xref: /freebsd/contrib/ncurses/doc/hackguide.doc (revision b64c5a0ace59af62eff52bfe110a521dc73c937b)
1                          A Hacker's Guide to NCURSES
2
3A Hacker's Guide to NCURSES
4
5Contents
6
7     * Abstract
8     * Objective of the Package
9          + Why System V Curses?
10          + How to Design Extensions
11     * Portability and Configuration
12     * Documentation Conventions
13     * How to Report Bugs
14     * A Tour of the Ncurses Library
15          + Library Overview
16          + The Engine Room
17          + Keyboard Input
18          + Mouse Events
19          + Output and Screen Updating
20     * The Forms and Menu Libraries
21     * A Tour of the Terminfo Compiler
22          + Translation of Non-use Capabilities
23          + Use Capability Resolution
24          + Source-Form Translation
25     * Other Utilities
26     * Style Tips for Developers
27     * Porting Hints
28
29Abstract
30
31   This document is a hacker's tour of the ncurses library and utilities.
32   It  discusses  design  philosophy,  implementation  methods,  and  the
33   conventions  used  for  coding  and  documentation.  It is recommended
34   reading  for  anyone  who  is  interested  in  porting,  extending  or
35   improving the package.
36
37Objective of the Package
38
39   The objective of the ncurses package is to provide a free software API
40   for character-cell terminals and terminal emulators with the following
41   characteristics:
42     * Source-compatible    with    historical   curses   implementations
43       (including the original BSD curses and System V curses.
44     * Conformant  with the XSI Curses standard issued as part of XPG4 by
45       X/Open.
46     * High-quality  --  stable and reliable code, wide portability, good
47       packaging, superior documentation.
48     * Featureful  --  should  eliminate  as  much  of  the drudgery of C
49       interface programming as possible, freeing programmers to think at
50       a higher level of design.
51
52   These  objectives  are  in  priority  order.  So,  for example, source
53   compatibility  with  older  version  must  trump  featurefulness -- we
54   cannot  add  features  if  it  means  breaking  the portion of the API
55   corresponding to historical curses versions.
56
57  Why System V Curses?
58
59   We  used System V curses as a model, reverse-engineering their API, in
60   order to fulfill the first two objectives.
61
62   System  V  curses implementations can support BSD curses programs with
63   just a recompilation, so by capturing the System V API we also capture
64   BSD's.
65
66   More  importantly  for  the  future, the XSI Curses standard issued by
67   X/Open  is  explicitly and closely modeled on System V. So conformance
68   with System V took us most of the way to base-level XSI conformance.
69
70  How to Design Extensions
71
72   The  third  objective (standards conformance) requires that it be easy
73   to  condition  source  code  using  ncurses  so  that  the  absence of
74   nonstandard extensions does not break the code.
75
76   Accordingly,  we  have  a  policy of associating with each nonstandard
77   extension  a  feature  macro, so that ncurses client code can use this
78   macro  to  condition  in  or  out  the  code that requires the ncurses
79   extension.
80
81   For  example,  there is a macro NCURSES_MOUSE_VERSION which XSI Curses
82   does  not  define, but which is defined in the ncurses library header.
83   You can use this to condition the calls to the mouse API calls.
84
85Portability and Configuration
86
87   Code  written  for  ncurses may assume an ANSI-standard C compiler and
88   POSIX-compatible  OS  interface.  It may also assume the presence of a
89   System-V-compatible select(2) call.
90
91   We encourage (but do not require) developers to make the code friendly
92   to less-capable UNIX environments wherever possible.
93
94   We  encourage  developers  to  support  OS-specific  optimizations and
95   methods not available under POSIX/ANSI, provided only that:
96     * All  such  code  is properly conditioned so the build process does
97       not attempt to compile it under a plain ANSI/POSIX environment.
98     * Adding    such   implementation   methods   does   not   introduce
99       incompatibilities in the ncurses API between platforms.
