half of the "_nc_" private symbols are changed to local symbols. |
| 1675 | |
| 1676 | + a few applications may need to explicitly flush the standard output |
| 1677 | when switching between printf's and (curses) printw. |
| 1678 | |
| 1679 | Added extensions: |
| 1680 | |
| 1681 | + use_tioctl is an improvement over use_env |
| 1682 | |
| 1683 | + added wgetdelay to support the NCURSES_OPAQUE feature. |
| 1684 | |
| 1685 | Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants): |
| 1686 | _nc_init_termtype |
| 1687 | _nc_mvcur |
| 1688 | _nc_putchar |
| 1689 | _nc_setenv_num |
| 1690 | _nc_trace_mmask_t |
| 1691 | |
| 1692 | Removed internal functions: |
| 1693 | none |
| 1694 | |
| 1695 | Modified internal functions: |
| 1696 | _nc_do_color - change parameters from short/bool to int |
| 1697 | _nc_keypad - change parameter from bool to int |
| 1698 | _nc_setupscreen - change parameter from bool to int |
| 1699 | _nc_signal_handler - change parameter from bool to int |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1700 | |
| 1701 | 5.9 (Apr 04, 2011) |
| 1702 | 5.8 (Feb 26, 2011) |
| 1703 | Interface changes: |
| 1704 | |
| 1705 | + add an alternate library configuration, i.e., "terminal driver" to |
| 1706 | support port to Windows, built with MinGW. There are two drivers |
| 1707 | (terminfo and Windows console). The terminfo driver works on other |
| 1708 | platforms. |
| 1709 | |
| 1710 | + add a new set of functions which accept a SCREEN* parameter, in |
| 1711 | contrast with the original set which use the global value "sp". |
| 1712 | By default, these names end with "_sp", and are otherwise |
| 1713 | functionally identical with the originals. |
| 1714 | |
| 1715 | In addition to the "_sp" functions, there are a few new functions |
| 1716 | associated with this feature: ceiling_panel, ground_panel, |
| 1717 | new_prescr. |
| 1718 | |
| 1719 | If the library is not built with the sp-funcs extension, there |
| 1720 | are no related interface changes. |
| 1721 | |
| 1722 | + add tiparm function based on review of X/Open Curses Issue 7. |
| 1723 | |
| 1724 | + change internal _nc_has_mouse function to public has_mouse function |
| 1725 | |
| 1726 | Added extensions: |
| 1727 | |
| 1728 | + add a few more functions to support the NCURSES_OPAQUE feature: |
| 1729 | get_escdelay, is_pad, is_subwin |
| 1730 | |
| 1731 | Added internal functions (other than "_sp" variants): |
| 1732 | _nc_curscr_of |
| 1733 | _nc_format_slks |
| 1734 | _nc_get_alias_table |
| 1735 | _nc_get_hash_info |
| 1736 | _nc_insert_wch |
| 1737 | _nc_newscr_of |
| 1738 | _nc_outc_wrapper |
| 1739 | _nc_retrace_char |
| 1740 | _nc_retrace_int_attr_t |
| 1741 | _nc_retrace_mmask_t |
| 1742 | _nc_setup_tinfo |
| 1743 | _nc_stdscr_of |
| 1744 | _nc_tinfo_cmdch |
| 1745 | |
| 1746 | Removed internal functions: |
| 1747 | _nc_makenew (some configurations replace by _nc_makenew_sp) |
| 1748 | |
| 1749 | Modified internal functions: |
| 1750 | _nc_UpdateAttrs |
| 1751 | _nc_get_hash_table |
| 1752 | _nc_has_mouse |
| 1753 | _nc_insert_ch |
| 1754 | _nc_wgetch |
| 1755 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1756 | 5.7 (November 2, 2008) |
| 1757 | Interface changes: |
| 1758 | |
| 1759 | + generate linkable stubs for some macros: |
| 1760 | getattrs |
| 1761 | |
| 1762 | + Add new library configuration for tic-library (the non-curses portion |
| 1763 | of the ncurses library used for the tic program as well as some |
| 1764 | others such as tack. There is no API change, but makefiles would be |
| 1765 | changed to use the tic-library built separately. |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1766 | |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1767 | tack, distributed separately from ncurses, uses some of the internal |
| 1768 | _nc_XXX functions, which are declared in the tic.h header file. |
| 1769 | |
| 1770 | The reason for providing this separate library is that none of the |
| 1771 | functions in it are suitable for threaded applications. |
| 1772 | |
| 1773 | + Add new library configuration (ncursest, ncurseswt) which provides |
| 1774 | rudimentary support for POSIX threads. This introduces opaque |
| 1775 | access functions to the WINDOW structure and adds a parameter to |
| 1776 | several internal functions. |
| 1777 | |
| 1778 | + move most internal variables (except tic-library) into data blocks |
| 1779 | _nc_globals and _nc_prescreen to simplify analysis. Those were |
| 1780 | globally accessible, but since they were not part of the documented |
| 1781 | API, there is no ABI change. |
| 1782 | |
| 1783 | + changed static tables of strings to be indices into long strings, to |
| 1784 | improve startup performance. This changes parameter lists for some |
| 1785 | of the internal functions. |
| 1786 | |
| 1787 | Added extensions: |
| 1788 | |
| 1789 | + add NCURSES_OPAQUE definition in curses.h to control whether internal |
| 1790 | details of the WINDOW structure are visible to an application. This |
| 1791 | is always defined when the threaded library is built, and is optional |
| 1792 | otherwise. New functions for this: is_cleared, is_idcok, is_idlok, |
