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v5.5
INSTALL
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Thomas E. Dickey
ncurses 5.5
09 окт 2005, 22:41
09 окт 2005, 22:41
55ccd2b
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-- $Id: INSTALL,v 1.98 2005/10/09 14:09:37 tom Exp $ --------------------------------------------------------------------- How to install Ncurses/Terminfo on your system --------------------------------------------------------------------- ************************************************************ * READ ALL OF THIS FILE BEFORE YOU TRY TO INSTALL NCURSES. * ************************************************************ You should be reading the file INSTALL in a directory called ncurses-d.d, where d.d is the current version number. There should be several subdirectories, including `c++', `form', `man', `menu', 'misc', `ncurses', `panel', `progs', and `test'. See the README file for a roadmap to the package. If you are a Linux or FreeBSD or NetBSD distribution integrator or packager, please read and act on the section titled IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR below. If you are converting from BSD curses and do not have root access, be sure to read the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below. If you are trying to build applications using gpm with ncurses, read the USING NCURSES WITH GPM section below. If you are running over the Andrew File System see the note below on USING NCURSES WITH AFS. If you are cross-compiling, see the note below on BUILDING NCURSES WITH A CROSS-COMPILER. If you want to build the Ada95 binding, go to the Ada95 directory and follow the instructions there. The Ada95 binding is not covered below. If you are using anything but (a) Linux, or (b) one of the 4.4BSD-based i386 Unixes, go read the Portability section in the TO-DO file before you do anything else. REQUIREMENTS: ------------ You will need the following to build and install ncurses under UNIX: * ANSI C compiler (gcc, for instance) * sh (bash will do) * awk (mawk or gawk will do) * sed * BSD or System V style install (a script is enclosed) Ncurses has been also built in the OS/2 EMX environment. INSTALLATION PROCEDURE: ---------------------- 1. First, decide whether you want ncurses to replace your existing library (in which case you'll need super-user privileges) or be installed in parallel with it. The --prefix option to configure changes the root directory for installing ncurses. The default is normally in subdirectories of /usr/local, except for systems where ncurses is normally installed as a system library, e.g., Linux, the various BSD systems and Cygwin. Use --prefix=/usr to replace your default curses distribution. The package gets installed beneath the --prefix directory as follows: In $(prefix)/bin: tic, infocmp, captoinfo, tset, reset, clear, tput, toe In $(prefix)/lib: libncurses*.* libcurses.a In $(prefix)/share/terminfo: compiled terminal descriptions In $(prefix)/include: C header files Under $(prefix)/man: the manual pages Note that the configure script attempts to locate previous installation of ncurses, and will set the default prefix according to where it finds the ncurses headers. Do not use commands such as make install prefix=XXX to change the prefix after configuration, since the prefix value is used for some absolute pathnames such as TERMINFO. Instead do this make install DESTDIR=XXX See also the discussion of --with-install-prefix. 2. Type `./configure' in the top-level directory of the distribution to configure ncurses for your operating system and create the Makefiles. Besides --prefix, various configuration options are available to customize the installation; use `./configure --help' to list the available options. If your operating system is not supported, read the PORTABILITY section in the file ncurses/README for information on how to create a configuration file for your system. The `configure' script generates makefile rules for one or more object models and their associated libraries: libncurses.a (normal) libcurses.a (normal, a link to libncurses.a) This gets left out if you configure with --disable-overwrite. libncurses.so (shared) libncurses_g.a (debug) libncurses_p.a (profile) libncurses.la (libtool) If you configure using the --enable-widec option, a "w" is appended to the library names (e.g., libncursesw.a), and the resulting libraries support wide-characters, e.g., via a UTF-8 locale. The corresponding header files are compatible with the non-wide-character configuration; wide-character features are provided by ifdef's in the header files. The wide-character library interfaces are not binary-compatible with the non-wide-character version. Building and running the wide-character code relies on a fairly recent implementation of libiconv. We have built this configuration on Linux using libiconv, sometimes requiring libutf8. If you do not specify any models, the normal and debug libraries will be configured. Typing `configure' with no arguments is equivalent to: ./configure --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite Typing ./configure --with-shared makes the shared libraries the default, resulting in ./configure --with-shared --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite If you want only shared libraries, type ./configure --with-shared --without-normal --without-debug Rules for generating shared libraries are highly dependent upon the choice of host system and compiler. We've been testing shared libraries on Linux and SunOS with gcc, but more work needs to be done to make shared libraries work on other systems. If you have libtool installed, you can type ./configure --with-libtool to generate the appropriate static and/or shared libraries for your platform using libtool. You can make curses and terminfo fall back to an existing file of termcap definitions by configuring with --enable-termcap. If you do this, the library will search /etc/termcap before the terminfo database, and will also interpret the contents of the TERM environment variable. See the section BSD CONVERSION NOTES below. 3. Type `make'. Ignore any warnings, no error messages should be produced. This should compile the ncurses library, the terminfo compiler tic(1), captoinfo(1), infocmp(1), toe(1), clear(1) tset(1), reset(1), and tput(1) programs (see the manual pages for explanation of what they do), some test programs, and the panels, menus, and forms libraries. 