[Patches] Re: [Patch #103139] Autconfigure curses and readline into the default build

[Eric S. Raymond]

noreply@sourceforge.net <noreply@sourceforge.net>:
> Date: 2001-Jan-08 18:17
> By: gvanrossum
> 
> Eric, there seems to be a discrepancy in the patch: the configure script
> tests for ncurses but the Setup.config.in file links with -lcurses.  What
> gives?

This gives:

rwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           17 Dec 24 16:13 /usr/lib/libcurses.so -> libncurses.so.5.2
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       405020 Nov 17 13:05 /usr/lib/libncurses.a
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           15 Dec 24 16:13 /usr/lib/libncurses.so -> libncurses.so.5
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           17 Dec 24 16:13 /usr/lib/libncurses.so.4 -> libncurses.so.4.0
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       260664 Jul 12  2000 /usr/lib/libncurses.so.4.0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           17 Dec 24 16:05 /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5 -> libncurses.so.5.2
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       257300 Nov 17 13:05 /usr/lib/libncurse

The clever people who build the ncurses 5.2 spec file arranged for the curses
library to be symlinked to the ncurses library.  This is a new feature of
RH 7.0., it definitely wasdn't that way in 6.2.  On the whole it's a good idea,
but it had the effect of making my "-lcurses" typo in Setup.config.in into a
no-op. :-).  That should read "-lncurses", and I apologize for not catching
it before I shipped.

> Date: 2001-Jan-07 21:43
> By: nascheme
> 
> Comment:
> On Linux I think you should link to ncurses instead of
> curses and leave termcap out.  Debian doesn't have termcap
> development libraries.  Also, this patch only works on
> Linux.  I think Andrew's distutil approach is a much better
> long term solution.

Maybe it is.  Let's put this in until the long term gets here.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the
pursuit of justice is no virtue."
	-- Barry Goldwater (actually written by Karl Hess)