curses & ultrix

[Guy Harris]

(This was sent to INFO-UNIX and INFO-C, and thus appeared both in "net.unix"
and "net.lang.c".  Since "curses" is a UNIX facility, rather than a standard
C library, further discussion should continue only in "net.unix" and
INFO-UNIX.)

> We are running Ultrix 1.2 on a VAX 8600.  I am trying to compile a
> a set of programs using curses.  Unfortunately Ultrix's curses
> doesn't conform with SYSV or 4.2 BSD.
>
> (long list of alleged changes from System V "curses", which sound
> more like the "curses" in question is the 4.2BSD "curses")

Are you sure that it doesn't conform with 4.2BSD?  Did they claim that
it conformed with the System V "curses"?  If so, did they actually supply
*two* versions of "curses"; one compatible with System V and one compatible
with 4.2BSD?  The 4.2BSD "curses" does NOT support arbitrary per-character
attributes.  As such, naturally the defines of BOLD, DIM, etc., the
macros "attron" and "attroff", and the functions "wattron" and "wattoff"
that they call would be missing.  Furthermore, there IS no element of a
WINDOW structure called "_attrs"; there IS one called "_flags" (I presume
that's what you meant when you referred to "win_attrs" and "win_flags").
If "_flags" is a short, the chances are overwhelming that the version of
"curses" you're using is a 4.2BSD version, rather than a System V version.
If so, you're SOL; you will never get the extra attributes stuff to work.
-- 
	Guy Harris
	{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy
	guy at sun.com (or guy at sun.arpa)