[Mac OSX] Import curses error, [MacPython] simple question

Jonathan Hogg jonathan at onegoodidea.com
Mon Jan 28 10:34:57 EST 2002


On 28/1/2002 14:47, in article uy9ii34yi.fsf at python.net, "Michael Hudson"
<mwh at python.net> wrote:

> MacOS X (apparently, I have no first hand knowledge of this) comes
> with an unbelievably ancient version of the curses library.  To get
> curses running on MacOS X you first need to install a recent version
> of (n)curses, and then build Python from source.

Hmmm. Slightly unfair. Mac OS X, as a BSD system, comes with the BSD curses
library. The Python 'Modules/Setup' file stipulates:

  # Curses support, requ[i]ring the System V version of curses, often
  # provided by the ncurses library.

Mac OS X Unfortunately doesn't come with any SysV emulation stuff.

The answer remains the same though: obtain a copy of ncurses then get the
source version of Python and compile it. You have to recompile Python as it
doesn't include the curses support (the '_curses' module) unless it can find
ncurses. Clearly the Apple pre-compiled version doesn't have this.

Jonathan





More information about the Python-list mailing list