100
101   We  use GNU autoconf(1) as a tool to deal with portability issues. The
102   right way to leverage an OS-specific feature is to modify the autoconf
103   specification  files  (configure.in  and  aclocal.m4)  to set up a new
104   feature macro, which you then use to condition your code.
105
106Documentation Conventions
107
108   There  are  three kinds of documentation associated with this package.
109   Each has a different preferred format:
110     * Package-internal files (README, INSTALL, TO-DO etc.)
111     * Manual pages.
112     * Everything else (i.e., narrative documentation).
113
114   Our conventions are simple:
115    1. Maintain package-internal files in plain text. The expected viewer
116       for  them  is  more(1)  or  an editor window; there is no point in
117       elaborate mark-up.
118    2. Mark  up manual pages in the man macros. These have to be viewable
119       through traditional man(1) programs.
120    3. Write everything else in HTML.
121
122   When  in  doubt,  HTMLize  a  master and use lynx(1) to generate plain
123   ASCII (as we do for the announcement document).
124
125   The  reason  for  choosing  HTML  is  that  it is (a) well-adapted for
126   on-line  browsing through viewers that are everywhere; (b) more easily
127   readable  as plain text than most other mark-ups, if you do not have a
128   viewer;  and  (c)  carries  enough information that you can generate a
129   nice-looking  printed  version  from  it.  Also,  of  course,  it make
130   exporting things like the announcement document to WWW pretty trivial.
131
132How to Report Bugs
133
134   The  reporting  address  for  bugs  is  bug-ncurses@gnu.org. This is a
135   majordomo  list;  to join, write to bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with a
136   message containing the line:
137             subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
138
139   The  ncurses  code is maintained by a small group of volunteers. While
140   we  try  our best to fix bugs promptly, we simply do not have a lot of
141   hours  to  spend  on  elementary  hand-holding. We rely on intelligent
142   cooperation  from  our  users.  If  you  think you have found a bug in
143   ncurses,  there  are some steps you can take before contacting us that
144   will help get the bug fixed quickly.
145
146   In  order  to  use  our bug-fixing time efficiently, we put people who
147   show  us  they  have  taken these steps at the head of our queue. This
148   means that if you do not, you will probably end up at the tail end and
149   have to wait a while.
150    1. Develop a recipe to reproduce the bug.
151       Bugs  we  can reproduce are likely to be fixed very quickly, often
152       within  days.  The most effective single thing you can do to get a
153       quick  fix  is  develop a way we can duplicate the bad behavior --
154       ideally,  by  giving  us source for a small, portable test program
155       that  breaks the library. (Even better is a keystroke recipe using
156       one of the test programs provided with the distribution.)
157    2. Try to reproduce the bug on a different terminal type.
158       In  our experience, most of the behaviors people report as library
159       bugs are actually due to subtle problems in terminal descriptions.
160       This  is  especially  likely  to  be  true  if  you  are  using  a
161       traditional  asynchronous  terminal or PC-based terminal emulator,
162       rather than xterm or a UNIX console entry.
163       It  is  therefore  extremely helpful if you can tell us whether or
164       not  your  problem reproduces on other terminal types. Usually you
165       will  have both a console type and xterm available; please tell us
166       whether or not your bug reproduces on both.
167       If  you  have  xterm  available,  it is also good to collect xterm
168       reports for different window sizes. This is especially true if you
169       normally  use  an unusual xterm window size -- a surprising number
170       of the bugs we have seen are either triggered or masked by these.
171    3. Generate and examine a trace file for the broken behavior.
172       Recompile   your  program  with  the  debugging  versions  of  the
173       libraries.  Insert  a  trace()  call  with  the  argument  set  to
174       TRACE_UPDATE.  (See "Writing Programs with NCURSES" for details on
175       trace  levels.) Reproduce your bug, then look at the trace file to
176       see what the library was actually doing.
