Documentation for this library can be found in the included man pages, and in the Xlib spec from the specs subdirectory, also available at:
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https://www.x.org/releases/current/doc/libX11/libX11/libX11.html
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https://www.x.org/releases/current/doc/libX11/libX11/libX11.pdf
and the O'Reilly Xlib books, which they have made freely available online, though only for older versions of X11:
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X Series Volume 2: Xlib Reference Manual (1989, covers X11R3) https://www.archive.org/details/xlibretmanver1102nyemiss
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X Series Volume 2: Xlib Reference Manual, 2nd Edition (1990, covers X11R4) https://www.archive.org/details/xlibrefmanv115ed02nyemiss
All questions regarding this software should be directed at the Xorg mailing list:
https://lists.x.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg
The primary development code repository can be found at:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libX11
Please submit bug reports and requests to merge patches there.
For patch submission instructions, see:
https://www.x.org/wiki/Development/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
- Re-fix XIM input sometimes jumbled (#205, #206, #207, #208, !246)
- Fix various static analysis errors (!250)
- Add compose sequences for Arabic hamza (!218), Ezh (!221), and hryvnia currency (!259)
- Make colormap private interfaces thread safe (#215, !254)
- Fix deadlock in XRebindKeysym() (!256)
- Assorted memory handling cleanups (!251, !258)
- Restore VAX support still in use by NetBSD (!257)
- Fix regressions introduced in 1.8.8 (!245, !248) - this includes reverting for now the previous "Fix XIM input sometimes jumbled (#198, !236)"
- Fix XIM input sometimes jumbled (#198, !236)
- Fix _XkbReadGetDeviceInfoReply for nButtons == dev->buttons (!237)
- Drop ifdefs for platforms that are no longer supported (!242, !243)
- Assorted memory handling cleanups
- Security fixes and hardening in XImage and pixmap handling code (CVE-2023-43786, CVE-2023-43787, !234)
- Fix buffer allocation in _XkbReadKeySyms() (CVE-2023-43785)
- Fail XOpenDisplay() if server-provided default visual is invalid (!233)
- Bring XKB docs in line with actual implementation (!231, !228)
- Xutil.h: declare XEmptyRegion() and XEqualRegion() as Bool (!225)
- Assorted updates to en_US.UTF-8 compose keys (!213, !214, !215, !216, !217, !219, !220, !222, !223, !226, !227, !229)
- Add bounds checks in InitExt.c (CVE-2023-3138)
- autoconf & libtool updates (!187, !188)
- Restore missing text in XSetScreenSaver man page (#187, !203)
- Update am_ET.UTF-8 compose keys to use dead-vowel symbols, in coordination with xkeyboard-config 2.39 (!205)
- Assorted updates to en_US.UTF-8 compose keys (!189, !195, !196, !198, !199, !200, !201, !207, !208, !209)
- Revert AddressSanitizer fix from 1.8.3 that caused regression (#176, !180)
- Add two compose sequences for "capital B with stroke", remove others (!179)
- Further improved handling of reentering libX11 via X*IfEvent() calls (!176)
- Improved handling of reentering libX11 via X*IfEvent() calls (!171, !173)
- Fix loading of en_US.UTF-8/XLC_LOCALE (#167, !174)
- Add XFreeThreads() and automatic call from a destructor function when thread-safety-constructor is enabled (!167).
- Address issues found by UBSan and AddressSanitizer
- Fix build with older gcc versions (!169)
- Allow X*IfEvent() to reenter libX11 to avoid deadlock from unsafe calls when thread-safety-constructor is enabled (!150).
- Remove Xlib's pthread function stubs - instead use system provided threads functions, including linking against any needed pthread libraries if thread-safety-constructor is enabled (!155, !156).
- Fix off-by-one error in XKeycodeToKeysym for indexes > 3 (!78).
- Allow XNSpotLocation with OnTheSpot (!127).
- Fix Win32 build when -fno-common is in effect (!140).