| 1793 | is_immedok, is_keypad, is_leaveok, is_nodelay, is_notimeout, |
| 1794 | is_scrollok, is_syncok, wgetparent and wgetscrreg. |
| 1795 | |
| 1796 | + the threaded library (ncursest) also disallows direct updating of |
| 1797 | global curses-level variables, providing functions (via macros) for |
| 1798 | obtaining their value. A few of those variables can be modified by |
| 1799 | the application, using new functions: set_escdelay, set_tabsize |
| 1800 | |
| 1801 | + added functions use_window() and use_screen() which wrap a mutex |
| 1802 | (if threading is configured) around a call to a user-supplied |
| 1803 | function. |
| 1804 | |
| 1805 | Added internal functions: |
| 1806 | _nc_get_alias_table |
| 1807 | _nc_get_screensize |
| 1808 | _nc_keyname |
| 1809 | _nc_screen_of |
| 1810 | _nc_set_no_padding |
| 1811 | _nc_tracechar |
| 1812 | _nc_tracemouse |
| 1813 | _nc_unctrl |
| 1814 | _nc_ungetch |
| 1815 | |
| 1816 | These are used for leak-testing, and are stubs for |
| 1817 | ABI compatibility when ncurses is not configured for that |
| 1818 | using the --disable-leaks configure script option: |
| 1819 | |
| 1820 | _nc_free_and_exit |
| 1821 | _nc_leaks_tinfo |
| 1822 | |
| 1823 | Removed internal functions: |
| 1824 | none |
| 1825 | |
| 1826 | Modified internal functions: |
| 1827 | _nc_fifo_dump |
| 1828 | _nc_find_entry |
| 1829 | _nc_handle_sigwinch |
| 1830 | _nc_init_keytry |
| 1831 | _nc_keypad |
| 1832 | _nc_locale_breaks_acs |
| 1833 | _nc_timed_wait |
| 1834 | _nc_update_screensize |
| 1835 | |
| 1836 | Use new typedef TRIES to replace "struct tries": |
| 1837 | |
| 1838 | _nc_add_to_try |
| 1839 | _nc_expand_try |
| 1840 | _nc_remove_key |
| 1841 | _nc_remove_string |
| 1842 | _nc_trace_tries |
| 1843 | |
| 1844 | 5.6 (December 17, 2006) |
| 1845 | Interface changes: |
| 1846 | |
| 1847 | + generate linkable stubs for some macros: |
| 1848 | |
| 1849 | getbegx, getbegy, getcurx, getcury, getmaxx, getmaxy, getparx, |
| 1850 | getpary, getpary, |
| 1851 | |
| 1852 | and (for libncursesw) |
| 1853 | |
| 1854 | wgetbkgrnd |
| 1855 | |
| 1856 | Added extensions: |
| 1857 | nofilter() |
| 1858 | use_legacy_coding() |
| 1859 | |
| 1860 | Added internal functions: |
| 1861 | _nc_first_db |
| 1862 | _nc_get_source |
| 1863 | _nc_handle_sigwinch |
| 1864 | _nc_is_abs_path |
| 1865 | _nc_is_dir_path |
| 1866 | _nc_is_file_path |
| 1867 | _nc_keep_tic_dir |
| 1868 | _nc_keep_tic_dir |
| 1869 | _nc_last_db |
| 1870 | _nc_next_db |
| 1871 | _nc_read_termtype |
| 1872 | _nc_tic_dir |
| 1873 | |
| 1874 | Also (if using the hashed database configuration): |
| 1875 | |
| 1876 | _nc_db_close |
| 1877 | _nc_db_first |
| 1878 | _nc_db_get |
| 1879 | _nc_db_have_data |
| 1880 | _nc_db_have_index |
| 1881 | _nc_db_next |
| 1882 | _nc_db_open |
| 1883 | _nc_db_put |
| 1884 | |
| 1885 | otherwise |
| 1886 | |
| 1887 | _nc_hashed_db |
| 1888 | |
| 1889 | Removed internal functions: |
| 1890 | none |
| 1891 | |
| 1892 | Modified internal functions: |
| 1893 | _nc_add_to_try |
| 1894 | _nc_do_color |
| 1895 | _nc_expand_try |
| 1896 | _nc_remove_key |
| 1897 | _nc_setupscreen |
| 1898 | |
| 1899 | 5.5 (October 10, 2005) |
| 1900 | Interface changes: |
| 1901 | |
| 1902 | + terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than |
| 1903 | "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6). |
| 1904 | |
| 1905 | + terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems |
| 1906 | still use ncurses 4.2). |
| 1907 | |
| 1908 | + modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing |
| 1909 | initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are |
| 1910 | still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old |
| 1911 | compilers. |
| 1912 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1913 | + form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 1914 | Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the |
| 1915 | FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw, since |
| 1916 | that no longer points to an array of char. The set_field_buffer() |
| 1917 | and field_buffer() functions translate to/from the actual field |
| 1918 | data. |
| 1919 | |
| 1920 | + change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure that |
| 1921 | libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason for this |
| 1922 | is that the corresponding data which belongs to the upper-level |
| 1923 | ncurses library has a different size in each model. |
| 1924 | |
| 1925 | + winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the |
| 1926 | wide-character configuration. |
| 1927 | |
| 1928 | + assume_default_colors() no longer requires that use_default_colors() |
| 1929 | be called first. |
| 1930 | |
| 1931 | + data_ahead() now works with wide-characters. |
| 1932 | |
| 1933 | + slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or |
| 1934 | multicolumn characters. |
| 1935 | |
| 1936 | + start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started. |
| 1937 | start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory. |
| 1938 | |
| 1939 | + pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if it |
| 1940 | corresponds to the default-color. |