177       Another  frequent  cause  of  apparent  bugs is application coding
178       errors  that  cause  the  wrong  things  to  be put on the virtual
179       screen. Looking at the virtual-screen dumps in the trace file will
180       tell  you  immediately if this is happening, and save you from the
181       possible  embarrassment of being told that the bug is in your code
182       and is your problem rather than ours.
183       If  the virtual-screen dumps look correct but the bug persists, it
184       is  possible  to  crank  up  the trace level to give more and more
185       information  about  the  library's  update actions and the control
186       sequences  it  issues  to  perform them. The test directory of the
187       distribution contains a tool for digesting these logs to make them
188       less tedious to wade through.
189       Often  you  will  find terminfo problems at this stage by noticing
190       that  the  escape  sequences  put out for various capabilities are
191       wrong.  If  not,  you  are  likely  to  learn enough to be able to
192       characterize any bug in the screen-update logic quite exactly.
193    4. Report details and symptoms, not just interpretations.
194       If you do the preceding two steps, it is very likely that you will
195       discover the nature of the problem yourself and be able to send us
196       a  fix.  This  will  create happy feelings all around and earn you
197       good karma for the first time you run into a bug you really cannot
198       characterize and fix yourself.
199       If  you  are  still stuck, at least you will know what to tell us.
200       Remember,  we  need  details.  If  you guess about what is safe to
201       leave out, you are too likely to be wrong.
202       If  your  bug  produces a bad update, include a trace file. Try to
203       make  the  trace  at the least voluminous level that pins down the
204       bug.  Logs  that  have been through tracemunch are OK, it does not
205       throw   away  any  information  (actually  they  are  better  than
206       un-munched ones because they are easier to read).
207       If  your bug produces a core-dump, please include a symbolic stack
208       trace generated by gdb(1) or your local equivalent.
209       Tell  us about every terminal on which you have reproduced the bug
210       --  and  every  terminal  on  which  you  cannot. Ideally, send us
211       terminfo sources for all of these (yours might differ from ours).
212       Include  your ncurses version and your OS/machine type, of course!
213       You can find your ncurses version in the curses.h file.
214
215   If  your  problem  smells  like a logic error or in cursor movement or
216   scrolling  or a bad capability, there are a couple of tiny test frames
217   for  the  library  algorithms in the progs directory that may help you
218   isolate  it. These are not part of the normal build, but do have their
219   own make productions.
220
221   The   most  important  of  these  is  mvcur,  a  test  frame  for  the
222   cursor-movement  optimization  code.  With  this  program, you can see
223   directly  what  control sequences will be emitted for any given cursor
224   movement or scroll/insert/delete operations. If you think you have got
225   a  bad  capability  identified, you can disable it and test again. The
226   program is command-driven and has on-line help.
227
228   If  you think the vertical-scroll optimization is broken, or just want
229   to  understand  how it works better, build hashmap and read the header
230   comments  of hardscroll.c and hashmap.c; then try it out. You can also
231   test the hardware-scrolling optimization separately with hardscroll.
232
233A Tour of the Ncurses Library
234
235  Library Overview
236
237   Most  of  the  library is superstructure -- fairly trivial convenience
238   interfaces  to a small set of basic functions and data structures used
239   to  manipulate  the  virtual  screen (in particular, none of this code
240   does  any  I/O  except  through  calls  to  more  fundamental  modules
241   described below). The files
242
243     lib_addch.c    lib_bkgd.c    lib_box.c    lib_chgat.c   lib_clear.c
244     lib_clearok.c  lib_clrbot.c  lib_clreol.c lib_colorset.c lib_data.c
245     lib_delch.c    lib_delwin.c    lib_echo.c   lib_erase.c   lib_gen.c
246     lib_getstr.c  lib_hline.c  lib_immedok.c  lib_inchstr.c lib_insch.c
247     lib_insdel.c  lib_insstr.c lib_instr.c lib_isendwin.c lib_keyname.c
248     lib_leaveok.c   lib_move.c   lib_mvwin.c   lib_overlay.c  lib_pad.c
249     lib_printw.c  lib_redrawln.c  lib_scanw.c lib_screen.c lib_scroll.c
250     lib_scrollok.c      lib_scrreg.c      lib_set_term.c      lib_slk.c
251     lib_slkatr_set.c   lib_slkatrof.c   lib_slkatron.c  lib_slkatrset.c
252     lib_slkattr.c     lib_slkclear.c    lib_slkcolor.c    lib_slkinit.c
253     lib_slklab.c  lib_slkrefr.c lib_slkset.c lib_slktouch.c lib_touch.c
254     lib_unctrl.c lib_vline.c lib_wattroff.c lib_wattron.c lib_window.c
255
256   are  all  in  this  category.  They  are very unlikely to need change,
257   barring bugs or some fundamental reorganization in the underlying data
258   structures.
