term.h present but cannot be compiled

[nhawthorn]

BPO	816929
Nosy	@loewis, @amauryfa
Superseder	bpo-933795: configure not able to find ncurses/curses in Solaris

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2009-01-06.21:25:54.768>
created_at = <Date 2003-10-03.03:09:28.000>
labels = ['build']
title = 'term.h present but cannot be compiled'
updated_at = <Date 2009-01-06.21:25:54.755>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/nhawthorn'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2009-01-06.21:25:54.755>
actor = 'amaury.forgeotdarc'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2009-01-06.21:25:54.768>
closer = 'amaury.forgeotdarc'
components = ['Build']
creation = <Date 2003-10-03.03:09:28.000>
creator = 'nhawthorn'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 816929
keywords = []
message_count = 4.0
messages = ['60409', '60410', '60411', '79287']
nosy_count = 3.0
nosy_names = ['loewis', 'amaury.forgeotdarc', 'nhawthorn']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'out of date'
stage = None
status = 'closed'
superseder = '933795'
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue816929'
versions = ['Python 2.3']

[nhawthorn]

This report relates to building Python 2.3.1 on Irix 6.5.

Here is stderr output from: configure --with-cxx=CC
configure: WARNING: term.h: present but cannot be compiled
configure: WARNING: term.h: check for missing
prerequisite headers?
configure: WARNING: term.h: proceeding with the
preprocessor's result
configure: WARNING: ##
------------------------------------ ##
configure: WARNING: ## Report this to
bug-autoconf@gnu.org. ##
configure: WARNING: ##
------------------------------------ ##

I did submit a bug report -- they said the issue is known.
"make" after this gave the following error, among others:-
cc-1059 cc: ERROR File =
/xlv4/med_psyc/nhn/py231/Python-2.3.1/Modules/termios.c
, Line = 633
A function call is not allowed in a constant expression.

    {"CWERASE", CWERASE},

By experiment on a very short C program, term.h needs
curses.h to be included before it, and will not compile
correctly otherwise. This would give a number of errors.

Thanks and best wishes!

[loewis]

Logged In: YES
user_id=21627

Even though I cannot fully understand your remarks, it
appears that you are suggesting a solution. Can you perhaps
produce a patch that fixes the problem?

I am still uncertain what the bug in Python here is. In line
633, there is no function call, as far as I can see
(although CWERASE might expand to a function call); so it
seems more likely that this is a bug in CC or in the system
header files, not in Python.

As a work-around, just try compiling --without-cxx.

[nhawthorn]

Logged In: YES
user_id=879291

I can't properly understand the error or suggest a
patch, after trying for quite a long time. Compiling
--without-cxx did not help. I did find out that
CWERASE is meant to expand to CTRL('w') which is meant
to expand to (('w')&037). There are #defines to do
this in /usr/include/sys/termios.h, and for things
like CWERASE, but they are controlled by #if
statements. I agree that there could be problems with
SGI system header files, but it would be nice if
Python allowed for these.

[amauryfa]

This was corrected a long time ago in r37372