xref: /freebsd/contrib/ncurses/doc/hackguide.doc (revision e6bfd18d21b225af6a0ed67ceeaf1293b7b9eba5)
1                          A Hacker's Guide to NCURSES
2
3                                   Contents
4
5     * Abstract
6     * Objective of the Package
7          + Why System V Curses?
8          + How to Design Extensions
9     * Portability and Configuration
10     * Documentation Conventions
11     * How to Report Bugs
12     * A Tour of the Ncurses Library
13          + Library Overview
14          + The Engine Room
15          + Keyboard Input
16          + Mouse Events
17          + Output and Screen Updating
18     * The Forms and Menu Libraries
19     * A Tour of the Terminfo Compiler
20          + Translation of Non-use Capabilities
21          + Use Capability Resolution
22          + Source-Form Translation
23     * Other Utilities
24     * Style Tips for Developers
25     * Porting Hints
26
27                                   Abstract
28
29   This document is a hacker's tour of the ncurses library and utilities.
30   It  discusses  design  philosophy,  implementation  methods,  and  the
31   conventions  used  for  coding  and  documentation.  It is recommended
32   reading  for  anyone  who  is  interested  in  porting,  extending  or
33   improving the package.
34
35                           Objective of the Package
36
37   The objective of the ncurses package is to provide a free software API
38   for character-cell terminals and terminal emulators with the following
39   characteristics:
40     * Source-compatible    with    historical   curses   implementations
41       (including the original BSD curses and System V curses.
42     * Conformant  with the XSI Curses standard issued as part of XPG4 by
43       X/Open.
44     * High-quality  --  stable and reliable code, wide portability, good
45       packaging, superior documentation.
46     * Featureful  --  should  eliminate  as  much  of  the drudgery of C
47       interface programming as possible, freeing programmers to think at
48       a higher level of design.
49
50   These  objectives  are  in  priority  order.  So,  for example, source
51   compatibility  with  older  version  must  trump  featurefulness -- we
52   cannot  add  features  if  it  means  breaking  the portion of the API
53   corresponding to historical curses versions.
54
55Why System V Curses?
56
57   We  used System V curses as a model, reverse-engineering their API, in
58   order to fulfill the first two objectives.
59
60   System  V  curses implementations can support BSD curses programs with
61   just a recompilation, so by capturing the System V API we also capture
62   BSD's.
63
64   More  importantly  for  the  future, the XSI Curses standard issued by
65   X/Open  is  explicitly and closely modeled on System V. So conformance
66   with System V took us most of the way to base-level XSI conformance.
67
68How to Design Extensions
69
70   The  third  objective (standards conformance) requires that it be easy
71   to  condition  source  code  using  ncurses  so  that  the  absence of
72   nonstandard extensions does not break the code.
73
74   Accordingly,  we  have  a  policy of associating with each nonstandard
75   extension  a  feature  macro, so that ncurses client code can use this
76   macro  to  condition  in  or  out  the  code that requires the ncurses
77   extension.
78
79   For  example,  there is a macro NCURSES_MOUSE_VERSION which XSI Curses
80   does  not  define, but which is defined in the ncurses library header.
81   You can use this to condition the calls to the mouse API calls.
82
83                         Portability and Configuration
84
85   Code  written  for  ncurses may assume an ANSI-standard C compiler and
86   POSIX-compatible  OS  interface.  It may also assume the presence of a
87   System-V-compatible select(2) call.
88
89   We encourage (but do not require) developers to make the code friendly
90   to less-capable UNIX environments wherever possible.
91
92   We  encourage  developers  to  support  OS-specific  optimizations and
93   methods not available under POSIX/ANSI, provided only that:
94     * All  such  code  is properly conditioned so the build process does
95       not attempt to compile it under a plain ANSI/POSIX environment.
96     * Adding    such   implementation   methods   does   not   introduce
97       incompatibilities in the ncurses API between platforms.