- Fix memory leak in XRegisterIMInstantiateCallback (!158).
- Add compose sequences for the double-struck capitals ℕ ℤ ℚ ℝ ℂ (!144), the Samogitian E with dot above and macron (!147), Unicode minus sign (!163).
- Change <^> <-> to mean superscript minus instead of macron (!162).
- Delete compose sequences that mix top-row digits with numpad digits (!139) or mix upper & lower case letters (!144).
- Delete some unuseful compose sequences meant for Bépo layout (!146).
- Delete compose sequences using leftcaret & rightcaret keysyms (!163).
- Remove KOI8-R character set from en_US.UTF-8/XLC_LOCALE (!148).
- Map sr locales to sr_RS compose files (!161).
- Fix --enable-thread-safety-constructor configure option
- Add --enable-thread-safety-constructor configure option (default: enabled) to call XInitThreads() from the library's constructor, thus enabling thread-safety and locking by default. This may expose bugs in clients which did not follow documented rules for calling libX11 functions.
- Fix Ethopian (am_ET.UTF-8) compose sequences.
- Remove 8 compose sequences that generated the input symbols.
- Add compose seuences for abovedot (<period> <space>), diaeresis (<quotedbl> <space>), and ogonek (<semicolon> <space>).
- Avoids a segfault when an invalid name is used for opening a display.
- Fixes the "Unknown sequence number" error by allowing backward jumps in the sequence number when widening it.
- Any changes to virtual modifiers get propagated properly.
- Greek case-conversion tables were updated to Unicode Data 14.0.
- Compose sequences for ☮ 🄯 ⇐ ⇑ ⇓ were added, being the following: OY, ()), =<, =^, and =v.
- Hammer-and-sickle can be composed with question mark plus backslash.
- Fixes a hanging issue in _XReply() where the replying thread would wait for an event when another thread was already waiting for one.
- Avoids a crash when the X connection gets broken while closing down.
This is a bug fix release, correcting a regression introduced by and improving the checks from the fix for CVE-2021-31535.
This is a bug fix release, including a security fix for CVE-2021-31535, nls and documentation corrections.
- Reject string longer than USHRT_MAX before sending them on the wire
- Fix out-of-bound access in KeySymToUcs4()
- nls: allow composing all breved letters also with a lowercase "u"
- nls: add 'C.utf8' as an alias for 'en_US.UTF-8'
- Nroff code fixes
- Comments fixes
Version 1.7.0 includes a new API, hence the change from the 1.6 series to 1.7:
- XSetIOErrorExitHandler which provides a mechanism for applications to recover from I/O error conditions instead of being forced to exit. Thanks to Carlos Garnacho for this.
This release includes a bunch of bug fixes, some of which have been pending for over three years:
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A bunch of nls cleanups to remove obsolete entries and clean up formatting of the list. Thanks to Benno Schulenberg for these.
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Warning fixes and other cleanups across a huge swath of the library. Thanks to Alan Coopersmith for these.
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Memory allocation bugs, including leaks and use after free in the locale code. Thanks to Krzesimir Nowak, Jacek Caban and Vittorio Zecca for these.
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Thread safety fixes in the locale code. Thanks to Jacek Caban for these.
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poll_for_response race condition fix. Thanks to Frediano Ziglio for the bulk of this effort, and to Peter Hutterer for careful review and improvements.
Version 1.7.0 includes a couple of new locales:
- ia and ie locales. Thanks to Carmina16 for these.
There are also numerous compose entries added, including:
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|^ or ^| for ↑, |v or v| for ↓, ~~ for ≈. Thanks to Antti Savolainen for this.
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Allowing use of 'v' for caron, in addition to 'c', so things like vC for Č, vc for č. Thanks to Benno Schulenberg for this.
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Compose sequences LT, lt for '<', and GT, gt for '>' for keyboards where those are difficult to access. Thanks to Jonathan Belsewir for this.