259
260   These files are used only for debugging support:
261
262     lib_trace.c     lib_traceatr.c    lib_tracebits.c    lib_tracechr.c
263     lib_tracedmp.c lib_tracemse.c trace_buf.c
264
265   It  is  rather unlikely you will ever need to change these, unless you
266   want to introduce a new debug trace level for some reason.
267
268   There  is  another  group  of  files  that  do direct I/O via tputs(),
269   computations  on  the  terminal  capabilities,  or  queries  to the OS
270   environment,  but  nevertheless have only fairly low complexity. These
271   include:
272
273     lib_acs.c   lib_beep.c   lib_color.c   lib_endwin.c   lib_initscr.c
274     lib_longname.c  lib_newterm.c  lib_options.c lib_termcap.c lib_ti.c
275     lib_tparm.c lib_tputs.c lib_vidattr.c read_entry.c.
276
277   They are likely to need revision only if ncurses is being ported to an
278   environment without an underlying terminfo capability representation.
279
280   These  files  have  serious  hooks  into  the  tty  driver  and signal
281   facilities:
282
283     lib_kernel.c lib_baudrate.c lib_raw.c lib_tstp.c lib_twait.c
284
285   If you run into porting snafus moving the package to another UNIX, the
286   problem  is  likely  to be in one of these files. The file lib_print.c
287   uses sleep(2) and also falls in this category.
288
289   Almost all of the real work is done in the files
290
291     hardscroll.c   hashmap.c   lib_addch.c  lib_doupdate.c  lib_getch.c
292     lib_mouse.c lib_mvcur.c lib_refresh.c lib_setup.c lib_vidattr.c
293
294   Most  of  the  algorithmic  complexity  in  the library lives in these
295   files.  If there is a real bug in ncurses itself, it is probably here.
296   We  will  tour  some  of  these  files in detail below (see The Engine
297   Room).
298
299   Finally,  there  is  a  group  of  files  that is actually most of the
300   terminfo  compiler.  The reason this code lives in the ncurses library
301   is to support fallback to /etc/termcap. These files include
302
303     alloc_entry.c  captoinfo.c  comp_captab.c  comp_error.c comp_hash.c
304     comp_parse.c comp_scan.c parse_entry.c read_termcap.c write_entry.c
305
306   We will discuss these in the compiler tour.
307
308  The Engine Room
309
310    Keyboard Input
311
312   All  ncurses  input  funnels through the function wgetch(), defined in
313   lib_getch.c.  This function is tricky; it has to poll for keyboard and
314   mouse  events and do a running match of incoming input against the set
315   of defined special keys.
316
317   The  central  data  structure  in this module is a FIFO queue, used to
318   match   multiple-character   input   sequences   against   special-key
319   capabilities; also to implement pushback via ungetch().
320
321   The wgetch() code distinguishes between function key sequences and the
322   same  sequences  typed manually by doing a timed wait after each input
323   character  that  could  lead  a  function  key sequence. If the entire
324   sequence  takes  less  than  1  second,  it  is  assumed  to have been
325   generated by a function key press.