| 1941 | |
| 1942 | + unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond |
| 1943 | to an unsigned char. |
| 1944 | |
| 1945 | Added extensions: |
| 1946 | Experimental mouse version 2 supports wheel mice with buttons |
| 1947 | 4 and 5. This requires ABI 6 because it modifies the encoding |
| 1948 | of mouse events. |
| 1949 | |
| 1950 | Experimental extended colors allows encoding of 256 foreground |
| 1951 | and background colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or |
| 1952 | xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6 because |
| 1953 | it changes the size of cchar_t. |
| 1954 | |
| 1955 | Added internal functions: |
| 1956 | _nc_check_termtype2 |
| 1957 | _nc_resolve_uses2 |
| 1958 | _nc_retrace_cptr |
| 1959 | _nc_retrace_cvoid_ptr |
| 1960 | _nc_retrace_void_ptr |
| 1961 | _nc_setup_term |
| 1962 | |
| 1963 | Removed internal functions: |
| 1964 | none |
| 1965 | |
| 1966 | Modified internal functions: |
| 1967 | _nc_insert_ch |
| 1968 | _nc_save_str |
| 1969 | _nc_trans_string |
| 1970 | |
| 1971 | 5.4 (February 8, 2004) |
| 1972 | Interface changes: |
| 1973 | |
| 1974 | + add the remaining functions for X/Open curses wide-character support. |
| 1975 | These are only available if the library is configured using the |
| 1976 | --enable-widec option. |
| 1977 | pecho_wchar() |
| 1978 | slk_wset() |
| 1979 | |
| 1980 | + write getyx() and related 2-return macros in terms of getcury(), |
| 1981 | getcurx(), etc. |
| 1982 | |
| 1983 | + simplify ifdef for bool declaration in curses.h |
| 1984 | |
| 1985 | + modify ifdef's in curses.h that disabled use of __attribute__() for |
| 1986 | g++, since recent versions implement the cases which ncurses uses. |
| 1987 | |
| 1988 | + change some interfaces to use const: |
| 1989 | define_key() |
| 1990 | mvprintw() |
| 1991 | mvwprintw() |
| 1992 | printw() |
| 1993 | vw_printw() |
| 1994 | winsnstr() |
| 1995 | wprintw() |
| 1996 | |
| 1997 | Added extensions: |
| 1998 | key_defined() |
| 1999 | |
| 2000 | Added internal functions: |
| 2001 | _nc_get_locale() |
| 2002 | _nc_insert_ch() |
| 2003 | _nc_is_charable() wide |
| 2004 | _nc_locale_breaks_acs() |
| 2005 | _nc_pathlast() |
| 2006 | _nc_to_char() wide |
| 2007 | _nc_to_widechar() wide |
| 2008 | _nc_tparm_analyze() |
| 2009 | _nc_trace_bufcat() debug |
| 2010 | _nc_unicode_locale() |
| 2011 | |
| 2012 | Removed internal functions: |
| 2013 | _nc_outstr() |
| 2014 | _nc_sigaction() |
| 2015 | |
| 2016 | Modified internal functions: |
| 2017 | _nc_remove_string() |
| 2018 | _nc_retrace_chtype() |
| 2019 | |
| 2020 | 5.3 (October 12, 2002) |
| 2021 | Interface changes: |
| 2022 | |
| 2023 | + change type for bool used in headers to NCURSES_BOOL, which usually |
| 2024 | is the same as the compiler's definition for 'bool'. |
| 2025 | |
| 2026 | + add all but two functions for X/Open curses wide-character support. |
| 2027 | These are only available if the library is configured using the |
| 2028 | --enable-widec option. Missing functions are |
| 2029 | pecho_wchar() |
| 2030 | slk_wset() |
| 2031 | |
| 2032 | + add environment variable $NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS to modify the |
| 2033 | assume_default_colors() extension. |
| 2034 | |
| 2035 | Added extensions: |
| 2036 | is_term_resized() |
| 2037 | resize_term() |
| 2038 | |
| 2039 | Added internal functions: |
| 2040 | _nc_altcharset_name() debug |
| 2041 | _nc_reset_colors() |
| 2042 | _nc_retrace_bool() debug |
| 2043 | _nc_retrace_unsigned() debug |
| 2044 | _nc_rootname() |
| 2045 | _nc_trace_ttymode() debug |
| 2046 | _nc_varargs() debug |
| 2047 | _nc_visbufn() debug |
| 2048 | _nc_wgetch() |
| 2049 | |
| 2050 | Removed internal functions: |
| 2051 | _nc_background() |
| 2052 | |
| 2053 | Modified internal functions: |
| 2054 | _nc_freeall() debug |
| 2055 | |
| 2056 | 5.2 (October 21, 2000) |
| 2057 | Interface changes: |
| 2058 | |
| 2059 | + revert termcap ospeed variable to 'short' (see discussion of the |
| 2060 | --with-ospeed configure option). |
| 2061 | |
| 2062 | 5.1 (July 8, 2000) |
| 2063 | Interface changes: |
| 2064 | |
| 2065 | + made the extended terminal capabilities |
| 2066 | (configure --enable-tcap-names) a standard feature. This should |
| 2067 | be transparent to applications that do not require it. |
| 2068 | |
| 2069 | + removed the trace() function and related trace support from the |
| 2070 | production library. |
| 2071 | |
| 2072 | + modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict |
| 2073 | with C++ STL. |
| 2074 | |
| 2075 | Added extensions: assume_default_colors(). |
| 2076 | |
| 2077 | 5.0 (October 23, 1999) |
| 2078 | Interface changes: |
| 2079 | |
| 2080 | + implemented the wcolor_set() and slk_color() functions. |
| 2081 | |
| 2082 | + move macro winch to a function, to hide details of struct ldat |
| 2083 | |
| 2084 | + corrected prototypes for slk_* functions, using chtype rather than |
| 2085 | attr_t. |
| 2086 | |
| 2087 | + the slk_attr_{set,off,on} functions need an additional void* |
| 2088 | parameter according to XSI. |
| 2089 | |
| 2090 | + modified several prototypes to correspond with 1997 version of X/Open |