98
99   We  use GNU autoconf(1) as a tool to deal with portability issues. The
100   right way to leverage an OS-specific feature is to modify the autoconf
101   specification  files  (configure.in  and  aclocal.m4)  to set up a new
102   feature macro, which you then use to condition your code.
103
104                           Documentation Conventions
105
106   There  are  three kinds of documentation associated with this package.
107   Each has a different preferred format:
108     * Package-internal files (README, INSTALL, TO-DO etc.)
109     * Manual pages.
110     * Everything else (i.e., narrative documentation).
111
112   Our conventions are simple:
113    1. Maintain package-internal files in plain text. The expected viewer
114       for  them  more(1)  or  an  editor  window;  there  is no point in
115       elaborate mark-up.
116    2. Mark  up manual pages in the man macros. These have to be viewable
117       through traditional man(1) programs.
118    3. Write everything else in HTML.
119
120   When  in  doubt,  HTMLize  a  master and use lynx(1) to generate plain
121   ASCII (as we do for the announcement document).
122
123   The  reason  for  choosing  HTML  is  that  it is (a) well-adapted for
124   on-line  browsing through viewers that are everywhere; (b) more easily
125   readable  as plain text than most other mark-ups, if you do not have a
126   viewer;  and  (c)  carries  enough information that you can generate a
127   nice-looking  printed  version  from  it.  Also,  of  course,  it make
128   exporting things like the announcement document to WWW pretty trivial.
129
130                              How to Report Bugs
131
132   The  reporting  address  for  bugs  is  bug-ncurses@gnu.org. This is a
133   majordomo  list;  to join, write to bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with a
134   message containing the line:
135             subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
136
137   The  ncurses  code is maintained by a small group of volunteers. While
138   we  try  our best to fix bugs promptly, we simply do not have a lot of
139   hours  to  spend  on  elementary  hand-holding. We rely on intelligent
140   cooperation  from  our  users.  If  you  think you have found a bug in
141   ncurses,  there  are some steps you can take before contacting us that
142   will help get the bug fixed quickly.
143
144   In  order  to  use  our bug-fixing time efficiently, we put people who
145   show  us  they  have  taken these steps at the head of our queue. This
146   means that if you do not, you will probably end up at the tail end and
147   have to wait a while.
148    1. Develop a recipe to reproduce the bug.
149       Bugs  we  can reproduce are likely to be fixed very quickly, often
150       within  days.  The most effective single thing you can do to get a
151       quick  fix  is  develop a way we can duplicate the bad behavior --
152       ideally,  by  giving  us source for a small, portable test program
153       that  breaks the library. (Even better is a keystroke recipe using
154       one of the test programs provided with the distribution.)
155    2. Try to reproduce the bug on a different terminal type.
156       In  our experience, most of the behaviors people report as library
157       bugs are actually due to subtle problems in terminal descriptions.
158       This  is  especially  likely  to  be  true  if  you  are  using  a
159       traditional  asynchronous  terminal or PC-based terminal emulator,
160       rather than xterm or a UNIX console entry.
161       It  is  therefore  extremely helpful if you can tell us whether or
162       not  your  problem reproduces on other terminal types. Usually you
163       will  have both a console type and xterm available; please tell us
164       whether or not your bug reproduces on both.
165       If  you  have  xterm  available,  it is also good to collect xterm
166       reports for different window sizes. This is especially true if you
167       normally  use  an unusual xterm window size -- a surprising number
168       of the bugs we have seen are either triggered or masked by these.
169    3. Generate and examine a trace file for the broken behavior.
170       Recompile   your  program  with  the  debugging  versions  of  the
171       libraries.  Insert  a  trace()  call  with  the  argument  set  to
172       TRACE_UPDATE.  (See "Writing Programs with NCURSES" for details on
173       trace  levels.) Reproduce your bug, then look at the trace file to
174       see what the library was actually doing.