326
327   Hackers  bruised  by  previous encounters with variant select(2) calls
328   may  find  the  code  in  lib_twait.c  interesting.  It deals with the
329   problem  that  some  BSD  selects  do  not return a reliable time-left
330   value.  The  function  timed_wait()  effectively  simulates a System V
331   select.
332
333    Mouse Events
334
335   If the mouse interface is active, wgetch() polls for mouse events each
336   call,  before  it  goes  to  the  keyboard  for  input.  It  is  up to
337   lib_mouse.c how the polling is accomplished; it may vary for different
338   devices.
339
340   Under  xterm,  however,  mouse  event  notifications  come  in via the
341   keyboard  input  stream.  They  are  recognized  by  having  the kmous
342   capability  as a prefix. This is kind of klugey, but trying to wire in
343   recognition   of   a  mouse  key  prefix  without  going  through  the
344   function-key  machinery  would be just too painful, and this turns out
345   to  imply having the prefix somewhere in the function-key capabilities
346   at terminal-type initialization.
347
348   This  kluge  only  works  because  kmous  is  not actually used by any
349   historic terminal type or curses implementation we know of. Best guess
350   is  it  is  a relic of some forgotten experiment in-house at Bell Labs
351   that  did  not  leave  any traces in the publicly-distributed System V
352   terminfo  files.  If System V or XPG4 ever gets serious about using it
353   again, this kluge may have to change.
354
355   Here are some more details about mouse event handling:
356
357   The  lib_mouse()  code  is  logically  split  into  a lower level that
358   accepts  event reports in a device-dependent format and an upper level
359   that  parses  mouse  gestures  and  filters events. The mediating data
360   structure is a circular queue of event structures.
361
362   Functionally, the lower level's job is to pick up primitive events and
363   put  them  on  the circular queue. This can happen in one of two ways:
364   either  (a)  _nc_mouse_event()  detects  a  series  of  incoming mouse
365   reports  and queues them, or (b) code in lib_getch.c detects the kmous
366   prefix  in  the  keyboard  input  stream and calls _nc_mouse_inline to
367   queue up a series of adjacent mouse reports.
368
369   In either case, _nc_mouse_parse() should be called after the series is
370   accepted to parse the digested mouse reports (low-level events) into a
371   gesture (a high-level or composite event).
372
373    Output and Screen Updating
374
375   With the single exception of character echoes during a wgetnstr() call
376   (which  simulates  cooked-mode line editing in an ncurses window), the
377   library normally does all its output at refresh time.
378
379   The  main  job  is  to  go  from  the  current state of the screen (as
380   represented  in  the curscr window structure) to the desired new state
381   (as represented in the newscr window structure), while doing as little
382   I/O as possible.
383
384   The  brains  of this operation are the modules hashmap.c, hardscroll.c
385   and  lib_doupdate.c; the latter two use lib_mvcur.c. Essentially, what
386   happens looks like this:
387     * The  hashmap.c  module  tries  to  detect  vertical motion changes
388       between   the  real  and  virtual  screens.  This  information  is
389       represented by the oldindex members in the newscr structure. These
390       are modified by vertical-motion and clear operations, and both are
391       re-initialized  after  each  update.  To  this  change-journalling
392       information,  the  hashmap  code  adds  deductions  made  using  a
393       modified  Heckel  algorithm on hash values generated from the line
394       contents.
395     * The  hardscroll.c  module  computes  an  optimum  set  of  scroll,
396       insertion,  and  deletion operations to make the indices match. It
397       calls _nc_mvcur_scrolln() in lib_mvcur.c to do those motions.
398     * Then  lib_doupdate.c  goes  to work. Its job is to do line-by-line
399       transformations  of curscr lines to newscr lines. Its main tool is
400       the   routine   mvcur()   in   lib_mvcur.c.   This   routine  does
401       cursor-movement  optimization, attempting to get from given screen
402       location  A  to  given  location B in the fewest output characters
403       possible.