| 2091 | Curses: [w]attr_get(), [w]attr_set(), border_set() have different |
| 2092 | parameters. Some functions were renamed or misspelled: |
| 2093 | erase_wchar(), in_wchntr(), mvin_wchntr(). Some developers have used |
| 2094 | attr_get(). |
| 2095 | |
| 2096 | Added extensions: keybound(), curses_version(). |
| 2097 | |
| 2098 | Terminfo database changes: |
| 2099 | |
| 2100 | + change translation for termcap 'rs' to terminfo 'rs2', which is |
| 2101 | the documented equivalent, rather than 'rs1'. |
| 2102 | |
| 2103 | The problems are subtler in recent releases. |
| 2104 | |
| 2105 | a) This release provides users with the ability to define their own |
| 2106 | terminal capability extensions, like termcap. To accomplish this, |
| 2107 | we redesigned the TERMTYPE struct (in term.h). Very few |
| 2108 | applications use this struct. They must be recompiled to work with |
| 2109 | the 5.0 library. |
| 2110 | |
| 2111 | a) If you use the extended terminfo names (i.e., you used configure |
| 2112 | --enable-tcap-names), the resulting terminfo database can have some |
| 2113 | entries which are not readable by older versions of ncurses. This |
| 2114 | is a bug in the older versions: |
| 2115 | |
| 2116 | + the terminfo database stores booleans, numbers and strings in |
| 2117 | arrays. The capabilities that are listed in the arrays are |
| 2118 | specified by X/Open. ncurses recognizes a number of obsolete and |
| 2119 | extended names which are stored past the end of the specified |
| 2120 | entries. |
| 2121 | |
| 2122 | + a change to read_entry.c in 951001 made the library do an lseek() |
| 2123 | call incorrectly skipping data which is already read from the |
| 2124 | string array. This happens when the number of strings in the |
| 2125 | terminfo data file is greater than STRCOUNT, the number of |
| 2126 | specified and obsolete or extended strings. |
| 2127 | |
| 2128 | + as part of alignment with the X/Open final specification, in the |
| 2129 | 990109 patch we added two new terminfo capabilities: |
| 2130 | set_a_attributes and set_pglen_inch). This makes the indices for |
| 2131 | the obsolete and extended capabilities shift up by 2. |
| 2132 | |
| 2133 | + the last two capabilities in the obsolete/extended list are memu |
| 2134 | and meml, which are found in most terminfo descriptions for xterm. |
| 2135 | |
| 2136 | When trying to read this terminfo entry, the spurious lseek() |
| 2137 | causes the library to attempt to read the final portion of the |
| 2138 | terminfo data (the text of the string capabilities) 4 characters |
| 2139 | past its starting point, and reads 4 characters too few. The |
| 2140 | library rejects the data, and applications are unable to |
| 2141 | initialize that terminal type. |
| 2142 | |
| 2143 | FIX: remove memu and meml from the xterm description. They are |
| 2144 | obsolete, not used by ncurses. (It appears that the feature was |
| 2145 | added to xterm to make it more like hpterm). |
| 2146 | |
| 2147 | This is not a problem if you do not use the -x option of tic to |
| 2148 | create a terminfo database with extended names. Note that the |
| 2149 | user-defined terminal capabilities are not affected by this bug, |
| 2150 | since they are stored in a table after the older terminfo data ends, |
| 2151 | and are invisible to the older libraries. |
| 2152 | |
| 2153 | c) Some developers did not wish to use the C++ binding, and used the |
| 2154 | configure --without-cxx option. This causes problems if someone |
| 2155 | uses the ncurses library from C++ because that configure test |
| 2156 | determines the type for C++'s bool and makes ncurses match it, since |
| 2157 | both C++ and curses are specified to declare bool. Calling ncurses |
| 2158 | functions with the incorrect type for bool will cause execution |
| 2159 | errors. In 5.0 we added a configure option "--without-cxx-binding" |
| 2160 | which controls whether the binding itself is built and installed. |
| 2161 | |
| 2162 | 4.2 (March 2, 1998) |
| 2163 | Interface changes: |
| 2164 | |
| 2165 | + correct prototype for termattrs() as per XPG4 version 2. |
| 2166 | |
| 2167 | + add placeholder prototypes for color_set(), erasewchar(), |
| 2168 | term_attrs(), wcolor_set() as per XPG4 version 2. |
| 2169 | |
| 2170 | + add macros getcur[xy] getbeg[xy] getpar[xy], which are defined in |
| 2171 | SVr4 headers. |
| 2172 | |
| 2173 | New extensions: keyok() and define_key(). |
| 2174 | |
| 2175 | Terminfo database changes: |
| 2176 | |
| 2177 | + corrected definition in curses.h for ACS_LANTERN, which was 'I' |
| 2178 | rather than 'i'. |
| 2179 | |
| 2180 | 4.1 (May 15, 1997) |
| 2181 | |
| 2182 | We added these extensions: use_default_colors(). Also added |
| 2183 | configure option --enable-const, to support the use of const where |
| 2184 | X/Open should have, but did not, specify. |
| 2185 | |
| 2186 | The terminfo database content changed the representation of color for |
| 2187 | most entries that use ANSI colors. SVr4 curses treats the setaf/setab |
| 2188 | and setf/setb capabilities differently, interchanging the red/blue |
| 2189 | colors in the latter. |
| 2190 | |
| 2191 | 4.0 (December 24, 1996) |