4. Run ncurses and several other test programs in the test directory to verify that ncurses functions correctly before doing an install that may overwrite system files. Read the file test/README for details on the test programs. NOTE: You must have installed the terminfo database, or set the environment variable $TERMINFO to point to a SVr4-compatible terminfo database before running the test programs. Not all vendors' terminfo databases are SVr4-compatible, but most seem to be. Exceptions include DEC's Digital Unix (formerly known as OSF/1). If you run the test programs WITHOUT installing terminfo, ncurses may read the termcap file and cache that in $HOME/.terminfo, which will thereafter be used instead of the terminfo database. See the comments on "--enable-getcap-cache", to see why this is a Bad Thing. It is possible to configure ncurses to use other terminfo database formats. A few are provided as examples in the include-directory (see --with-caps). The ncurses program is designed specifically to test the ncurses library. You can use it to verify that the screen highlights work correctly, that cursor addressing and window scrolling works OK, etc. 5. Once you've tested, you can type `make install' to install libraries, the programs, the terminfo database and the manual pages. Alternately, you can type `make install' in each directory you want to install. In the top-level directory, you can do a partial install using these commands: 'make install.progs' installs tic, infocmp, etc... 'make install.includes' installs the headers. 'make install.libs' installs the libraries (and the headers). 'make install.data' installs the terminfo data. (Note: `tic' must be installed before the terminfo data can be compiled). 'make install.man' installs the manual pages. ############################################################################ # CAVEAT EMPTOR: `install.data' run as root will NUKE any existing # # terminfo database. If you have any custom or unusual entries SAVE them # # before you install ncurses. I have a file called terminfo.custom for # # this purpose. Don't forget to run tic on the file once you're done. # ############################################################################ The terminfo(5) manual page must be preprocessed with tbl(1) before being formatted by nroff(1). Modern man(1) implementations tend to do this by default, but you may want to look at your version's manual page to be sure. You may also install the manual pages after preprocessing with tbl(1) by specifying the configure option --with-manpage-tbl. If the system already has a curses library that you need to keep using you'll need to distinguish between it and ncurses. See the discussion of --disable-overwrite. If ncurses is installed outside the standard directories (/usr/include and /usr/lib) then all your users will need to use the -I option to compile programs and -L to link them. If you have another curses installed in your system and you accidentally compile using its curses.h you'll end up with a large number of undefined symbols at link time. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ROOT: Change directory to the `progs' subdirectory and run the `capconvert' script. This script will deduce various things about your environment and use them to build you a private terminfo tree, so you can use ncurses applications. If more than one user at your site does this, the space for the duplicate trees is wasted. Try to get your site administrators to install a system- wide terminfo tree instead. See the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below for a few more details. 6. The c++ directory has C++ classes that are built on top of ncurses and panels. You must have c++ (and its libraries) installed before you can compile and run the demo. Use --without-cxx-binding to tell configure to not build the C++ bindings and demo. If you do not have C++, you must use the --without-cxx option to tell the configure script to not attempt to determine the type of 'bool' which may be supported by C++. IF YOU USE THIS OPTION, BE ADVISED THAT YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO COMPILE (OR RUN) NCURSES APPLICATIONS WITH C++. SUMMARY OF CONFIGURE OPTIONS: ---------------------------- The configure script provides a short list of its options when you type ./configure --help The --help and several options are common to all configure scripts that are generated with autoconf. Those are all listed before the line --enable and --with options recognized: The other options are specific to this package. We list them in alphabetic order. --disable-assumed-color With ncurses 5.1, we introduced a new function, assume_default_colors() which allows applications to specify what the default foreground and background color are assumed to be. Most color applications use full-screen color; but a few do not color the background. While the assumed values can be overridden by invoking assume_default_colors(), you may find it useful to set the assumed values to the pre-5.1 convention, using this configure option. --disable-big-core Assume machine has little memory. The configure script attempts to determine if your machine has enough memory (about 6Mb) to compile the terminfo database without writing portions to disk. Some allocators return deceptive results, so you may have to override the configure script. Or you may be building tic for a smaller machine. --disable-database Use only built-in data. The ncurses libraries normally read terminfo and termcap data from disk. You can configure ncurses to have a built-in database, aka "fallback" entries. Embedded applications may have no need for an external database. Some, but not all of the programs are useful in this configuration, e.g., reset and tput versus infocmp and tic. --disable-ext-funcs Disable function-extensions. Configure ncurses without the functions that are not specified by XSI. See ncurses/modules for the exact list of library modules that would be suppressed. --disable-hashmap Compile without hashmap scrolling-optimization code. This algorithm is the default. --disable-home-terminfo The $HOME/.terminfo directory is normally added to ncurses' search list for reading/writing terminfo entries, since that directory is more likely writable than the system terminfo database. Use this option to disable the feature altogether. --disable-largefile Disable compiler flags needed to use large-file interfaces. --disable-leaks For testing, compile-in code that frees memory that normally would not be freed, to simplify analysis of memory-leaks. --disable-lp64 The header files will ignore use of the _LP64 symbol to make chtype and mmask_t types 32 bits (they may be long on 64-bit hosts, for compatibility with older releases). NOTE: this is potentially an ABI change, depending on existing packages. The default for this option is "disabled" for ncurses ABI 5, and "enabled" for ABI 6. --disable-macros For testing, use functions rather than macros. The program will run more slowly, but it is simpler to debug. This makes a header file "nomacros.h". See also the --enable-expanded option. --disable-overwrite If you are installing ncurses on a system which contains another development version of curses, or which could be confused by the loader for another version, we recommend that you leave out the link to -lcurses. The ncurses library is always available as -lncurses. Disabling overwrite also causes the ncurses header files to be installed into a subdirectory, e.g., /usr/local/include/ncurses, rather than the include directory. This makes it simpler to avoid compile-time conflicts with other versions of curses.h --disable-root-environ Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment variables are not available when running as root, or via a setuid/setgid application. These are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow the search path for the terminfo or termcap entry to be customized. --disable-scroll-hints Compile without scroll-hints code. This option is ignored when hashmap scrolling is configured, which is the default. --enable-assertions For testing, compile-in assertion code. This is used only for a few places where ncurses cannot easily recover by returning an error code. --enable-broken_linker A few platforms have what we consider a broken linker: it cannot link objects from an archive solely by referring to data objects in those files, but requires a function reference. This configure option changes several data references to functions to work around this problem. NOTE: With ncurses 5.1, this may not be necessary, since we are told that some linkers interpret uninitialized global data as a different type of reference which behaves as described above. We have explicitly initialized all of the global data to work around the problem. --enable-bsdpad Recognize BSD-style prefix padding. Some ancient BSD programs (such as nethack) call tputs("50") to implement delays. --enable-colorfgbg Compile with experimental $COLORFGBG code. That environment variable is set by some terminal emulators as a hint to applications, by advertising the default foreground and background colors. During initialization, ncurses sets color pair 0 to match this. --enable-const The curses interface as documented in XSI is rather old, in fact including features that precede ANSI C. The prototypes generally do not make effective use of "const". When using stricter compilers (or gcc with appropriate warnings), you may see warnings about the mismatch between const and non-const data. We provide a configure option which changes the interfaces to use const - quieting these warnings and reflecting the actual use of the parameters more closely. The ncurses library uses the symbol NCURSES_CONST for these instances of const, and if you have asked for compiler warnings, will add gcc's const-qual warning. There will still be warnings due to subtle inconsistencies in the interface, but at a lower level. NOTE: configuring ncurses with this option may detract from the portability of your applications by encouraging you to use const in places where the XSI curses interface would not allow them. Similar issues arise when porting to SVr4 curses, which uses const in even fewer places. --enable-echo Use the option --disable-echo to make the build-log less verbose by suppressing the display of the compile and link commands. This makes it easier to see the compiler warnings. (You can always use "make -n" to see the options that are used). --enable-expanded For testing, generate functions for certain macros to make them visible as such to the debugger. See also the --disable-macros option. --enable-ext-colors Extend the cchar_t structure to allow more than 16 colors to be encoded. This applies only to the wide-character (--enable-widec) configuration. NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary- compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but applications which have an array of cchar_t's must be recompiled. --enable-ext-mouse Modify the encoding of mouse state to make room for a 5th mouse button. That allows one to use ncurses with a wheel mouse with xterm or similar X terminal emulators. NOTE: using this option will make libraries which are not binary- compatible with libncursesw 5.4. None of the interfaces change, but applications which have mouse mask mmask_t's must be recompiled. --enable-getcap Use the 4.4BSD getcap code if available, or a bundled version of it to fetch termcap entries. Entries read in this way cannot use (make cross-references to) the terminfo tree, but it is faster than reading /etc/termcap. --enable-getcap-cache Cache translated termcaps under the directory $HOME/.terminfo NOTE: this sounds good - it makes ncurses run faster the second time. But look where the data comes from - an /etc/termcap containing lots of entries that are not up to date. If you configure with this option and forget to install the terminfo database before running an ncurses application, you will end up with a hidden terminfo database that generally does not support color and will miss some function keys. --enable-hard-tabs Compile-in cursor-optimization code that uses hard-tabs. We would make this a standard feature except for the concern that the terminfo entry may not be accurate, or that your stty settings have disabled the use of tabs. --enable-no-padding Compile-in support for the $NCURSES_NO_PADDING environment variable, which allows you to suppress the effect of non-mandatory padding in terminfo entries. This is the default, unless you have disabled the extended functions. --enable-rpath Use rpath option when generating shared libraries, and with some restrictions when linking the corresponding programs. This applies mainly to systems using the GNU linker (read the manpage). --enable-safe-sprintf Compile with experimental safe-sprintf code. You may consider using this if you are building ncurses for a system that has neither vsnprintf() or vsprintf(). It is slow, however. --enable-sigwinch Compile support for ncurses' SIGWINCH handler. If your application has its own SIGWINCH handler, ncurses will not use its own. The ncurses handler causes wgetch() to return KEY_RESIZE when the screen-size changes. This option is the default, unless you have disabled the extended functions. --enable-symlinks If your system supports symbolic links, make tic use symbolic links rather than hard links to save diskspace when writing aliases in the terminfo database. --enable-tcap-names Compile-in support for user-definable terminal capabilities. Use the -x option of tic and infocmp to treat unrecognized terminal capabilities as user-defined strings. This option is the default, unless you have disabled the extended functions. --enable-termcap Compile in support for reading terminal descriptions from termcap if no match is found in the terminfo database. See also the --enable-getcap and --enable-getcap-cache options. --enable-warnings Turn on GCC compiler warnings. There should be only a few. --enable-widec Compile with wide-character code. This makes a different version of the libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so), which stores characters as wide-characters, NOTE: applications compiled with this