404
405   If  you  want to work on screen optimizations, you should use the fact
406   that  (in  the  trace-enabled  version  of  the  library) enabling the
407   TRACE_TIMES  trace  level  causes  a  report  to be emitted after each
408   screen  update  giving  the  elapsed  time  and  a count of characters
409   emitted  during  the  update.  You can use this to tell when an update
410   optimization improves efficiency.
411
412   In  the  trace-enabled  version of the library, it is also possible to
413   disable and re-enable various optimizations at runtime by tweaking the
414   variable  _nc_optimize_enable.  See  the  file include/curses.h.in for
415   mask values, near the end.
416
417The Forms and Menu Libraries
418
419   The  forms  and menu libraries should work reliably in any environment
420   you  can  port ncurses to. The only portability issue anywhere in them
421   is  what  flavor  of  regular expressions the built-in form field type
422   TYPE_REGEXP will recognize.
423
424   The  configuration  code  prefers the POSIX regex facility, modeled on
425   System  V's,  but  will  settle  for  BSD regexps if the former is not
426   available.
427
428   Historical  note:  the  panels code was written primarily to assist in
429   porting  u386mon  2.0 (comp.sources.misc v14i001-4) to systems lacking
430   panels  support; u386mon 2.10 and beyond use it. This version has been
431   slightly cleaned up for ncurses.
432
433A Tour of the Terminfo Compiler
434
435   The ncurses implementation of tic is rather complex internally; it has
436   to  do  a  trying  combination  of missions. This starts with the fact
437   that,  in  addition  to  its normal duty of compiling terminfo sources
438   into  loadable  terminfo binaries, it has to be able to handle termcap
439   syntax and compile that too into terminfo entries.
440
441   The  implementation  therefore  starts  with a table-driven, dual-mode
442   lexical analyzer (in comp_scan.c). The lexer chooses its mode (termcap
443   or terminfo) based on the first "," or ":" it finds in each entry. The
444   lexer  does  all  the work of recognizing capability names and values;
445   the  grammar above it is trivial, just "parse entries till you run out
446   of file".
447
448  Translation of Non-use Capabilities
449
450   Translation   of  most  things  besides  use  capabilities  is  pretty
451   straightforward.   The   lexical   analyzer's   tokenizer  hands  each
452   capability  name  to a hash function, which drives a table lookup. The
453   table entry yields an index which is used to look up the token type in
454   another table, and controls interpretation of the value.
455
456   One  possibly  interesting aspect of the implementation is the way the
457   compiler  tables  are  initialized.  All  the  tables are generated by
458   various  awk/sed/sh  scripts  from  a master table include/Caps; these
459   scripts  actually  write  C  initializers  which  are  linked  to  the
460   compiler. Furthermore, the hash table is generated in the same way, so
461   it  doesn't  have  to  be  generated at compiler startup time (another
462   benefit  of  this  organization  is  that  the  hash  table  can be in
463   shareable text space).
464
465   Thus, adding a new capability is usually pretty trivial, just a matter
466   of  adding one line to the include/Caps file. We will have more to say
467   about this in the section on Source-Form Translation.
468
469  Use Capability Resolution
470
471   The  background  problem  that  makes tic tricky is not the capability
472   translation  itself,  it  is the resolution of use capabilities. Older
473   versions would not handle forward use references for this reason (that
474   is, a using terminal always had to follow its use target in the source
475   file).  By  doing  this,  they  got  away with a simple implementation
476   tactic;  compile  everything  as  it  blows by, then resolve uses from
477   compiled entries.
478
479   This  will  not  do  for  ncurses.  The problem is that that the whole
480   compilation  process  has  to  be embeddable in the ncurses library so
481   that it can be called by the startup code to translate termcap entries
482   on  the  fly.  The  embedded  version  cannot go promiscuously writing
483   everything  it  translates  out  to  disk  --  for  one thing, it will
484   typically be running with non-root permissions.