175       Another  frequent  cause  of  apparent  bugs is application coding
176       errors  that  cause  the  wrong  things  to  be put on the virtual
177       screen. Looking at the virtual-screen dumps in the trace file will
178       tell  you  immediately if this is happening, and save you from the
179       possible  embarrassment of being told that the bug is in your code
180       and is your problem rather than ours.
181       If  the virtual-screen dumps look correct but the bug persists, it
182       is  possible  to  crank  up  the trace level to give more and more
183       information  about  the  library's  update actions and the control
184       sequences  it  issues  to  perform them. The test directory of the
185       distribution contains a tool for digesting these logs to make them
186       less tedious to wade through.
187       Often  you  will  find terminfo problems at this stage by noticing
188       that  the  escape  sequences  put out for various capabilities are
189       wrong.  If  not,  you  are  likely  to  learn enough to be able to
190       characterize any bug in the screen-update logic quite exactly.
191    4. Report details and symptoms, not just interpretations.
192       If you do the preceding two steps, it is very likely that you will
193       discover the nature of the problem yourself and be able to send us
194       a  fix.  This  will  create happy feelings all around and earn you
195       good karma for the first time you run into a bug you really cannot
196       characterize and fix yourself.
197       If  you  are  still stuck, at least you will know what to tell us.
198       Remember,  we  need  details.  If  you guess about what is safe to
199       leave out, you are too likely to be wrong.
200       If  your  bug  produces a bad update, include a trace file. Try to
201       make  the  trace  at the least voluminous level that pins down the
202       bug.  Logs  that  have been through tracemunch are OK, it does not
203       throw   away  any  information  (actually  they  are  better  than
204       un-munched ones because they are easier to read).
205       If  your bug produces a core-dump, please include a symbolic stack
206       trace generated by gdb(1) or your local equivalent.
207       Tell  us about every terminal on which you have reproduced the bug
208       --  and  every  terminal  on  which  you  cannot. Ideally, send us
209       terminfo sources for all of these (yours might differ from ours).
210       Include  your ncurses version and your OS/machine type, of course!
211       You can find your ncurses version in the curses.h file.
212
213   If  your  problem  smells  like a logic error or in cursor movement or
214   scrolling  or a bad capability, there are a couple of tiny test frames
215   for  the  library  algorithms in the progs directory that may help you
216   isolate  it. These are not part of the normal build, but do have their
217   own make productions.
218
219   The   most  important  of  these  is  mvcur,  a  test  frame  for  the
220   cursor-movement  optimization  code.  With  this  program, you can see
221   directly  what  control sequences will be emitted for any given cursor
222   movement or scroll/insert/delete operations. If you think you have got
223   a  bad  capability  identified, you can disable it and test again. The
224   program is command-driven and has on-line help.
225
226   If  you think the vertical-scroll optimization is broken, or just want
227   to  understand  how it works better, build hashmap and read the header
228   comments  of hardscroll.c and hashmap.c; then try it out. You can also
229   test the hardware-scrolling optimization separately with hardscroll.
230
231                         A Tour of the Ncurses Library
232
233Library Overview
234
235   Most  of  the  library is superstructure -- fairly trivial convenience
236   interfaces  to a small set of basic functions and data structures used
237   to  manipulate  the  virtual  screen (in particular, none of this code
238   does  any  I/O  except  through  calls  to  more  fundamental  modules
239   described below). The files
240
241     lib_addch.c    lib_bkgd.c    lib_box.c    lib_chgat.c   lib_clear.c
242     lib_clearok.c  lib_clrbot.c  lib_clreol.c lib_colorset.c lib_data.c
243     lib_delch.c    lib_delwin.c    lib_echo.c   lib_erase.c   lib_gen.c
244     lib_getstr.c  lib_hline.c  lib_immedok.c  lib_inchstr.c lib_insch.c
245     lib_insdel.c  lib_insstr.c lib_instr.c lib_isendwin.c lib_keyname.c
246     lib_leaveok.c   lib_move.c   lib_mvwin.c   lib_overlay.c  lib_pad.c
247     lib_printw.c  lib_redrawln.c  lib_scanw.c lib_screen.c lib_scroll.c
248     lib_scrollok.c      lib_scrreg.c      lib_set_term.c      lib_slk.c
249     lib_slkatr_set.c   lib_slkatrof.c   lib_slkatron.c  lib_slkatrset.c
250     lib_slkattr.c     lib_slkclear.c    lib_slkcolor.c    lib_slkinit.c
251     lib_slklab.c  lib_slkrefr.c lib_slkset.c lib_slktouch.c lib_touch.c
252     lib_unctrl.c lib_vline.c lib_wattroff.c lib_wattron.c lib_window.c
253
254   are  all  in  this  category.  They  are very unlikely to need change,
255   barring bugs or some fundamental reorganization in the underlying data
256   structures.