configuration are not compatible with those built for 8-bit characters. You cannot simply make a symbolic link to equate libncurses.so with libncursesw.so NOTE: the Ada95 binding may be built against either version of the the ncurses library, but you must decide which: the binding installs the same set of files for either version. Currently (2002/6/22) it does not use the extended features from the wide-character code, so it is probably better to not install the binding for that configuration. --enable-xmc-glitch Compile-in support experimental xmc (magic cookie) code. --with-abi-version=NUM Override the ABI version, which is used in shared library filenames. Normally this is the same as the release version; some ports have special requirements for compatibility. --with-ada-compiler=CMD Specify the Ada95 compiler command (default "gnatmake") --with-ada-include=DIR Tell where to install the Ada includes (default: PREFIX/lib/ada/adainclude) --with-ada-objects=DIR Tell where to install the Ada objects (default: PREFIX/lib/ada/adalib) --with-bool=TYPE If --without-cxx is specified, override the type used for the "bool" declared in curses.h (normally the type is automatically chosen to correspond with that in <stdbool.h>, or defaults to platform-specific sizes). --with-build-cc=XXX If cross-compiling, specify a host C compiler, which is needed to compile a few utilities which generate source modules for ncurses. If you do not give this option, the configure script checks if the $BUILD_CC variable is set, and otherwise defaults to gcc or cc. --with-build-cflags=XXX If cross-compiling, specify the host C compiler-flags. You might need to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse the host compiler. --with-build-cppflags=XXX If cross-compiling, specify the host C preprocessor-flags. You might need to do this if the target compiler has unusual flags which confuse the host compiler. --with-build-ldflags=XXX If cross-compiling, specify the host linker-flags. You might need to do this if the target linker has unusual flags which confuse the host compiler. --with-build-libs=XXX If cross-compiling, the host libraries. You might need to do this if the target environment requires unusual libraries. --with-caps=XXX Specify an alternate terminfo capabilities file, which makes the configure script look for "include/Caps.XXX". A few systems, e.g., AIX 4.x use the same overall file-format as ncurses for terminfo data, but use different alignments within the tables to support legacy applications. For those systems, you can configure ncurses to use a terminfo database which is compatible with the native applications. --with-chtype=TYPE Override type of chtype, which stores the video attributes and (if --enable-widec is not given) a character. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it may be unsigned. Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility with 64-bit executables. --with-database=XXX Specify the terminfo source file to install. Usually you will wish to install ncurses' default (misc/terminfo.src). Certain systems have special requirements, e.g, OS/2 EMX has a customized terminfo source file. --with-dbmalloc For testing, compile and link with Conor Cahill's dbmalloc library. --with-debug Generate debug-libraries (default). These are named by adding "_g" to the root, e.g., libncurses_g.a --with-default-terminfo-dir=XXX Specify the default terminfo database directory. This is normally DATADIR/terminfo, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo. --with-develop Enable experimental/development options. This does not count those that change the interface, such as --enable-widec. --with-dmalloc For testing, compile and link with Gray Watson's dmalloc library. --with-fallbacks=XXX Specify a list of fallback terminal descriptions which will be compiled into the ncurses library. See CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES. --with-gpm use Alessandro Rubini's GPM library to provide mouse support on the Linux console. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this introduced a dependency on the GPM library. Currently ncurses uses the dlsym() function to bind to the at runtime, so it is only necessary that the library be present when ncurses is built. --with-install-prefix=XXX Allows you to specify an alternate location for installing ncurses after building it. The value you specify is prepended to the "real" install location. This simplifies making binary packages. The makefile variable DESTDIR is set by this option. It is also possible to use make install DESTDIR=XXX since the makefiles pass that variable to subordinate makes. NOTE: a few systems build shared libraries with fixed pathnames; this option probably will not work for those configurations. --with-libtool[=XXX] Generate libraries with libtool. If this option is selected, then it overrides all other library model specifications. Note that libtool must already be installed, uses makefile rules dependent on GNU make, and does not promise to follow the version numbering convention of other shared libraries on your system. However, if the --with-shared option does not succeed, you may get better results with this option. If a parameter value is given, it must be the full pathname of the particular version of libtool, e.g., /usr/bin/libtool-1.2.3 It is possible to rebuild the configure script to use the automake macros for libtool, e.g., AC_PROG_LIBTOOL. See the comments in aclocal.m4 for CF_PROG_LIBTOOL, and ensure that you build configure using the appropriate patch for autoconf from http://invisible-island.net/autoconf/ --with-manpage-aliases Tell the configure script you wish to create entries in the man-directory for aliases to manpages which list them, e.g., the functions in the panel manpage. This is the default. You can disable it if your man program does this. You can also disable --with-manpage-symlinks to install files containing a ".so" command rather than symbolic links. --with-manpage-format=XXX Tell the configure script how you would like to install man-pages. The option value must be one of these: gzip, compress, BSDI, normal, formatted. If you do not give this option, the configure script attempts to determine which is the case. --with-manpage-renames=XXX Tell the configure script that you wish to rename the manpages while installing. Currently the only distribution which does this is the Linux Debian. The option value specifies the name of a file that lists the renamed files, e.g., $srcdir/man/man_db.renames --with-manpage-symlinks Tell the configure script that you wish to make symbolic links in the man-directory for aliases to the man-pages. This is the default, but can be disabled for systems that provide this automatically. Doing this on systems that do not support symbolic links will result in copying the man-page for each alias. --with-manpage-tbl Tell the configure