xref: /freebsd/contrib/ncurses/INSTALL (revision 77a0943ded95b9e6438f7db70c4a28e4d93946d4)

-- $Id: INSTALL,v 1.45 2000/10/08 02:17:57 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 using a version of XFree86 xterm older than 3.1.2F, see the section
on RECENT XTERM VERSIONS below.

If you are trying to build GNU Emacs using ncurses for terminal support,
read the USING NCURSES WITH EMACS 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 in order to build and install ncurses under UNIX:

	* ANSI C compiler  (gcc is recommended)
	* 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 in subdirectories of /usr/local.  Use
    --prefix=/usr to replace your default curses distribution.  This is the
    default for Linux and BSD/OS users.

    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 however 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.

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)

    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.

    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).

    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.

    If the system already has a curses library that you need to keep using
    for some bizarre binary-compatibility reason, you'll need to distinguish
    between it and ncurses. 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 BSD 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. _waddbytes is one of them.

    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++.

7.  If you're running an older Linux, you must either (a) tell Linux that the
    console terminal type is `linux' or (b) make a link to or copy of the
    linux entry in the appropriate place under your terminfo directory, named
    `console'.  All 1.3 and many 1.2 distributions (including Yggdrasil and
    Red Hat) already have the console type set to `linux'.

    The way to change the wired-in console type depends on the configuration
    of your system. This may involve editing /etc/inittab, /etc/ttytype,
    /etc/profile and other such files.

    Warning: this is not for the fainthearted, if you mess up your console
    getty entries you can make your system unusable!  However, if you are
    a distribution maker, this is the right thing to do (see the note for
    integrators near the end of this file).

    The easier way is to link or copy l/linux to c/console under your terminfo
    directory.  Note: this will go away next time you do `make install.data'
    and you'll have to redo it. There is no need to have entries for all
    possible screen sizes, ncurses will figure out the size automatically.


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.

    --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-leaks
	For testing, compile-in code that frees memory that normally would not
	be freed, to simplify analysis of memory-leaks.

    --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-add-ons=DIR...
	This is used to check if this package is a glibc add-on.  This is used
	only by the glibc makefiles.

    --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-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 experimental wide-character code.  This makes a different
	version of the libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so), which stores
	characters in 16-bits.  We provide a simple UTF-8 driver and test
	program to use this feature with terminals that can display UTF-8.

	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

    --enable-xmc-glitch
	Compile-in support experimental xmc (magic cookie) code.

    --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-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.

    --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.

	NOTE:  a few systems build shared libraries with fixed pathnames; this
	option probably will not work for those configurations.

    --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-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-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.

    --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-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
	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.

    --without-ada
	Suppress the configure script's check for Ada95, do not build the
	Ada95 binding and related demo.

    --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".


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:

    5.1 (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:
------------------------------

    Beginning with 1.9.9, the ncurses distribution includes both a tset
    utility and /usr/share/tabset directory.  If you are installing ncurses,
    it is no longer either necessary or desirable to install tset-jv.

    Configuration and Installation:

	Configure with --prefix=/usr to make the install productions put
	libraries and headers in the correct locations (overwriting any
	previous curses libraries and headers).  This will put the terminfo
	hierarchy under /usr/share/terminfo; you may want to override this with
	--datadir=/usr/share/misc; terminfo and tabset are installed under the
	data directory.

	Please configure the ncurses library in a pure-terminfo mode; that
	is, with the --disable-termcap option.   This will make 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 option speeds up
	termcap-based startups, at the expense of not allowing personal
	termcap entries to reference the terminfo tree.  See the code in
	ncurses/tinfo/read_termcap.c for 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 Linuxes (and possibly elsewhere) there has been a practice
	of designating the system console driver type as `console'.  Please
	do not do this any more!  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 an XFree86 xterm based on X11R6 (i.e., xterm-r6).  The
	earlier X11R5 entry (xterm-r5) is provided as well.

	If you are running XFree86 version 3.2 (actually 3.1.2F and up), you
	should consider using the xterm-xf86-v32 (or later, the most recent
	version is always named "xterm-xfree86") entry, which adds ANSI color
	and the VT220 capabilities which have been added in XFree86.  If you
	are running a mixed network, however, where this terminal description
	may be used on an older xterm, you may have problems, since
	applications that assume these capabilities will produce incorrect
	output on the older xterm (e.g., highlighting is not cleared).


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.

	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
	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;
		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

		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 EMACS:
	GNU Emacs has its own termcap support.  By default, it uses a mixture
	of those functions and code linked from the host system's libraries.
	You need to foil this and shut out the GNU termcap library entirely.

	In order to do this, hack the Linux config file (s/linux.h) to contain
	a #define TERMINFO and set the symbol LIBS_TERMCAP to "-lncurses".

	We have submitted such a change for the 19.30 release, so it may
	already be applied in your sources -- check for the #define TERMINFO.

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 (the BSD
	curses) into the libgpm.so file, producing symbol conflicts with
	ncurses (specifically the wgetch function).  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.
	A patched version of gpm is available:

		dickey.his.com:/ncurses/gpm-1.10-970125.tar.gz

	This patch is incorporated in gpm 1.12; however some integrators
	are slow to update this library.  Current distributions of gpm can
	be configured properly using the --without-curses option.

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.  You should set the
	BUILD_CC environment variable to your host's compiler, and run the
	configure script configuring for the cross-compiler.

	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.

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.