A thin, low-level ncurses wrapper for Rust, providing direct bindings to the C library for terminal UI development.
ncurses-rs is a low-level Rust wrapper for the ncurses C library, allowing developers to create terminal-based user interfaces (TUIs) by providing direct bindings to ncurses functions. It solves the problem of accessing ncurses functionality from Rust without high-level abstractions, though it is now archived and not recommended for new projects due to safety concerns.
Rust developers who need fine-grained control over terminal interactions and are comfortable with unsafe, low-level C bindings, typically for building or porting existing ncurses applications.
Developers chose ncurses-rs for its minimal overhead and direct mapping to ncurses, offering precise control in the early days of Rust. However, its lack of safety and Rustic design led to its deprecation in favor of safer alternatives.
A low-level ncurses wrapper for Rust
Open-Awesome is built by the community, for the community. Submit a project, suggest an awesome list, or help improve the catalog on GitHub.
Provides nearly one-to-one mappings to C functions, enabling precise control over terminal interactions, as described in the minimal wrapper design for low-level access.
Includes multiple examples from hello world to complex pagers and menus (e.g., ex_3.rs and ex_5.rs), offering practical guidance for various use cases.
Offers specific examples like ex_7.rs for handling Unicode characters, demonstrating functionality for modern text rendering in terminal apps.
Supports environment variables like NCURSES_RS_RUSTC_FLAGS for customization of linking and compilation flags, as documented in the README.
The project is explicitly archived with no future updates, making it risky for long-term use and lacking bug fixes or compatibility improvements.
Relies heavily on unsafe code without leveraging Rust's safety features, as admitted by the author in the README, leading to potential memory issues.
Requires manual installation and linking of ncurses, especially on macOS with Homebrew and environment variables, adding friction to development.
Lacks abstractions for common TUI elements, forcing developers to handle low-level details directly, which increases boilerplate and error-prone code.