script that you with to preprocess the manpages by running them through tbl to generate tables understandable by nroff. --with-mmask-t=TYPE Override type of mmask_t, which stores the mouse mask. Prior to ncurses 5.5, this was always unsigned long, but with ncurses 5.5, it may be unsigned. Use this option if you need to preserve compatibility with 64-bit executables. --with-ospeed=TYPE Override type of ospeed variable, which is part of the termcap compatibility interface. In termcap, this is a 'short', which works for a wide range of baudrates because ospeed is not the actual speed but the encoded value, e.g., B9600 would be a small number such as 13. However the encoding scheme originally allowed for values "only" up to 38400bd. A newer set of definitions past 38400bd is not encoded as compactly, and is not guaranteed to fit into a short (see the function cfgetospeed(), which returns a speed_t for this reason). In practice, applications that required knowledge of the ospeed variable, i.e., those using termcap, do not use the higher speeds. Your application (or system, in general) may or may not. --with-normal Generate normal (i.e., static) libraries (default). --with-profile Generate profile-libraries These are named by adding "_p" to the root, e.g., libncurses_p.a --with-rcs-ids Compile-in RCS identifiers. Most of the C files have an identifier. --with-rel-version=NUM Override the release version, which may be used in shared library filenames. This consists of a major and minor version number separated by ".". Normally the major version number is the same as the ABI version; some ports have special requirements for compatibility. --with-shared Generate shared-libraries. The names given depend on the system for which you are building, typically using a ".so" suffix, along with symbolic links that refer to the release version. NOTE: Unless you override the configure script by setting the $CFLAGS environment variable, these will not be built with the -g debugging option. NOTE: For some configurations, e.g., installing a new version of ncurses shared libraries on a machine which already has ncurses shared libraries, you may encounter problems with the linker. For example, it may prevent you from running the build tree's copy of tic (for installing the terminfo database) because it loads the system's copy of the ncurses shared libraries. In that case, using the misc/shlib script may be helpful, since it sets $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the build tree, e.g., ./misc/shlib make install --with-shlib-version=XXX Specify whether to use the release or ABI version for shared libraries. This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of system which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure script. --with-sysmouse use FreeBSD sysmouse interface provide mouse support on the console. --with-system-type=XXX For testing, override the derived host system-type which is used to decide things such as the linker commands used to build shared libraries. This is normally chosen automatically based on the type of system which you are building on. We use it for testing the configure script. --with-terminfo-dirs=XXX Specify a search-list of terminfo directories which will be compiled into the ncurses library (default: DATADIR/terminfo) --with-termlib[=XXX] When building the ncurses library, organize this as two parts: the curses library (libncurses) and the low-level terminfo library (libtinfo). This is done to accommodate applications that use only the latter. The terminfo library is about half the size of the total. If an option value is given, that overrides the name of the terminfo library. For instance, if the wide-character version is built, the terminfo library would be named libtinfow. But the libtinfow interface is upward compatible from libtinfo, so it would be possible to overlay libtinfo.so with a "wide" version of libtinfow.so by renaming it with this option. --with-termpath=XXX Specify a search-list of termcap files which will be compiled into the ncurses library (default: /etc/termcap:/usr/share/misc/termcap) --with-trace Configure the trace() function as part of the all models of the ncurses library. Normally it is part of the debug (libncurses_g) library only. --without-ada Suppress the configure script's check for Ada95, do not build the Ada95 binding and related demo. --without-curses-h Don't install the ncurses header with the name "curses.h". Rather, install as "ncurses.h" and modify the installed headers and manpages accordingly. --without-cxx XSI curses declares "bool" as part of the interface. C++ also declares "bool". Neither specifies the size and type of booleans, but both insist on the same name. We chose to accommodate this by making the configure script check for the size and type (e.g., unsigned or signed) that your C++ compiler uses for booleans. If you do not wish to use ncurses with C++, use this option to tell the configure script to not adjust ncurses bool to match C++. --without-cxx-binding Suppress the configure script's check for C++, do not build the C++ binding and related demo. --without-progs Tell the configure script to suppress the build of ncurses' application programs (e.g., tic). The test applications will still be built if you type "make", though not if you simply do "make install". --without-xterm-new Tell the configure script to use "xterm-old" for the entry used in the terminfo database. This will work with variations such as X11R5 and X11R6 xterm. COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER VERSIONS OF NCURSES: -------------------------------------------- Because ncurses implements the X/Open Curses Specification, its interface is fairly stable. That does not mean the interface does not change. Changes are made to the documented interfaces when we find differences between ncurses and X/Open or implementations which they certify (such as Solaris). We add extensions to those interfaces to solve problems not addressed by the original curses design, but those must not conflict with the X/Open documentation. Here are some of the major interface changes, and related problems which you may encounter when building a system with different versions of ncurses: 5.5 (October 10, 2005) Interface changes: + terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6). + terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems still use ncurses 4.2). + modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old compilers. + form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data. Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw, since that no longer points to an array of char. The set_field_buffer() and field_buffer() functions translate to/from the actual field data. + change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure that libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason for this is that the corresponding data which belongs to the upper-level ncurses library has a different size in each model. + winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the wide-character configuration. + assume_default_colors() no longer requires that use_default_colors() be called first. + data_ahead() now works with wide-characters. + slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or multicolumn characters. + start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started. start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory. + pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if it corresponds to the default-color. + unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond to an unsigned char. Added extensions: Experimental mouse version 2 supports wheel mice with buttons 4 and 5. This requires ABI 6 because it modifies the encoding of mouse events. Experimental extended colors allows encoding of 256 foreground and background colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6 because it changes the size of cchar_t. Added internal functions: _nc_check_termtype2 _nc_resolve_uses2 _nc_retrace_cptr _nc_retrace_cvoid_ptr _nc_retrace_void_ptr _nc_setup_term Removed internal functions: none Modified internal functions: _nc_insert_ch _nc_save_str _nc_trans_string 5.4 (February 8, 2004) Interface changes: + add the remaining functions for X/Open curses wide-character support. These are only available if the library is configured using the --enable-widec option. pecho_wchar() slk_wset() + write getyx() and related 2-return macros in terms of getcury(), getcurx(), etc. + simplify ifdef for bool declaration in curses.h + modify ifdef's in curses.h that disabled use of __attribute__() for g++, since recent versions implement the cases which ncurses uses. + change some interfaces to use const: define_key() mvprintw() mvwprintw() printw() vw_printw() winsnstr() wprintw() Added extensions: key_defined() Added internal functions: _nc_get_locale() _nc_insert_ch() _nc_is_charable() wide _nc_locale_breaks_acs() _nc_pathlast() _nc_to_char() wide _nc_to_widechar() wide _nc_tparm_analyze() _nc_trace_bufcat() debug _nc_unicode_locale() Removed internal functions: _nc_outstr() _nc_sigaction() Modified internal functions: _nc_remove_string() _nc_retrace_chtype() 5.3 (October 12, 2002) Interface changes: + change type for bool used in headers to NCURSES_BOOL, which usually is the same as the compiler's definition for 'bool'. + add all but two functions for X/Open curses wide-character support. These are only available if the library is configured using the --enable-widec option. Missing functions are pecho_wchar() slk_wset() + add environment variable $NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS to modify the assume_default_colors() extension. Added extensions: is_term_resized() resize_term() Added internal functions: _nc_altcharset_name() debug _nc_reset_colors() _nc_retrace_bool() debug _nc_retrace_unsigned() debug _nc_rootname() _nc_trace_ttymode() debug _nc_varargs() debug _nc_visbufn() debug _nc_wgetch() Removed internal functions: _nc_background() Modified internal functions: _nc_freeall() debug 5.2 (October 21, 2000) Interface changes: + revert termcap ospeed variable to 'short' (see discussion of the --with-ospeed configure option). 5.1 (July 8, 2000) Interface changes: + made the extended terminal capabilities (configure --enable-tcap-names) a standard feature. This should be transparent to applications that do not require it. + removed the trace() function and related trace support from the production library. + modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict with C++ STL. Added extensions: assume_default_colors(). 5.0 (October 23, 1999) Interface changes: + implemented the wcolor_set() and slk_color() functions. + move macro winch to a function, to hide details of struct ldat + corrected prototypes for slk_* functions, using chtype rather than attr_t. + the slk_attr_{set,off,on} functions need an additional void* parameter according to XSI. + modified several prototypes to correspond with 1997 version of X/Open Curses: [w]attr_get(), [w]attr_set(), border_set() have different parameters. Some functions were renamed or misspelled: erase_wchar(), in_wchntr(), mvin_wchntr(). Some developers have used attr_get(). Added extensions: keybound(), curses_version(). Terminfo database changes: + change translation for termcap 'rs' to terminfo 'rs2', which is the documented equivalent, rather than 'rs1'. The problems are subtler in recent releases. a) This release provides users with the ability to define their own terminal capability extensions, like termcap. To accomplish this, we redesigned the TERMTYPE struct (in term.h). Very few applications use this struct. They must be recompiled to work with the 5.0 library. a) If you use the extended terminfo names (i.e., you used configure --enable-tcap-names), the resulting terminfo database can have some entries which are not readable by older versions of ncurses. This is a bug in the older versions: + the terminfo database stores booleans, numbers and strings in arrays. The capabilities that are listed in the arrays are specified by X/Open. ncurses recognizes a number of obsolete and extended names which are stored past the end of the specified entries. + a change to read_entry.c in 951001 made the library do an lseek() call incorrectly skipping data which is already read from the string array. This happens when the number of strings in the terminfo data file is greater than STRCOUNT, the number of specified and obsolete or extended strings. + as part of alignment with the X/Open final specification, in the 990109 patch we added two new terminfo capabilities: set_a_attributes and set_pglen_inch). This makes the indices for the obsolete and extended capabilities shift up by 2. + the last two capabilities in the obsolete/extended list are memu and meml, which are found in most terminfo descriptions for xterm. When trying to read this terminfo entry, the spurious lseek() causes the library to attempt to read the final portion of the terminfo data (the text of the string capabilities) 4 characters past its starting point, and reads 4 characters too few. The library rejects the data, and applications are unable to initialize that terminal type. FIX: remove memu and meml from the xterm description. They are obsolete, not used by ncurses. (It appears that the feature was added to xterm to make it more like hpterm). This is not a problem if you do not use the -x option of tic to create a terminfo database with extended names. Note that the user-defined terminal capabilities are not affected by this bug, since they are stored in a table after the older terminfo data ends, and are invisible to the older libraries. c) Some developers did not wish to use the C++ binding, and used the configure --without-cxx option. This causes problems if someone uses the ncurses library from C++ because that configure test determines the type for C++'s bool and makes ncurses match it, since both C++ and curses are specified to declare bool. Calling ncurses functions with the incorrect type for bool will cause execution errors. In 5.0 we added a configure option "--without-cxx-binding" which controls whether the binding itself is built and installed. 