man/scr_dump.5

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.\" Copyright 2018-2023,2024 Thomas E. Dickey                                *
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.\" $Id: scr_dump.5,v 1.46 2024/03/23 20:42:29 tom Exp $
.TH scr_dump 5 2024-03-23 "ncurses @NCURSES_MAJOR@.@NCURSES_MINOR@" "File formats"
.ie \n(.g \{\
.ds `` \(lq
.ds '' \(rq
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.el \{\
.ie t .ds `` ``
.el   .ds `` ""
.ie t .ds '' ''
.el   .ds '' ""
.\}
.
.de bP
.ie n  .IP \(bu 4
.el    .IP \(bu 2
..
.SH NAME
scr_dump \-
\fIcurses\fR screen dump
.\"SH SYNOPSIS
.SH DESCRIPTION
The curses library provides applications with the ability to write the
contents of a window to an external file using \fBscr_dump\fP or \fBputwin\fP,
and read it back using \fBscr_restore\fP or \fBgetwin\fP.
.PP
The \fBputwin\fP and \fBgetwin\fP functions do the work;
while \fBscr_dump\fP and \fBscr_restore\fP conveniently save and restore
the whole screen, i.e., \fBstdscr\fP.
.SS ncurses6
A longstanding implementation of screen-dump was
revised with ncurses6 to remedy problems with the earlier approach:
.IP \(bu 4
A \*(``magic number\*('' is written to the beginning of the dump file,
allowing applications (such as \fBfile\fP(1)) to recognize curses dump files.
.IP
Because ncurses6 uses a new format,
that requires a new magic number
was unused by other applications.
This 16-bit number was unused:
.RS 4
.PP
.RS 4
.EX
0x8888 (octal \*(``\e210\e210\*('')
.EE
.RE
.PP
but to be more certain, this 32-bit number was chosen:
.PP
.RS 4
.EX
0x88888888 (octal \*(``\e210\e210\e210\e210\*('')
.EE
.RE
.PP
This is the pattern submitted to the maintainers of the \fBfile\fP program:
.PP
.RS 4
.EX
#
# ncurses5 (and before) did not use a magic number,
# making screen dumps "data".
#
# ncurses6 (2015) uses this format, ignoring byte-order
0    string    \e210\e210\e210\e210ncurses    ncurses6 screen image
#
.EE
.RE
.RE
.bP
The screen dumps are written in textual form,
so that internal data sizes are not directly related to the dump-format, and
enabling the library to read dumps from either narrow- or wide-character-
configurations.
.IP
The \fInarrow\fP library configuration holds characters and video attributes
in a 32-bit \fBchtype\fP, while the \fIwide-character\fP library stores
this information in the \fBcchar_t\fP structure, which is much larger than
32-bits.
.bP
It is possible to read a screen dump into a terminal with a different
screen-size,
because the library truncates or fills the screen as necessary.
.bP
The ncurses6 \fBgetwin\fP reads the legacy screen dumps from ncurses5.
.SS "ncurses5 (Legacy)"
The screen-dump feature was added to \fI\%ncurses\fP in June 1995.
While there were fixes and improvements in succeeding years,
the basic scheme was unchanged:
.bP
The \fI\%WINDOW\fP structure was written in binary form.
.bP
The \fI\%WINDOW\fP structure refers to lines of data,
which were written as an array of binary data following the \fI\%WINDOW\fP.
.bP
When \fBgetwin\fP restored the window,
it would keep track of offsets into the array of line-data
and adjust the \fI\%WINDOW\fP structure which was read back into memory.
.PP
This is similar to Unix System\ V,
but does not write a \*(``magic number\*('' to identify the file format.
.SH PORTABILITY
There is no standard format for
.I curses
screen dumps.
A brief survey of the existing implementations follows.
.SS "X/Open Curses"
X/Open Curses, Issue 7 specifies little.
It says
(boldface emphasis added)
.RS 3
.PP
\*(``[t]he \fI\%getwin()\fP function reads window-related data stored in
the file by \fI\%putwin()\fP.
The function then creates and initializes a new window using that data.
.PP
The \fI\%putwin()\fP function writes all data associated with \fIwin\fP
into the \fI\%stdio\fP stream to which \fIfilep\fP points,
using an \fBunspecified format\fP.
This information can be retrieved later using \fI\%getwin()\fP.\*(''
.RE
.PP
In the mid-1990s when the X/Open Curses document was written,
there were still System\ V systems using older,
less capable
.I curses
libraries.
