On Thu, Dec 18, 2025 at 09:38:06AM -0600, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> At 2025-12-18T12:41:02+0100, Dirk Gouders wrote:
> > Thomas Dickey <[email protected]> writes:
> > > ncurses 6.5 does have a use for u6 and u7, but only in a special
> > > case where it matches common variants of that particular string:
> > >
> > > 20231001
> > >   + modify setupterm to provide for using ANSI cursor-position
> > >     report (in user6/user7 terminfo capabilities) to obtain
> > >     screensize if neither environment variables or ioctl is used.
> > >     The ncurses test-program with options "-E -T" demonstrates
> > >     this feature.
> > 
> > Thank you for that hint, in ncurses/tinfo/lib_setup.c I found some
> > code that I am now trying to understand and maybe I find other
> > locations (I didn't grep for "user6" before your answer, but only "u6"
> > and "%dR".).

References to the standard capability names in the source code usually use
the long name, because that happens to be defined in term.h for the terminal
definition which is currently loaded in memory.

man terminfo has this list:

       user0                      u0        u0  User string #0
       user1                      u1        u1  User string #1
       user2                      u2        u2  User string #2
       user3                      u3        u3  User string #3
       user4                      u4        u4  User string #4
       user5                      u5        u5  User string #5
       user6                      u6        u6  User string #6
       user7                      u7        u7  User string #7
       user8                      u8        u8  User string #8
       user9                      u9        u9  User string #9

I suppose Raymond or Weaver chose user6-user9 to be less intrusive,
leaving user0-user5 for actual user-defined stuff.

> > The above text says "The ncurses test-program".  Which program is
> > meant by this?
> 
> I suspect he means the program named "ncurses" that appears in the
> "test" directory of an ncurses build.

right.
That's how it's been referred to for about 30 years.

961019  - snapshot
        + correct loop-limit in wnoutrefresh(), bug exposed during pipe-testing
          had '.lastchar' entry one beyond '._maxx'.
        + modify ncurses test-program to work with data piped to it.

But (looking at the NEWS file) I more often just say "test/ncurses".
 
> For example, here's my build tree.
> 
> $ ls -l test/ncurses*
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 branden branden 230048 Nov 30 00:23 test/ncurses
> -rw-r--r-- 1 branden branden 187048 Nov 10 09:11 test/ncurses.c
> -rw-r--r-- 1 branden branden   3029 Aug  9  2024 test/ncurses_tst.hin
> 
> Regards,
> Branden



-- 
Thomas E. Dickey <[email protected]>
https://invisible-island.net

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