4.2 (March 2, 1998) Interface changes: + correct prototype for termattrs() as per XPG4 version 2. + add placeholder prototypes for color_set(), erasewchar(), term_attrs(), wcolor_set() as per XPG4 version 2. + add macros getcur[xy] getbeg[xy] getpar[xy], which are defined in SVr4 headers. New extensions: keyok() and define_key(). Terminfo database changes: + corrected definition in curses.h for ACS_LANTERN, which was 'I' rather than 'i'. 4.1 (May 15, 1997) We added these extensions: use_default_colors(). Also added configure option --enable-const, to support the use of const where X/Open should have, but did not, specify. The terminfo database content changed the representation of color for most entries that use ANSI colors. SVr4 curses treats the setaf/setab and setf/setb capabilities differently, interchanging the red/blue colors in the latter. 4.0 (December 24, 1996) We bumped to version 4.0 because the newly released dynamic loader (ld.so.1.8.5) on Linux did not load shared libraries whose ABI and REL versions were inconsistent. At that point, ncurses ABI was 3.4 and the REL was 1.9.9g, so we made them consistent. 1.9.9g (December 1, 1996) This fixed most of the problems with 1.9.9e, and made these interface changes: + remove tparam(), which had been provided for compatibility with some termcap. tparm() is standard, and does not conflict with application's fallback for missing tparam(). + turn off hardware echo in initscr(). This changes the sense of the echo() function, which was initialized to echoing rather than nonechoing (the latter is specified). There were several other corrections to the terminal I/O settings which cause applications to behave differently. + implemented several functions (such as attr_on()) which were available only as macros. + corrected several typos in curses.h.in (i.e., the mvXXXX macros). + corrected prototypes for delay_output(), has_color, immedok() and idcok(). + corrected misspelled getbkgd(). Some applications used the misspelled name. + added _yoffset to WINDOW. The size of WINDOW does not impact applications, since they use only pointers to WINDOW structs. These changes were made to the terminfo database: + removed boolean 'getm' which was available as an extended name. We added these extensions: wresize(), resizeterm(), has_key() and mcprint(). 1.9.9e (March 24, 1996) not recommended (a last-minute/untested change left the forms and menus libraries unusable since they do not repaint the screen). Foreground/background colors are combined incorrectly, working properly only on a black background. When this was released, the X/Open specification was available only in draft form. Some applications (such as lxdialog) were "fixed" to work with the incorrect color scheme. IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR: ------------------------------ Configuration and Installation: On platforms where ncurses is assumed to be installed in /usr/lib, the configure script uses "/usr" as a default: Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Cygwin For other platforms, the default is "/usr/local". See the discussion of the "--disable-overwrite" option. The location of the terminfo is set indirectly by the "--datadir" configure option, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo, given a datadir of /usr/share. You may want to override this if you are installing ncurses libraries in nonstandard locations, but wish to share the terminfo database. Normally the ncurses library is configured in a pure-terminfo mode; that is, with the --disable-termcap option. This makes the ncurses library smaller and faster. The ncurses library includes a termcap emulation that queries the terminfo database, so even applications that use raw termcap to query terminal characteristics will win (providing you recompile and relink them!). If you must configure with termcap fallback enabled, you may also wish to use the --enable-getcap option. This speeds up termcap-based startups, at the expense of not allowing personal termcap entries to reference the terminfo tree. See comments in ncurses/tinfo/read_termcap.c for further details. Note that if you have $TERMCAP set, ncurses will use that value to locate termcap data. In particular, running from xterm will set $TERMCAP to the contents of the xterm's termcap entry. If ncurses sees that, it will not examine /etc/termcap. Keyboard Mapping: The terminfo file assumes that Shift-Tab generates \E[Z (the ECMA-48 reverse-tabulation sequence) rather than ^I. Here are the loadkeys -d mappings that will set this up: keycode 15 = Tab Tab alt keycode 15 = Meta_Tab shift keycode 15 = F26 string F26 ="\033[Z" Naming the Console Terminal In various systems there has been a practice of designating the system console driver type as `console'. Please do not do this! It complicates peoples' lives, because it can mean that several different terminfo entries from different operating systems all logically want to be called `console'. Please pick a name unique to your console driver and set that up in the /etc/inittab table or local equivalent. Send the entry to the terminfo maintainer (listed in the misc/terminfo file) to be included in the terminfo file, if it's not already there. See the term(7) manual page included with this distribution for more on conventions for choosing type names. Here are some recommended primary console names: linux -- Linux console driver freebsd -- FreeBSD netbsd -- NetBSD bsdos -- BSD/OS If you are responsible for integrating ncurses for one of these distribution, please either use the recommended name or get back to us explaining why you don't want to, so we can work out nomenclature that will make users' lives easier rather than harder. RECENT XTERM VERSIONS: --------------------- The terminfo database file included with this distribution assumes you are running a modern xterm based on XFree86 (i.e., xterm-new). The earlier X11R6 entry (xterm-r6) and X11R5 entry (xterm-r5) is provided as well. See the --without-xterm-new configure script option if you are unable to update your system. CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES: ---------------------------- In order to support operation of ncurses programs before the terminfo tree is accessible (that is, in single-user mode or at OS installation time) the ncurses library can be compiled to include an array of pre-fetched fallback entries. This must be done on a machine which has ncurses' infocmp and terminfo database installed. These