dialog @1.3: configure: error: No curses header-files found

[pejaham]

I get an error installing dialog 1.3 under macOS 11.0.1 using Xcode 12.2. associated with ncurses. Other utilities using ncurses like tmux work fine.

Is this a known problem?

Thanks and regards Peter

:info:configure checking pkg-config for ncursesw... yes
:info:configure checking if the ncursesw package files work... no
:info:configure Looking for ncursesw-config
:info:configure checking for ncursesw-config... no
:info:configure checking for ncursesw6-config... ncursesw6-config
:info:configure checking if we have identified curses headers... none
:info:configure configure: error: No curses header-files found
:info:configure Command failed:  cd "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_macports_release_tarballs_ports_devel_dialog/dialog/work/dialog-1.3-20180621" && ./configure --prefix=/opt/local --mandir=/opt/local/share/man --with-ncursesw 
:info:configure Exit code: 1
:error:configure Failed to configure dialog, consult /opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_macports_release_tarballs_ports_devel_dialog/dialog/work/dialog-1.3-20180621/config.log
:error:configure Failed to configure dialog: configure failure: command execution failed
:debug:configure Error code: NONE

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Thanks for reporting.

I can verify the problem. The configure script doesn't include the headers it needs, so the tests fail with error like:

configure:13188:1: error: implicit declaration of function 'putwc' is invalid in C99 [-Werror,-Wimplicit-function-declaration]

This is common problem affecting many older software packages, when using Xcode 12 or later, which is required for Big Sur.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

I tried updating to the latest version 1.3-20200327 and it still has this problem, so I'll try to fix it.

[sectroyer]

Yesterday I updated to Big Sur and noticed dialog doesn't compile. Since 7 weeks have passed from last comment I have decided to take a look. After poking around I noticed in order to compile dialog I had to put "stub" ncurses.h in dialog directory with one like contents:

#include <term_entry.h>

after that it took only:

CFLAGS="-I. -I/opt/local/include/" ./configure  --includedir /opt/local/include/

After that everything compiled correctly :D

[iay (Ian Young)]

Although it shows up as the configure step failing to detect a curses header file such as <ncurses.h> (which does in fact exist in the right place if the dependency has been installed), the actual problem here is that configure detects header files by attempting to compile sample programs, and those are failing to compile: configure just sees the failure and misattributes it.

It looks like in many cases this is because the test program that configure is using to detect the appropriate header file references a function(e.g., tgoto) that is not defined there but in a different header, thus hitting the implicit declaration of function 'tgoto' is invalid in C99 error.

The definitions for the code that generates those test programs seems to live in aclocal.m4 but my understanding of the whole C configuration stack is way too thin to have much chance of making progress beyond that.

Having said which, I did find ​https://dickey.his.com/autoconf/my-autoconf/CHANGES.html#t20210103 which seems to address exactly this thing:

• AcSplit/CF_NCURSES_CONFIG, AcSplit/CF_NCURSES_LIBS:

change compile-check from tgoto to tigetstr, because tgoto is not prototyped in ncurses' curses.h while tigetstr is prototyped. Lacking the prototype can cause the configure check to fail with a recent clang configuration on macOS, which turn on -Werror=implicit-function-declaration by default (report by Dennis Preiser)

That's dated 2021-01-03 (just a few days ago) so something may be happening upstream. I'm not sure where, though.

[cooljeanius (Eric Gallager)]

This blocks installation of bashish for me.

[iay (Ian Young)]

Current MacPorts version for dialog is 1.3-20180621. Latest version on the author's site is 1.3-20210117 which I would expect to contain the fix mentioned above. I may try to take a look at getting this working, as there does not appear to be a maintainer for this port.

[iay (Ian Young)]

Seems to just work. I will make a PR.

[iay (Ian Young)]

PR is ​https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/10109

Tests pass.

[iay (Ian Young)]

In 8c44850a1852cc59b97929c31092fb049951a886/macports-ports (master):

dialog: update to 1.3-20210117

• Allows the port to compile under Big Sur.
• Add build dependency on the pkgconfig port.
• Configure running of tests.

Closes #61498.

[iay (Ian Young)]

Both signing-party and bashish now install under Big Sur.