257
258   These files are used only for debugging support:
259
260     lib_trace.c     lib_traceatr.c    lib_tracebits.c    lib_tracechr.c
261     lib_tracedmp.c lib_tracemse.c trace_buf.c
262
263   It  is  rather unlikely you will ever need to change these, unless you
264   want to introduce a new debug trace level for some reason.
265
266   There  is  another  group  of  files  that  do direct I/O via tputs(),
267   computations  on  the  terminal  capabilities,  or  queries  to the OS
268   environment,  but  nevertheless have only fairly low complexity. These
269   include:
270
271     lib_acs.c   lib_beep.c   lib_color.c   lib_endwin.c   lib_initscr.c
272     lib_longname.c  lib_newterm.c  lib_options.c lib_termcap.c lib_ti.c
273     lib_tparm.c lib_tputs.c lib_vidattr.c read_entry.c.
274
275   They are likely to need revision only if ncurses is being ported to an
276   environment without an underlying terminfo capability representation.
277
278   These  files  have  serious  hooks  into  the  tty  driver  and signal
279   facilities:
280
281     lib_kernel.c lib_baudrate.c lib_raw.c lib_tstp.c lib_twait.c
282
283   If you run into porting snafus moving the package to another UNIX, the
284   problem  is  likely  to be in one of these files. The file lib_print.c
285   uses sleep(2) and also falls in this category.
286
287   Almost all of the real work is done in the files
288
289     hardscroll.c   hashmap.c   lib_addch.c  lib_doupdate.c  lib_getch.c
290     lib_mouse.c lib_mvcur.c lib_refresh.c lib_setup.c lib_vidattr.c
291
292   Most  of  the  algorithmic  complexity  in  the library lives in these
293   files.  If there is a real bug in ncurses itself, it is probably here.
294   We  will  tour  some  of  these  files in detail below (see The Engine
295   Room).
296
297   Finally,  there  is  a  group  of  files  that is actually most of the
298   terminfo  compiler.  The reason this code lives in the ncurses library
299   is to support fallback to /etc/termcap. These files include
300
301     alloc_entry.c  captoinfo.c  comp_captab.c  comp_error.c comp_hash.c
302     comp_parse.c comp_scan.c parse_entry.c read_termcap.c write_entry.c
303
304   We will discuss these in the compiler tour.
305
306The Engine Room
307
308  Keyboard Input
309
310   All  ncurses  input  funnels through the function wgetch(), defined in
311   lib_getch.c.  This function is tricky; it has to poll for keyboard and
312   mouse  events and do a running match of incoming input against the set
313   of defined special keys.
314
315   The  central  data  structure  in this module is a FIFO queue, used to
316   match   multiple-character   input   sequences   against   special-key
317   capabilities; also to implement pushback via ungetch().
318
319   The wgetch() code distinguishes between function key sequences and the
320   same  sequences  typed manually by doing a timed wait after each input
321   character  that  could  lead  a  function  key sequence. If the entire
322   sequence  takes  less  than  1  second,  it  is  assumed  to have been
323   generated by a function key press.
