Curses for 10.0

Curses-Color product.
There is a new product called Curses-Color. Refer to “Curses-Color ” for details on the functionality of, and porting to, the color curses library.
Curses library.
The HP-proprietary curses library (-lcurses, -ltermcap, and -ltermlib), now called the V.4 Curses Library, will not be supported in future HP-UX releases. This library will be replaced by a COSE-compliant library to support maximum portability of applications. To prepare for this change, you should develop all new curses applications with the currently available color curses library -lcur_colr, and port all existing curses applications to the new color curses library.
If you absolutely cannot move forward to the color curses library, and need to be able to relink your application, use the -lHcurses library or use the -L/usr/old/usr/lib option. Linking against this library or directory ensures binding with the HP-proprietary library. Additionally, if you need to recompile, then use -I/usr/old/usr/include (the curses header files under /usr/include will be replaced with the COSE-compliant header files).

Files moved to conform to the 10.0 file system layout.

Description  Old Location        New Location
===========================================================
Library      /lib/libcurses.sl   /usr/lib/libcurses.sl
File         /etc/termcap        /usr/share/lib/termcap
Database     /usr/lib/terminfo   /usr/share/lib/terminfo

(The termcap file is delivered in /usr/newconfig/usr/share/lib/termcap; the curses installation script moves it to /usr/share/lib/termcap.)

Four routines added to conform to XPG3.

def_shell_mode
def_prog_mode
reset_shell_mode
reset_prog_mode

New fileset for terminfo files.

Terminal Type     Old Fileset    New Fileset
============================================
VT 100            NONHPTERM      UX-CORE
Wyse 60           NONHPTERM      UX-CORE
Xterm             NONHPTERM      UX-CORE

Minicurses is no longer supported.
HP-15 and EUC multibyte are not supported.
In previous releases of HP-UX, when nonl() is called within an application, newline is translated into a return and line feed on output. With 10.01, nonl() works correctly, and newline is translated into a line feed on output. The fix has been made to the HP V.4 Curses Library, but the bug exists in 10.0 and in USL curses. Therefore, having the fix will break all applications that depend on nonl() not working. Applications that depended on the earlier nonl() functionality should no longer reference it.

Curses-Color

Curses-Color is a COSE-compliant color-management package. A later release will provide the next step in COSE compliance, support for multibyte Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs).

In addition to color, Curses-Color provides some 260 APIs, rather than the 135 offered by HP-UX Curses.

Curses-Color affects curses routines that:

Add character strings to a curses window.
Manipulate the curses window background.
Create curses borders.
Provide access to various low-level curses functions.
Provide interfaces to the terminfo database.
Create curses windows.
Control refresh.
Read or write a curses screen from or to a file.
Handle soft labels.

The product consists of two filesets, CURSES-MIN and CURSES-PRG.

CURSES-MIN:
Contains the shared library and related commands and a minimal set of terminfo files.
You must load CURSES-MIN in order to use Curses-Color.
CURSES-PRG:
Contains the archived library and the header files curses.h and term.h.
You need to load CURSES-PRG only if you are going to compile and link programs using Curses-Color.

Compile instructions:
Your makefile must supply the include path and library path as follows:
-I /usr/include/curses_colr -l cur_colr
Commands:
The Curses-Color commands are: tic_colr, infocmp_colr, captoinfo_colr, and tput_colr.
terminfo path:
The terminfo database is /usr/share/lib/terminfo_colr.
If Curses-Color does not find terminfo file there, it looks in /usr/share/lib/terminfo.

Effect on Applications

Existing applications are not affected.
They will continue to run as they did until you decide to incorporate Curses-Color. Do not move or remove the HP-UX curses library, /usr/lib/libcurses.sl.
If you modify an application to use the Curses-Color library, you may need to change some calls to curses APIs.
About 2% of the current HP-UX APIs have a different interface from the corresponding Curses-Color API.

Curses Documentation

In addition to the manpages for the HP V.4 Curses Library, the following documentation is available. Prentice Hall Publisher's toll-free phone number is 1-800-947-7700.

UNIX Curses Explained Author: Berny Goodheart Publisher: Prentice Hall ISBN# 0-13-931957-3
This manual is highly recommended for application developers who are new to Curses programming.
UNIX System V Release 4 Programmer's Reference Manual Author: AT&T UNIX System Laboratories Publisher: Prentice Hall ISBN# 0-13-947029-8
UNIX System V Release 4 System Administrator's Reference Manual Author: AT&T UNIX System Laboratories Publisher: Prentice Hall ISBN# 0-13-947011-5
UNIX System V Release 4 System Files and Devices Reference Manual Author: AT&T UNIX System Laboratories Publisher: Prentice Hall ISBN# 0-13-951302-7
Terminal Control: User's Guide HP 9000 Computers HP Part No. B1862-90013
This is the HP Curses 9.0 Manual which is provided with the 9.0 documentation set for basic information on Curses.

Curses for 10.0

Technical documentation

» Table of Contents

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Curses-Color

Effect on Applications

Curses Documentation