485
486   So  our  tic  is  designed  to  parse  an  entire terminfo file into a
487   doubly-linked  circular  list of entry structures in-core, and then do
488   use  resolution  in-memory  before writing everything out. This design
489   has other advantages: it makes forward and back use-references equally
490   easy  (so  we get the latter for free), and it makes checking for name
491   collisions before they are written out easy to do.
492
493   And   this  is  exactly  how  the  embedded  version  works.  But  the
494   stand-alone  user-accessible  version  of  tic  partly  reverts to the
495   historical strategy; it writes to disk (not keeping in core) any entry
496   with no use references.
497
498   This  is  strictly  a  core-economy  kluge,  implemented  because  the
499   terminfo  master file is large enough that some core-poor systems swap
500   like crazy when you compile it all in memory...there have been reports
501   of  this process taking three hours, rather than the twenty seconds or
502   less typical on the author's development box.
503
504   So. The executable tic passes the entry-parser a hook that immediately
505   writes  out  the  referenced  entry if it has no use capabilities. The
506   compiler  main loop refrains from adding the entry to the in-core list
507   when  this hook fires. If some other entry later needs to reference an
508   entry  that  got  written immediately, that is OK; the resolution code
509   will fetch it off disk when it cannot find it in core.
510
511   Name  collisions  will  still  be  detected,  just not as cleanly. The
512   write_entry()   code   complains  before  overwriting  an  entry  that
513   postdates  the time of tic's first call to write_entry(), Thus it will
514   complain  about overwriting entries newly made during the tic run, but
515   not about overwriting ones that predate it.
516
517  Source-Form Translation
518
519   Another use of tic is to do source translation between various termcap
520   and terminfo formats. There are more variants out there than you might
521   think; the ones we know about are described in the captoinfo(1) manual
522   page.
523
524   The  translation output code (dump_entry() in ncurses/dump_entry.c) is
525   shared  with  the  infocmp(1)  utility.  It  takes  the  same internal
526   representation  used  to  generate  the  binary  form  and dumps it to
527   standard output in a specified format.
528
529   The  include/Caps  file  has  a header comment describing ways you can
530   specify  source  translations  for  nonstandard  capabilities  just by
531   altering  the  master  table.  It  is  possible  to  set up capability
532   aliasing  or  tell  the  compiler  to  plain ignore a given capability
533   without writing any C code at all.
534
535   For  circumstances where you need to do algorithmic translation, there
536   are  functions  in  parse_entry.c called after the parse of each entry
537   that are specifically intended to encapsulate such translations. This,
538   for  example,  is  where  the AIX box1 capability get translated to an
539   acsc string.
540
541Other Utilities
542
543   The  infocmp  utility  is just a wrapper around the same entry-dumping
544   code  used  by tic for source translation. Perhaps the one interesting
545   aspect  of  the  code  is the use of a predicate function passed in to
546   dump_entry()  to  control  which  capabilities  are  dumped.  This  is
547   necessary in order to handle both the ordinary De-compilation case and
548   entry difference reporting.
549
550   The  tput  and  clear  utilities  just  do an entry load followed by a
551   tputs() of a selected capability.
552
553Style Tips for Developers
554
555   See   the  TO-DO  file  in  the  top-level  directory  of  the  source
556   distribution for additions that would be particularly useful.
557
558   The  prefix  _nc_  should be used on library public functions that are
559   not  part  of  the  curses  API  in  order to prevent pollution of the
560   application  namespace.  If  you have to add to or modify the function
561   prototypes  in curses.h.in, read ncurses/MKlib_gen.sh first so you can
562   avoid  breaking XSI conformance. Please join the ncurses mailing list.
563   See  the INSTALL file in the top level of the distribution for details
564   on the list.
565
566   Look  for  the  string  FIXME  in  source  files to tag minor bugs and
567   potential problems that could use fixing.