324
325   Hackers  bruised  by  previous encounters with variant select(2) calls
326   may  find  the  code  in  lib_twait.c  interesting.  It deals with the
327   problem  that  some  BSD  selects  do  not return a reliable time-left
328   value.  The  function  timed_wait()  effectively  simulates a System V
329   select.
330
331  Mouse Events
332
333   If the mouse interface is active, wgetch() polls for mouse events each
334   call,  before  it  goes  to  the  keyboard  for  input.  It  is  up to
335   lib_mouse.c how the polling is accomplished; it may vary for different
336   devices.
337
338   Under  xterm,  however,  mouse  event  notifications  come  in via the
339   keyboard  input  stream.  They  are  recognized  by  having  the kmous
340   capability  as a prefix. This is kind of klugey, but trying to wire in
341   recognition   of   a  mouse  key  prefix  without  going  through  the
342   function-key  machinery  would be just too painful, and this turns out
343   to  imply having the prefix somewhere in the function-key capabilities
344   at terminal-type initialization.
345
346   This  kluge  only  works  because  kmous  is  not actually used by any
347   historic terminal type or curses implementation we know of. Best guess
348   is  it  is  a relic of some forgotten experiment in-house at Bell Labs
349   that  did  not  leave  any traces in the publicly-distributed System V
350   terminfo  files.  If System V or XPG4 ever gets serious about using it
351   again, this kluge may have to change.
352
353   Here are some more details about mouse event handling:
354
355   The  lib_mouse()  code  is  logically  split  into  a lower level that
356   accepts  event reports in a device-dependent format and an upper level
357   that  parses  mouse  gestures  and  filters events. The mediating data
358   structure is a circular queue of event structures.
359
360   Functionally, the lower level's job is to pick up primitive events and
361   put  them  on  the circular queue. This can happen in one of two ways:
362   either  (a)  _nc_mouse_event()  detects  a  series  of  incoming mouse
363   reports  and queues them, or (b) code in lib_getch.c detects the kmous
364   prefix  in  the  keyboard  input  stream and calls _nc_mouse_inline to
365   queue up a series of adjacent mouse reports.
366
367   In either case, _nc_mouse_parse() should be called after the series is
368   accepted to parse the digested mouse reports (low-level events) into a
369   gesture (a high-level or composite event).
370
371  Output and Screen Updating
372
373   With the single exception of character echoes during a wgetnstr() call
374   (which  simulates  cooked-mode line editing in an ncurses window), the
375   library normally does all its output at refresh time.
376
377   The  main  job  is  to  go  from  the  current state of the screen (as
378   represented  in  the curscr window structure) to the desired new state
379   (as represented in the newscr window structure), while doing as little
380   I/O as possible.
381
382   The  brains  of this operation are the modules hashmap.c, hardscroll.c
383   and  lib_doupdate.c; the latter two use lib_mvcur.c. Essentially, what
384   happens looks like this:
385     * The  hashmap.c  module  tries  to  detect  vertical motion changes
386       between   the  real  and  virtual  screens.  This  information  is
387       represented by the oldindex members in the newscr structure. These
388       are modified by vertical-motion and clear operations, and both are
389       re-initialized  after  each  update.  To  this  change-journalling
390       information,  the  hashmap  code  adds  deductions  made  using  a
391       modified  Heckel  algorithm on hash values generated from the line
392       contents.
393     * The  hardscroll.c  module  computes  an  optimum  set  of  scroll,
394       insertion,  and  deletion operations to make the indices match. It
395       calls _nc_mvcur_scrolln() in lib_mvcur.c to do those motions.
396     * Then  lib_doupdate.c  goes  to work. Its job is to do line-by-line
397       transformations  of curscr lines to newscr lines. Its main tool is
398       the   routine   mvcur()   in   lib_mvcur.c.   This   routine  does
399       cursor-movement  optimization, attempting to get from given screen
400       location  A  to  given  location B in the fewest output characters
401       possible.