BSD
.I curses
was not relevant to X/Open because it did not meet the criteria
for base-level conformance;
see \fB\%ncurses\fP(3X).
.SS "System V"
System\ V
.I curses
identified the file format by writing a \*(``magic number\*('' at the
beginning of the dump.
The \fI\%WINDOW\fP data and the lines of text follow, all in binary form.
.PP
Solaris
.I curses
has the following definitions.
.PP
.RS 4
.EX
/* terminfo magic number */
#define MAGNUM  0432

/* curses screen dump magic number */
#define SVR2_DUMP_MAGIC_NUMBER  0433
#define SVR3_DUMP_MAGIC_NUMBER  0434
.EE
.RE
.PP
That is, the feature was likely introduced in SVr2 (1984),
and improved in SVr3 (1987).
Solaris
.I curses
has no magic number for SVr4 (1989).
Other System\ V operating systems
(AIX and HP-UX)
use a magic number that would correspond to the following.
.PP
.RS 4
.EX
/* curses screen dump magic number */
#define SVR4_DUMP_MAGIC_NUMBER  0435
.EE
.RE
.PP
That octal number in bytes is 001, 035.
Because most Unix vendors at the time used big-endian hardware,
the magic number is written with the high-order byte first.
.PP
.RS 4
.EX
\e001\e035
.EE
.RE
.PP
After the magic number,
the \fI\%WINDOW\fP structure and line data are written in binary format.
While the magic number used by these systems can be observed with
\fIod\fP(1),
none of them documents the format used for screen dumps.
.PP
Nor do they use an identical format,
even with the System\ V family.
The
.I \%ncurses
.I \%savescreen
test program was used to collect information for this manual page.
It produced dumps of different size
(all on 64-bit hardware,
on 40x80 screens):
.bP
AIX (51817 bytes)
.bP
HP-UX (90093 bytes)
.bP
Solaris 10 (13273 bytes)
.bP
\fI\%ncurses\fP5 (12888 bytes)
.SS Solaris
As noted above,
Solaris
.I curses
has no magic number corresponding to SVr4
.IR curses .
This is odd,
since Solaris was the first operating system to meet the SVr4
guidelines.
Solaris furthermore supplies two versions of
.IR curses .
.bP
The default
.I curses
library uses the SVr3 magic number.
.bP
An alternate
.I curses
library
(which we term
.I \%xcurses),
available in
.IR /usr/xpg4 ,
uses a textual format with no magic number.
.IP
According to its copyright notice,
this
.I \%xcurses
library was developed by MKS
(Mortice Kern Systems) from 1990 to 1995.
.IP
Like ncurses6,
it includes a header with parameters.
Unlike ncurses6,
the contents of the window are written piecemeal,
with coordinates and attributes for each chunk of text rather than
writing the whole window from top to bottom.
.SS PDCurses
.I \%PDCurses
added support for screen dumps in version 2.7 (2005).
Like System\ V and ncurses5,
it writes the \fI\%WINDOW\fP structure in binary,
but begins the file with its three-byte identifier \*(``PDC\*('',
followed by a single-byte version number.
.PP
.RS 4
.EX
	\*(``PDC\e001\*(''
.EE
.RE
.SS NetBSD
As of April 2017,
NetBSD
.I curses
does not support \fB\%scr_dump\fP and \fB\%scr_restore\fP
(or \fB\%scr_init\fP,
\fB\%scr_set\fP),
although it has \fB\%putwin\fP and \fB\%getwin\fP.
.PP
Like ncurses5,
NetBSD \fB\%putwin\fP does not identify its dumps with a useful magic
number.
It writes
.bP
the
.I curses
shared library major and minor versions as the first two bytes
(for example,
7 and 1),
.bP
followed by a binary dump of the \fI\%WINDOW\fP,
.bP
some data for wide characters referenced by the \fI\%WINDOW\fP
structure,
and
.bP
finally,
lines as done by other implementations.