568
569   Do  not try to auto-detect OS features in the main body of the C code.
570   That is the job of the configuration system.
571
572   To hold down complexity, do make your code data-driven. Especially, if
573   you  can drive logic from a table filtered out of include/Caps, do it.
574   If  you  find  you  need  to augment the data in that file in order to
575   generate  the proper table, that is still preferable to ad-hoc code --
576   that is why the fifth field (flags) is there.
577
578   Have fun!
579
580Porting Hints
581
582   The  following  notes  are intended to be a first step towards DOS and
583   Macintosh ports of the ncurses libraries.
584
585   The  following library modules are "pure curses"; they operate only on
586   the  curses  internal  structures,  do all output through other curses
587   calls  (not  including  tputs()  and putp()) and do not call any other
588   UNIX  routines  such  as  signal(2)  or  the stdio library. Thus, they
589   should not need to be modified for single-terminal ports.
590
591     lib_addch.c    lib_addstr.c    lib_bkgd.c   lib_box.c   lib_clear.c
592     lib_clrbot.c   lib_clreol.c  lib_delch.c  lib_delwin.c  lib_erase.c
593     lib_inchstr.c  lib_insch.c  lib_insdel.c lib_insstr.c lib_keyname.c
594     lib_move.c   lib_mvwin.c   lib_newwin.c   lib_overlay.c   lib_pad.c
595     lib_printw.c  lib_refresh.c  lib_scanw.c  lib_scroll.c lib_scrreg.c
596     lib_set_term.c  lib_touch.c  lib_tparm.c  lib_tputs.c  lib_unctrl.c
597     lib_window.c panel.c
598
599   This module is pure curses, but calls outstr():
600
601     lib_getstr.c
602
603   These  modules  are  pure  curses,  except  that  they use tputs() and
604   putp():
605
606     lib_beep.c   lib_color.c   lib_endwin.c   lib_options.c   lib_slk.c
607     lib_vidattr.c
608
609   This modules assist in POSIX emulation on non-POSIX systems:
610
611   sigaction.c
612          signal calls
613
614   The    following   source   files   will   not   be   needed   for   a
615   single-terminal-type port.
616
617     alloc_entry.c   captoinfo.c   clear.c   comp_captab.c  comp_error.c
618     comp_hash.c   comp_main.c   comp_parse.c  comp_scan.c  dump_entry.c
619     infocmp.c parse_entry.c read_entry.c tput.c write_entry.c
620
621   The  following  modules will use open()/read()/write()/close()/lseek()
622   on files, but no other OS calls.
623
624   lib_screen.c
625          used to read/write screen dumps
626
627   lib_trace.c
628          used to write trace data to the logfile
629
630   Modules that would have to be modified for a port start here:
631
632   The  following  modules  are  "pure  curses"  but  contain assumptions
633   inappropriate for a memory-mapped port.
634
635   lib_longname.c
636          assumes there may be multiple terminals
637
638   lib_acs.c
639          assumes acs_map as a double indirection
640
641   lib_mvcur.c
642          assumes cursor moves have variable cost
643
644   lib_termcap.c
645          assumes there may be multiple terminals
646
647   lib_ti.c
648          assumes there may be multiple terminals
649
650   The following modules use UNIX-specific calls:
651
652   lib_doupdate.c
653          input checking
654
655   lib_getch.c
656          read()
657
658   lib_initscr.c
659          getenv()
660
661   lib_newterm.c
662   lib_baudrate.c
663   lib_kernel.c
664          various tty-manipulation and system calls
665
666   lib_raw.c
667          various tty-manipulation calls
668
669   lib_setup.c
670          various tty-manipulation calls
671
672   lib_restart.c
673          various tty-manipulation calls
674
675   lib_tstp.c
676          signal-manipulation calls
677
678   lib_twait.c
679          gettimeofday(), select().
680     _________________________________________________________________
681
682
683    Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
684
685   (Note: This is not the bug address!)
686