402
403   If  you  want to work on screen optimizations, you should use the fact
404   that  (in  the  trace-enabled  version  of  the  library) enabling the
405   TRACE_TIMES  trace  level  causes  a  report  to be emitted after each
406   screen  update  giving  the  elapsed  time  and  a count of characters
407   emitted  during  the  update.  You can use this to tell when an update
408   optimization improves efficiency.
409
410   In  the  trace-enabled  version of the library, it is also possible to
411   disable and re-enable various optimizations at runtime by tweaking the
412   variable  _nc_optimize_enable.  See  the  file include/curses.h.in for
413   mask values, near the end.
414
415                         The Forms and Menu Libraries
416
417   The  forms  and menu libraries should work reliably in any environment
418   you  can  port ncurses to. The only portability issue anywhere in them
419   is  what  flavor  of  regular expressions the built-in form field type
420   TYPE_REGEXP will recognize.
421
422   The  configuration  code  prefers the POSIX regex facility, modeled on
423   System  V's,  but  will  settle  for  BSD regexps if the former is not
424   available.
425
426   Historical  note:  the  panels code was written primarily to assist in
427   porting  u386mon  2.0 (comp.sources.misc v14i001-4) to systems lacking
428   panels  support; u386mon 2.10 and beyond use it. This version has been
429   slightly cleaned up for ncurses.
430
431                        A Tour of the Terminfo Compiler
432
433   The ncurses implementation of tic is rather complex internally; it has
434   to  do  a  trying  combination  of missions. This starts with the fact
435   that,  in  addition  to  its normal duty of compiling terminfo sources
436   into  loadable  terminfo binaries, it has to be able to handle termcap
437   syntax and compile that too into terminfo entries.
438
439   The  implementation  therefore  starts  with a table-driven, dual-mode
440   lexical analyzer (in comp_scan.c). The lexer chooses its mode (termcap
441   or terminfo) based on the first "," or ":" it finds in each entry. The
442   lexer  does  all  the work of recognizing capability names and values;
443   the  grammar above it is trivial, just "parse entries till you run out
444   of file".
445
446Translation of Non-use Capabilities
447
448   Translation   of  most  things  besides  use  capabilities  is  pretty
449   straightforward.   The   lexical   analyzer's   tokenizer  hands  each
450   capability  name  to a hash function, which drives a table lookup. The
451   table entry yields an index which is used to look up the token type in
452   another table, and controls interpretation of the value.
453
454   One  possibly  interesting aspect of the implementation is the way the
455   compiler  tables  are  initialized.  All  the  tables are generated by
456   various  awk/sed/sh  scripts  from  a master table include/Caps; these
457   scripts  actually  write  C  initializers  which  are  linked  to  the
458   compiler. Furthermore, the hash table is generated in the same way, so
459   it  doesn't  have  to  be  generated at compiler startup time (another
460   benefit  of  this  organization  is  that  the  hash  table  can be in
461   shareable text space).
462
463   Thus, adding a new capability is usually pretty trivial, just a matter
464   of  adding one line to the include/Caps file. We will have more to say
465   about this in the section on Source-Form Translation.
466
467Use Capability Resolution
468
469   The  background  problem  that  makes tic tricky is not the capability
470   translation  itself,  it  is the resolution of use capabilities. Older
471   versions would not handle forward use references for this reason (that
472   is, a using terminal always had to follow its use target in the source
473   file).  By  doing  this,  they  got  away with a simple implementation
474   tactic;  compile  everything  as  it  blows by, then resolve uses from
475   compiled entries.
476
477   This  will  not  do  for  ncurses.  The problem is that that the whole
478   compilation  process  has  to  be embeddable in the ncurses library so
479   that it can be called by the startup code to translate termcap entries
480   on  the  fly.  The  embedded  version  cannot go promiscuously writing
481   everything  it  translates  out  to  disk  --  for  one thing, it will
482   typically be running with non-root permissions.
483
484   So  our  tic  is  designed  to  parse  an  entire terminfo file into a
485   doubly-linked  circular  list of entry structures in-core, and then do
486   use  resolution  in-memory  before writing everything out. This design
487   has other advantages: it makes forward and back use-references equally
488   easy  (so  we get the latter for free), and it makes checking for name
489   collisions before they are written out easy to do.
490
491   And   this  is  exactly  how  the  embedded  version  works.  But  the
492   stand-alone  user-accessible  version  of  tic  partly  reverts to the
493   historical strategy; it writes to disk (not keeping in core) any entry
494   with no use references.
495
496   This  is  strictly  a  core-economy  kluge,  implemented  because  the
497   terminfo  master file is large enough that some core-poor systems swap
498   like crazy when you compile it all in memory...there have been reports
499   of  this process taking three hours, rather than the twenty seconds or
500   less typical on the author's development box.
501
502   So. The executable tic passes the entry-parser a hook that immediately
503   writes  out  the  referenced  entry if it has no use capabilities. The
504   compiler  main loop refrains from adding the entry to the in-core list
505   when  this hook fires. If some other entry later needs to reference an
506   entry  that  got  written immediately, that is OK; the resolution code
507   will fetch it off disk when it cannot find it in core.
508
509   Name  collisions  will  still  be  detected,  just not as cleanly. The
510   write_entry()   code   complains  before  overwriting  an  entry  that
511   postdates  the time of tic's first call to write_entry(), Thus it will
512   complain  about overwriting entries newly made during the tic run, but
513   not about overwriting ones that predate it.
514
515Source-Form Translation
516
517   Another use of tic is to do source translation between various termcap
518   and terminfo formats. There are more variants out there than you might
519   think; the ones we know about are described in the captoinfo(1) manual
520   page.
521
522   The  translation output code (dump_entry() in ncurses/dump_entry.c) is
523   shared  with  the  infocmp(1)  utility.  It  takes  the  same internal
524   representation  used  to  generate  the  binary  form  and dumps it to
525   standard output in a specified format.
526
527   The  include/Caps  file  has  a header comment describing ways you can
528   specify  source  translations  for  nonstandard  capabilities  just by
529   altering  the  master  table.  It  is  possible  to  set up capability
530   aliasing  or  tell  the  compiler  to  plain ignore a given capability
531   without writing any C code at all.
532
533   For  circumstances where you need to do algorithmic translation, there
534   are  functions  in  parse_entry.c called after the parse of each entry
535   that are specifically intended to encapsulate such translations. This,
536   for  example,  is  where  the AIX box1 capability get translated to an
537   acsc string.
538
539                                Other Utilities
540
541   The  infocmp  utility  is just a wrapper around the same entry-dumping
542   code  used  by tic for source translation. Perhaps the one interesting
543   aspect  of  the  code  is the use of a predicate function passed in to
544   dump_entry()  to  control  which  capabilities  are  dumped.  This  is
545   necessary in order to handle both the ordinary De-compilation case and
546   entry difference reporting.
547
548   The  tput  and  clear  utilities  just  do an entry load followed by a
549   tputs() of a selected capability.
550
551                           Style Tips for Developers
552
553   See   the  TO-DO  file  in  the  top-level  directory  of  the  source
554   distribution for additions that would be particularly useful.
555
556   The  prefix  _nc_  should be used on library public functions that are
557   not  part  of  the  curses  API  in  order to prevent pollution of the
558   application  namespace.  If  you have to add to or modify the function
559   prototypes  in curses.h.in, read ncurses/MKlib_gen.sh first so you can
560   avoid  breaking XSI conformance. Please join the ncurses mailing list.
561   See  the INSTALL file in the top level of the distribution for details
562   on the list.
563
564   Look  for  the  string  FIXME  in  source  files to tag minor bugs and
565   potential problems that could use fixing.
