Perl FAQ 3.8

In release 4 of perl, the only way to do this was was to build a curseperl binary by linking in your C curses library as described in the usub subdirectory of the perl sources. This requires a modicum of work, but it will be reasonably fast since it's all in C (assuming you consider curses reasonably fast. :-) Programs written using this method require the modified curseperl, not vanilla perl, to run. While this is something of a disadvantage, experience indicates that it's better to use curseperl than to try to roll your own using termcap directly.

Fortunately, in version 5, Curses is a dynamically loaded extension by William Setzer*. You should be able to pick it up wherever you get Perl 5 from, or at least these places (expect that the version may change by the time you read this):

• ftp://ftp.ncsu.edu/pub/math/wsetzer/cursperl5a6.tar.gz
• ftp://ftp.metronet.com/pub/perlinfo/perl5/cursperl5a6.tar.gz
• ftp://ftp.cs.ruu.nl/pub/PERL/perl5.0/cursperl5a6.tar.gz

For a good example of using curses with Perl, you might want to pick up a copy of Steven L Kunz's* ``perl menus'' package (``menu.pl'') via anonymous FTP from ``ftp.iastate.edu''. It's in the directory /pub/perl as:

menu.pl.v3.1.tar.Z

menu.pl is a complete menu front-end for perl+curses and demonstrates a lot of things (plus it is useful to boot if you want full-screen menu selection ability). It provides full-screen menu selection ability for three menu styles (single-selection, multiple-selection, and ``radio-button''). The ``perl menus'' package also includes routines for full-screen data entry. A ``template'' concept is implemented to create a simple (yet flexible) perl interface for building data-entry screens for registration, database, or other record-oriented tasks.

menu.pl is supported on Perl4/curseperl and Perl5/Curses. Complete user documentation is provided along with several demos and ``beginner applications''. A menu utility module is provided that is a collection of useful Perl curses routines (such as "pop-up query boxes) that may be called from your applications.

Another possibility is to use Henk Penning's cterm package, a curses emulation library written in perl. cterm is actually a separate program with which you communicate via a pipe. It is available from ftp.cs.ruu.nl [131.211.80.17] via anonymous ftp. in the directory pub/PERL. You may also acquire the package via email in compressed, uuencoded form by sending a message to mail-server@cs.ruu.nl containing these lines:

    begin
    send PERL/cterm.shar.Z
    end

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