.SH EXAMPLES
Given a simple program which writes text to the screen
(and for the sake of example, limiting the screen-size to 10x20):
.PP
.RS 4
.EX
#include <curses.h>

int
main(void)
{
    putenv("LINES=10");
    putenv("COLUMNS=20");
    initscr();
    start_color();
    init_pair(1, COLOR_WHITE, COLOR_BLUE);
    init_pair(2, COLOR_RED, COLOR_BLACK);
    bkgd(COLOR_PAIR(1));
    move(4, 5);
    attron(A_BOLD);
    addstr("Hello");
    move(5, 5);
    attroff(A_BOLD);
    attrset(A_REVERSE | COLOR_PAIR(2));
    addstr("World!");
    refresh();
    scr_dump("foo.out");
    endwin();
    return 0;
}
.EE
.RE
.PP
When run using ncurses6, the output looks like this:
.PP
.RS 4
.EX
\e210\e210\e210\e210ncurses 6.0.20170415
_cury=5
_curx=11
_maxy=9
_maxx=19
_flags=14
_attrs=\e{REVERSE|C2}
flag=_idcok
_delay=-1
_regbottom=9
_bkgrnd=\e{NORMAL|C1}\es
rows:
1:\e{NORMAL|C1}\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es
2:\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es
3:\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es
4:\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es
5:\es\es\es\es\es\e{BOLD}Hello\e{NORMAL}\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es
6:\es\es\es\es\es\e{REVERSE|C2}World!\e{NORMAL|C1}\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es
7:\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es
8:\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es
9:\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es
10:\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es\es
.EE
.RE
.PP
The first four octal escapes are actually nonprinting characters,
while the remainder of the file is printable text.
You may notice:
.bP
The actual color pair values are not written to the file.
.bP
All characters are shown in printable form; spaces are \*(``\es\*('' to
ensure they are not overlooked.
.bP
Attributes are written in escaped curly braces, e.g., \*(``\e{BOLD}\*('',
and may include a color pair (C1 or C2 in this example).
.bP
The parameters in the header are written out only if they are nonzero.
When reading back, order does not matter.
.ne 10
.PP
Running the same program with Solaris \fIxpg4\fP curses gives this dump:
.PP
.RS 4
.EX
MAX=10,20
BEG=0,0
SCROLL=0,10
VMIN=1
VTIME=0
FLAGS=0x1000
FG=0,0
BG=0,0,
0,0,0,1,
0,19,0,0,
1,0,0,1,
1,19,0,0,
2,0,0,1,
2,19,0,0,
3,0,0,1,
3,19,0,0,
4,0,0,1,
4,5,0x20,0,Hello
4,10,0,1,
4,19,0,0,
5,0,0,1,
5,5,0x4,2,World!
5,11,0,1,
5,19,0,0,
6,0,0,1,
6,19,0,0,
7,0,0,1,
7,19,0,0,
8,0,0,1,
8,19,0,0,
9,0,0,1,
9,19,0,0,
CUR=11,5
.EE
.RE
.PP
Solaris \fBgetwin\fP requires that all parameters are present, and
in the same order.
The \fIxpg4\fP curses library does not know about the \fBbce\fP
(back color erase) capability, and does not color the window background.
.ne 10
.PP
On the other hand, the SVr4 curses library does know about the background color.
However, its screen dumps are in binary.
Here is the corresponding dump (using \*(``od \-t x1\*(''):
.PP
.RS 4
.EX
0000000 1c 01 c3 d6 f3 58 05 00 0b 00 0a 00 14 00 00 00
0000020 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000040 00 00 b8 1a 06 08 cc 1a 06 08 00 00 09 00 10 00
0000060 00 00 00 80 00 00 20 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff 00 00
0000100 ff ff ff ff 00 00 00 00 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00
0000120 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00
*
0000620 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00 48 80 00 04
0000640 65 80 00 04 6c 80 00 04 6c 80 00 04 6f 80 00 04
0000660 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00
*
0000740 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00 57 00 81 00
0000760 6f 00 81 00 72 00 81 00 6c 00 81 00 64 00 81 00
0001000 21 00 81 00 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00
0001020 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00
*
0001540 20 80 00 00 20 80 00 00 00 00 f6 d1 01 00 f6 d1
0001560 08 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 07
0001600 00 04 00 01 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00
0001620 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0002371
.EE
.RE
.SH AUTHORS
Thomas E. Dickey
.br
extended screen-dump format for \fI\%ncurses\fP 6.0 (2015)
.sp
Eric S. Raymond
.br
screen dump feature in \fI\%ncurses\fP 1.9.2d (1995)
.SH SEE ALSO
\fB\%curs_scr_dump\fP(3X),
\fB\%curs_util\fP(3X)