| 2192 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2193 | We bumped to version 4.0 because the newly released Linux dynamic |
| 2194 | loader (ld.so.1.8.5) did not load shared libraries whose ABI and REL |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2195 | versions were inconsistent. At that point, ncurses ABI was 3.4 and the |
| 2196 | REL was 1.9.9g, so we made them consistent. |
| 2197 | |
| 2198 | 1.9.9g (December 1, 1996) |
| 2199 | |
| 2200 | This fixed most of the problems with 1.9.9e, and made these interface |
| 2201 | changes: |
| 2202 | |
| 2203 | + remove tparam(), which had been provided for compatibility with |
| 2204 | some termcap. tparm() is standard, and does not conflict with |
| 2205 | application's fallback for missing tparam(). |
| 2206 | |
| 2207 | + turn off hardware echo in initscr(). This changes the sense of the |
| 2208 | echo() function, which was initialized to echoing rather than |
| 2209 | nonechoing (the latter is specified). There were several other |
| 2210 | corrections to the terminal I/O settings which cause applications to |
| 2211 | behave differently. |
| 2212 | |
| 2213 | + implemented several functions (such as attr_on()) which were |
| 2214 | available only as macros. |
| 2215 | |
| 2216 | + corrected several typos in curses.h.in (i.e., the mvXXXX macros). |
| 2217 | |
| 2218 | + corrected prototypes for delay_output(), |
| 2219 | has_color, immedok() and idcok(). |
| 2220 | |
| 2221 | + corrected misspelled getbkgd(). Some applications used the |
| 2222 | misspelled name. |
| 2223 | |
| 2224 | + added _yoffset to WINDOW. The size of WINDOW does not impact |
| 2225 | applications, since they use only pointers to WINDOW structs. |
| 2226 | |
| 2227 | These changes were made to the terminfo database: |
| 2228 | |
| 2229 | + removed boolean 'getm' which was available as an extended name. |
| 2230 | |
| 2231 | We added these extensions: wresize(), resizeterm(), has_key() and |
| 2232 | mcprint(). |
| 2233 | |
| 2234 | 1.9.9e (March 24, 1996) |
| 2235 | |
| 2236 | not recommended (a last-minute/untested change left the forms and |
| 2237 | menus libraries unusable since they do not repaint the screen). |
| 2238 | Foreground/background colors are combined incorrectly, working properly |
| 2239 | only on a black background. When this was released, the X/Open |
| 2240 | specification was available only in draft form. |
| 2241 | |
| 2242 | Some applications (such as lxdialog) were "fixed" to work with the |
| 2243 | incorrect color scheme. |
| 2244 | |
| 2245 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2246 | FOR SYSTEM INTEGRATORS: |
| 2247 | ---------------------- |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2248 | |
| 2249 | Configuration and Installation: |
| 2250 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2251 | On platforms where ncurses is assumed to be installed in /usr/lib, |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2252 | the configure script uses "/usr" as a default. These include any |
| 2253 | that use the Linux kernel, as well as these special cases: |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2254 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2255 | FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Cygwin, MinGW |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2256 | |
| 2257 | For other platforms, the default is "/usr/local". See the discussion |
| 2258 | of the "--disable-overwrite" option. |
| 2259 | |
| 2260 | The location of the terminfo is set indirectly by the "--datadir" |
| 2261 | configure option, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo, given a datadir of |
| 2262 | /usr/share. You may want to override this if you are installing |
| 2263 | ncurses libraries in nonstandard locations, but wish to share the |
| 2264 | terminfo database. |
| 2265 | |
| 2266 | Normally the ncurses library is configured in a pure-terminfo mode; |
| 2267 | that is, with the --disable-termcap option. This makes the ncurses |
| 2268 | library smaller and faster. The ncurses library includes a termcap |
| 2269 | emulation that queries the terminfo database, so even applications that |
| 2270 | use raw termcap to query terminal characteristics will win (providing |
| 2271 | you recompile and relink them!). |
| 2272 | |
| 2273 | If you must configure with termcap fallback enabled, you may also wish |
| 2274 | to use the --enable-getcap option. This speeds up termcap-based |
| 2275 | startups, at the expense of not allowing personal termcap entries to |
| 2276 | reference the terminfo tree. See comments in |
| 2277 | ncurses/tinfo/read_termcap.c for further details. |
| 2278 | |
| 2279 | Note that if you have $TERMCAP set, ncurses will use that value |
| 2280 | to locate termcap data. In particular, running from xterm will |
| 2281 | set $TERMCAP to the contents of the xterm's termcap entry. |
| 2282 | If ncurses sees that, it will not examine /etc/termcap. |
| 2283 | |
| 2284 | Keyboard Mapping: |
| 2285 | |
| 2286 | The terminfo file assumes that Shift-Tab generates \E[Z (the ECMA-48 |
| 2287 | reverse-tabulation sequence) rather than ^I. Here are the loadkeys -d |
| 2288 | mappings that will set this up: |
| 2289 | |
| 2290 | keycode 15 = Tab Tab |
| 2291 | alt keycode 15 = Meta_Tab |
| 2292 | shift keycode 15 = F26 |
| 2293 | string F26 ="\033[Z" |
| 2294 | |
| 2295 | Naming the Console Terminal |
| 2296 | |
| 2297 | In various systems there has been a practice of designating the system |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2298 | console driver type as 'console'. Please do not do this! It |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2299 | complicates peoples' lives, because it can mean that several different |
| 2300 | terminfo entries from different operating systems all logically want to |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2301 | be called 'console'. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2302 | |
| 2303 | Please pick a name unique to your console driver and set that up |
| 2304 | in the /etc/inittab table or local equivalent. Send the entry to the |
| 2305 | terminfo maintainer (listed in the misc/terminfo file) to be included |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2306 | in the terminfo file, if it is not already there. See the |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2307 | term(7) manual page included with this distribution for more on |
| 2308 | conventions for choosing type names. |
| 2309 | |
| 2310 | Here are some recommended primary console names: |
| 2311 | |
| 2312 | linux -- Linux console driver |
| 2313 | freebsd -- FreeBSD |
| 2314 | netbsd -- NetBSD |
| 2315 | bsdos -- BSD/OS |
| 2316 | |
| 2317 | If you are responsible for integrating ncurses for one of these |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2318 | distributions, please either use the recommended name or get back |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2319 | to us explaining why you don't want to, so we can work out nomenclature |
| 2320 | that will make users' lives easier rather than harder. |
| 2321 | |
| 2322 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2323 | MODERN XTERM VERSIONS: |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2324 | --------------------- |
| 2325 | |
| 2326 | The terminfo database file included with this distribution assumes you |
| 2327 | are running a modern xterm based on XFree86 (i.e., xterm-new). The |
| 2328 | earlier X11R6 entry (xterm-r6) and X11R5 entry (xterm-r5) is provided |
| 2329 | as well. See the --without-xterm-new configure script option if you |
| 2330 | are unable to update your system. |
| 2331 | |
| 2332 | |
| 2333 | CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES: |
| 2334 | ---------------------------- |
| 2335 | |
| 2336 | In order to support operation of ncurses programs before the terminfo |
| 2337 | tree is accessible (that is, in single-user mode or at OS installation |
| 2338 | time) the ncurses library can be compiled to include an array of |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2339 | pre-fetched fallback entries. |
| 2340 | |
| 2341 | NOTE: This must be done on a machine which has ncurses' infocmp and |
| 2342 | terminfo database installed (as well as ncurses' tic and infocmp |
| 2343 | programs). That is because the fallback sources are generated and |
| 2344 | compiled into the library before the build-tree's copy of infocmp is |
| 2345 | available. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2346 | |
| 2347 | These entries are checked by setupterm() only when the conventional |
| 2348 | fetches from the terminfo tree and the termcap fallback (if configured) |
| 2349 | have been tried and failed. Thus, the presence of a fallback will not |
| 2350 | shadow modifications to the on-disk entry for the same type, when that |
| 2351 | entry is accessible. |
| 2352 | |
| 2353 | By default, there are no entries on the fallback list. After you have |
| 2354 | built the ncurses suite for the first time, you can change the list |
| 2355 | (the process needs infocmp(1)). To do so, use the script |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2356 | ncurses/tinfo/MKfallback.sh. The configure script option |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2357 | --with-fallbacks does this (it accepts a comma-separated list of the |
| 2358 | names you wish, and does not require a rebuild). |
| 2359 | |
| 2360 | If you wanted (say) to have linux, vt100, and xterm fallbacks, you |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2361 | might use the commands |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2362 | |
| 2363 | cd ncurses; |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2364 | tinfo/MKfallback.sh \ |
| 2365 | $TERMINFO \ |
| 2366 | ../misc/terminfo.src \ |
| 2367 | `which tic` \ |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2368 | `which infocmp` \ |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2369 | linux vt100 xterm >fallback.c |
| 2370 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2371 | The first four parameters of the script are normally supplied by |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2372 | the configured makefiles via the "--with-fallbacks" option. They |
| 2373 | are |
| 2374 | |
| 2375 | 1) the location of the terminfo database |
| 2376 | 2) the source for the terminfo entries |
| 2377 | 3) the location of the tic program, used to create a terminfo |
| 2378 | database. |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2379 | 4) the location of the infocmp program, used to print a terminfo |
| 2380 | description. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2381 | |
| 2382 | Then just rebuild and reinstall the library as you would normally. |
| 2383 | You can restore the default empty fallback list with |
| 2384 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2385 | tinfo/MKfallback.sh \ |
| 2386 | $TERMINFO \ |
| 2387 | ../misc/terminfo.src \ |
| 2388 | `which tic` \ |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2389 | `which infocmp` \ |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2390 | >fallback.c |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2391 | |
| 2392 | The overhead for an empty fallback list is one trivial stub function. |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2393 | Any non-empty fallback list is const'd and therefore lives in shareable |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2394 | text space. You can look at the comment trailing each initializer in |
| 2395 | the generated ncurses/fallback.c file to see the core cost of the |
| 2396 | fallbacks. A good rule of thumb for modern vt100-like entries is that |
| 2397 | each one will cost about 2.5K of text space. |
| 2398 | |
| 2399 | |
| 2400 | BSD CONVERSION NOTES: |
| 2401 | -------------------- |
| 2402 | |
| 2403 | If you need to support really ancient BSD programs, you probably |
| 2404 | want to configure with the --enable-bsdpad option. What this does |
| 2405 | is enable code in tputs() that recognizes a numeric prefix on a |
| 2406 | capability as a request for that much trailing padding in milliseconds. |
| 2407 | There are old BSD programs that do things like tputs("50"). |
| 2408 | |
| 2409 | (If you are distributing ncurses as a support-library component of |
| 2410 | an application you probably want to put the remainder of this section |
| 2411 | in the package README file.) |
| 2412 | |
| 2413 | The following note applies only if you have configured ncurses with |
| 2414 | --enable-termcap. |
| 2415 | |
| 2416 | ------------------------------- CUT HERE -------------------------------- |
| 2417 | |
| 2418 | If you are installing this application privately (either because you |
| 2419 | have no root access or want to experiment with it before doing a root |
| 2420 | installation), there are a couple of details you need to be aware of. |
| 2421 | They have to do with the ncurses library, which uses terminfo rather |
| 2422 | than termcap for describing terminal characteristics. |
| 2423 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2424 | Though the ncurses library is terminfo-based, it can interpret your |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2425 | TERMCAP variable (if present), any local termcap files you reference |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2426 | through it, and the system termcap file. However, to avoid slowing |
| 2427 | down your application startup, it does this only once per terminal type! |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2428 | |
| 2429 | The first time you load a given terminal type from your termcap |
| 2430 | database, the library initialization code will automatically write it |
| 2431 | in terminfo format to a subdirectory under $HOME/.terminfo. After |
| 2432 | that, the initialization code will find it there and do a (much |
| 2433 | faster) terminfo fetch. |
| 2434 | |
| 2435 | Usually, all this means is that your home directory will silently grow |
| 2436 | an invisible .terminfo subdirectory which will get filled in with |
| 2437 | terminfo descriptions of terminal types as you invoke them. If anyone |
| 2438 | ever installs a global terminfo tree on your system, this will quietly |
| 2439 | stop happening and your $HOME/.terminfo will become redundant. |
| 2440 | |
| 2441 | The objective of all this logic is to make converting from BSD termcap |
| 2442 | as painless as possible without slowing down your application (termcap |
| 2443 | compilation is expensive). |
| 2444 | |
| 2445 | If you don't have a TERMCAP variable or custom personal termcap file, |
| 2446 | you can skip the rest of this dissertation. |
| 2447 | |
| 2448 | If you *do* have a TERMCAP variable and/or a custom personal termcap file |
| 2449 | that defines a terminal type, that definition will stop being visible |
| 2450 | to this application after the first time you run it, because it will |
| 2451 | instead see the terminfo entry that it wrote to $HOME/terminfo the |
| 2452 | first time around. |
| 2453 | |
| 2454 | Subsequently, editing the TERMCAP variable or personal TERMCAP file |
| 2455 | will have no effect unless you explicitly remove the terminfo entry |
| 2456 | under $HOME/terminfo. If you do that, the entry will be recompiled |
| 2457 | from your termcap resources the next time it is invoked. |
| 2458 | |
| 2459 | To avoid these complications, use infocmp(1) and tic(1) to edit the |