566
567   Do  not try to auto-detect OS features in the main body of the C code.
568   That is the job of the configuration system.
569
570   To hold down complexity, do make your code data-driven. Especially, if
571   you  can drive logic from a table filtered out of include/Caps, do it.
572   If  you  find  you  need  to augment the data in that file in order to
573   generate  the proper table, that is still preferable to ad-hoc code --
574   that is why the fifth field (flags) is there.
575
576   Have fun!
577
578                                 Porting Hints
579
580   The  following  notes  are intended to be a first step towards DOS and
581   Macintosh ports of the ncurses libraries.
582
583   The  following library modules are "pure curses"; they operate only on
584   the  curses  internal  structures,  do all output through other curses
585   calls  (not  including  tputs()  and putp()) and do not call any other
586   UNIX  routines  such  as  signal(2)  or  the stdio library. Thus, they
587   should not need to be modified for single-terminal ports.
588
589     lib_addch.c    lib_addstr.c    lib_bkgd.c   lib_box.c   lib_clear.c
590     lib_clrbot.c   lib_clreol.c  lib_delch.c  lib_delwin.c  lib_erase.c
591     lib_inchstr.c  lib_insch.c  lib_insdel.c lib_insstr.c lib_keyname.c
592     lib_move.c   lib_mvwin.c   lib_newwin.c   lib_overlay.c   lib_pad.c
593     lib_printw.c  lib_refresh.c  lib_scanw.c  lib_scroll.c lib_scrreg.c
594     lib_set_term.c  lib_touch.c  lib_tparm.c  lib_tputs.c  lib_unctrl.c
595     lib_window.c panel.c
596
597   This module is pure curses, but calls outstr():
598
599     lib_getstr.c
600
601   These  modules  are  pure  curses,  except  that  they use tputs() and
602   putp():
603
604     lib_beep.c   lib_color.c   lib_endwin.c   lib_options.c   lib_slk.c
605     lib_vidattr.c
606
607   This modules assist in POSIX emulation on non-POSIX systems:
608
609   sigaction.c
610          signal calls
611
612   The    following   source   files   will   not   be   needed   for   a
613   single-terminal-type port.
614
615     alloc_entry.c   captoinfo.c   clear.c   comp_captab.c  comp_error.c
616     comp_hash.c   comp_main.c   comp_parse.c  comp_scan.c  dump_entry.c
617     infocmp.c parse_entry.c read_entry.c tput.c write_entry.c
618
619   The  following  modules will use open()/read()/write()/close()/lseek()
620   on files, but no other OS calls.
621
622   lib_screen.c
623          used to read/write screen dumps
624
625   lib_trace.c
626          used to write trace data to the logfile
627
628   Modules that would have to be modified for a port start here:
629
630   The  following  modules  are  "pure  curses"  but  contain assumptions
631   inappropriate for a memory-mapped port.
632
633   lib_longname.c
634          assumes there may be multiple terminals
635
636   lib_acs.c
637          assumes acs_map as a double indirection
638
639   lib_mvcur.c
640          assumes cursor moves have variable cost
641
642   lib_termcap.c
643          assumes there may be multiple terminals
644
645   lib_ti.c
646          assumes there may be multiple terminals
647
648   The following modules use UNIX-specific calls:
649
650   lib_doupdate.c
651          input checking
652
653   lib_getch.c
654          read()
655
656   lib_initscr.c
657          getenv()
658
659   lib_newterm.c
660   lib_baudrate.c
661   lib_kernel.c
662          various tty-manipulation and system calls
663
664   lib_raw.c
665          various tty-manipulation calls
666
667   lib_setup.c
668          various tty-manipulation calls
669
670   lib_restart.c
671          various tty-manipulation calls
672
673   lib_tstp.c
674          signal-manipulation calls
675
676   lib_twait.c
677          gettimeofday(), select().
678     _________________________________________________________________
679
680
681    Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
682
683   (Note: This is not the bug address!)
684