ncurses: Classic terminal output library

Description

Ncurses (new curses, pronounced “enn-curses”) started as a freely distributable “clone” of System V Release 4.0 (SVr4) curses. It has outgrown the “clone” description, and now contains many features which are not in SVr4 curses. Curses is a pun on the term “cursor optimization”. It is a library of functions that manage an application’s display on character-cell terminals (e.g., VT100).

The name “ncurses” was first used as the name of the curses library in Pavel Curtis’s pcurses, dated 1982. It was apparently developed on a BSD 4.4 system, at Cornell. Parts of pcurses are readily identifiable in ncurses, including the basics for the terminfo compiler (named compile in that package):

  • the Caps, used to define the terminfo capabilities

  • awk scripts MKcaptab.awk, MKnames.awk

  • the library modules used for the terminfo compiler.

Besides ncurses, parts of pcurses still survive in 2010, in recognizable form in Solaris.

Website: http://invisible-island.net/ncurses

License

  • MIT-style

Upstream Contact

Dependencies

None

Special Update/Build Instructions

None

Type

standard

Version Information

package-version.txt:

6.0.p0

Equivalent System Packages

conda:

$ conda install ncurses-devel

cygwin:

$ apt-cyg install ncurses-devel

Debian/Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install  ncurses-devel

Fedora/Redhat/CentOS:

$ sudo yum install  ncurses-devel

freebsd:

$ sudo pkg install ncurses-devel

homebrew:

$ brew install ncurses-devel

macports: install the following packages: ncurses-devel opensuse:

$ sudo zypper install ncurses-devel

slackware:

$ sudo slackpkg install ncurses-devel

void:

$ sudo xbps-install  ncurses-devel

See https://repology.org/project/ncurses-devel/versions

If the system package is installed, ./configure will check whether it can be used.