| 2460 | terminfo directory directly. |
| 2461 | |
| 2462 | ------------------------------- CUT HERE -------------------------------- |
| 2463 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2464 | USING GPM: |
| 2465 | --------- |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2466 | Ncurses 4.1 and up can be configured to use GPM (General Purpose Mouse) |
| 2467 | which is used with Linux console. Be aware that GPM is commonly |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2468 | installed as a shared library which contains a wrapper for the curses |
| 2469 | wgetch() function (libcurses.o). Some integrators have simplified |
| 2470 | linking applications by combining all or part of libcurses.so into the |
| 2471 | libgpm.so file, producing symbol conflicts with ncurses (specifically |
| 2472 | the wgetch function). This was originally the BSD curses, but |
| 2473 | generally whatever curses library exists on the system. |
| 2474 | |
| 2475 | You may be able to work around this problem by linking as follows: |
| 2476 | |
| 2477 | cc -o foo foo.o -lncurses -lgpm -lncurses |
| 2478 | |
| 2479 | but the linker may not cooperate, producing mysterious errors. |
| 2480 | See the FAQ, as well as the discussion under the --with-gpm option: |
| 2481 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2482 | https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#using_gpm_lib |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2483 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2484 | |
| 2485 | BUILDING WITH A CROSS-COMPILER: |
| 2486 | ------------------------------ |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2487 | Ncurses can be built with a cross-compiler. Some parts must be built |
| 2488 | with the host's compiler since they are used for building programs |
| 2489 | (e.g., ncurses/make_hash and ncurses/make_keys) that generate tables |
| 2490 | that are compiled into the ncurses library. The essential thing to do |
| 2491 | is set the BUILD_CC environment variable to your host's compiler, and |
| 2492 | run the configure script configuring for the cross-compiler. |
| 2493 | |
| 2494 | The configure options --with-build-cc, etc., are provided to make this |
| 2495 | simpler. Since make_hash and make_keys use only ANSI C features, it |
| 2496 | is normally not necessary to provide the other options such as |
| 2497 | --with-build-libs, but they are provided for completeness. |
| 2498 | |
| 2499 | Note that all of the generated source-files which are part of ncurses |
| 2500 | will be made if you use |
| 2501 | |
| 2502 | make sources |
| 2503 | |
| 2504 | This would be useful in porting to an environment which has little |
| 2505 | support for the tools used to generate the sources, e.g., sed, awk and |
| 2506 | Bourne-shell. |
| 2507 | |
| 2508 | When ncurses has been successfully cross-compiled, you may want to use |
| 2509 | "make install" (with a suitable target directory) to construct an |
| 2510 | install tree. Note that in this case (as with the --with-fallbacks |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2511 | option), ncurses uses the development platform's tic to do the "make |
| 2512 | install.data" portion. |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2513 | |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2514 | The system's tic program is used to install the terminal database, |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2515 | even for cross-compiles. For best results, the tic program should be |
| 2516 | from the most current version of ncurses. |
Steve Kondik | ae271bc | 2015-11-15 02:50:53 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 2517 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2518 | NOTE: the system's tic program may use a different terminfo database |
| 2519 | format than the target system. For instance, as described in term(5), |
| 2520 | the conventional terminfo layout uses a directory hierarchy with one |
| 2521 | letter names, while some platforms use two-letter names to work with |
| 2522 | case-insensitive filesystems. The configure script searches for a tic |
| 2523 | program using the AC_CHECK_TOOL macro, which will prefer programs |
| 2524 | using the canonical host prefix in their name. You can use this fact |
| 2525 | to provide a cross-compiler support utility tic, otherwise you can |
| 2526 | override the configure script's choice using --with-tic-path |
| 2527 | |
| 2528 | |
| 2529 | BUG REPORTS: |
| 2530 | ----------- |
Amit Daniel Kachhap | e6a01f5 | 2011-07-20 11:45:59 +0530 | [diff] [blame] | 2531 | Send any feedback to the ncurses mailing list at |
| 2532 | bug-ncurses@gnu.org. To subscribe send mail to |
| 2533 | bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with body that reads: |
| 2534 | subscribe ncurses <your-email-address-here> |
| 2535 | |
| 2536 | The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines |
| 2537 | on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly. |
| 2538 | |
micky387 | 9b9f5e7 | 2025-07-08 18:04:53 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 2539 | -- vile:txtmode fc=78 |