entries are checked by setupterm() only when the conventional fetches from the terminfo tree and the termcap fallback (if configured) have been tried and failed. Thus, the presence of a fallback will not shadow modifications to the on-disk entry for the same type, when that entry is accessible. By default, there are no entries on the fallback list. After you have built the ncurses suite for the first time, you can change the list (the process needs infocmp(1)). To do so, use the script ncurses/tinfo/MKfallback.sh. A configure script option --with-fallbacks does this (it accepts a comma-separated list of the names you wish, and does not require a rebuild). If you wanted (say) to have linux, vt100, and xterm fallbacks, you would use the commands cd ncurses; tinfo/MKfallback.sh linux vt100 xterm >fallback.c Then just rebuild and reinstall the library as you would normally. You can restore the default empty fallback list with tinfo/MKfallback.sh >fallback.c The overhead for an empty fallback list is one trivial stub function. Any non-empty fallback list is const-ed and therefore lives in sharable text space. You can look at the comment trailing each initializer in the generated ncurses/fallback.c file to see the core cost of the fallbacks. A good rule of thumb for modern vt100-like entries is that each one will cost about 2.5K of text space. BSD CONVERSION NOTES: -------------------- If you need to support really ancient BSD programs, you probably want to configure with the --enable-bsdpad option. What this does is enable code in tputs() that recognizes a numeric prefix on a capability as a request for that much trailing padding in milliseconds. There are old BSD programs that do things like tputs("50"). (If you are distributing ncurses as a support-library component of an application you probably want to put the remainder of this section in the package README file.) The following note applies only if you have configured ncurses with --enable-termcap. ------------------------------- CUT HERE -------------------------------- If you are installing this application privately (either because you have no root access or want to experiment with it before doing a root installation), there are a couple of details you need to be aware of. They have to do with the ncurses library, which uses terminfo rather than termcap for describing terminal characteristics. Though the ncurses library is terminfo-based, it will interpret your TERMCAP variable (if present), any local termcap files you reference through it, and the system termcap file. However, in order to avoid slowing down your application startup, it will only do this once per terminal type! The first time you load a given terminal type from your termcap database, the library initialization code will automatically write it in terminfo format to a subdirectory under $HOME/.terminfo. After that, the initialization code will find it there and do a (much faster) terminfo fetch. Usually, all this means is that your home directory will silently grow an invisible .terminfo subdirectory which will get filled in with terminfo descriptions of terminal types as you invoke them. If anyone ever installs a global terminfo tree on your system, this will quietly stop happening and your $HOME/.terminfo will become redundant. The objective of all this logic is to make converting from BSD termcap as painless as possible without slowing down your application (termcap compilation is expensive). If you don't have a TERMCAP variable or custom personal termcap file, you can skip the rest of this dissertation. If you *do* have a TERMCAP variable and/or a custom personal termcap file that defines a terminal type, that definition will stop being visible to this application after the first time you run it, because it will instead see the terminfo entry that it wrote to $HOME/terminfo the first time around. Subsequently, editing the TERMCAP variable or personal TERMCAP file will have no effect unless you explicitly remove the terminfo entry under $HOME/terminfo. If you do that, the entry will be recompiled from your termcap resources the next time it is invoked. To avoid these complications, use infocmp(1) and tic(1) to edit the terminfo directory directly. ------------------------------- CUT HERE -------------------------------- USING NCURSES WITH AFS: AFS treats each directory as a separate logical filesystem, you can't hard-link across them. The --enable-symlinks option copes with this by making tic use symbolic links. USING NCURSES WITH GPM: Ncurses 4.1 and up can be configured to use GPM (General Purpose Mouse) which is used on Linux console. Be aware that GPM is commonly installed as a shared library which contains a wrapper for the curses wgetch() function (libcurses.o). Some integrators have simplified linking applications by combining all or part of libcurses.so into the libgpm.so file, producing symbol conflicts with ncurses (specifically the wgetch function). This was originally the BSD curses, but generally whatever curses library exists on the system. You may be able to work around this problem by linking as follows: cc -o foo foo.o -lncurses -lgpm -lncurses but the linker may not cooperate, producing mysterious errors. See the FAQ, as well as the discussion under the --with-gpm option: http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#using_gpm_lib BUILDING NCURSES WITH A CROSS-COMPILER Ncurses can be built with a cross-compiler. Some parts must be built with the host's compiler since they are used for building programs (e.g., ncurses/make_hash and ncurses/make_keys) that generate tables that are compiled into the ncurses library. The essential thing to do is set the BUILD_CC environment variable to your host's compiler, and run the configure script configuring for the cross-compiler. The configure options --with-build-cc, etc., are provided to make this simpler. Since make_hash and make_keys use only ANSI C features, it is normally not necessary to provide the other options such as --with-build-libs, but they are provided for completeness. Note that all of the generated source-files which are part of ncurses will be made if you use make sources This would be useful in porting to an environment which has little support for the tools used to generate the sources, e.g., sed, awk and Bourne-shell. When ncurses has been successfully cross-compiled, you may want to use "make install" (with a suitable target directory) to construct an install tree. Note that in this case (as with the --with-fallbacks option), ncurses uses the development platform's tic to do the "make install.data" portion. BUGS: Send any feedback to the ncurses mailing list at bug-ncurses@gnu.org. To subscribe send mail to bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with body that reads: subscribe ncurses <your-email-address-here> The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly.