_cursesmodule compile error in OS X 32-bit-only installer build

[ned-deily]

BPO	14225
Nosy	@birkenfeld, @vstinner, @ned-deily

^{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 = 'https://github.com/ned-deily'
closed_at = <Date 2012-06-21.07:06:31.693>
created_at = <Date 2012-03-07.22:59:45.385>
labels = ['OS-mac', 'build', 'release-blocker']
title = '_cursesmodule compile error in OS X 32-bit-only installer build'
updated_at = <Date 2012-08-06.13:53:18.452>
user = 'https://github.com/ned-deily'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2012-08-06.13:53:18.452>
actor = 'ned.deily'
assignee = 'ned.deily'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2012-06-21.07:06:31.693>
closer = 'ned.deily'
components = ['Build', 'macOS']
creation = <Date 2012-03-07.22:59:45.385>
creator = 'ned.deily'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 14225
keywords = []
message_count = 9.0
messages = ['155130', '163206', '163220', '163261', '163305', '163307', '163313', '163323', '167565']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['georg.brandl', 'vstinner', 'ned.deily', 'python-dev']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'release blocker'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'compile error'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue14225'
versions = ['Python 3.3']

[ned-deily]

./Modules/_cursesmodule.c:279: error: syntax error before 'cchar_t'
/Users/sysadmin/build/v3.3.0a1/Modules/_cursesmodule.c: In function 'PyCurses_ConvertToCchar_t':
./Modules/_cursesmodule.c:289: error: 'obj' undeclared (first use in this function)/Users/sysadmin/build/v3.3.0a1/Modules/_cursesmodule.c:279: error: syntax error before 'cchar_t'

Note to self, this installer build builds its own version of ncurses. It may need adjusting for 3.3.

[birkenfeld]

Is this issue still valid?

[ned-deily]

It was still valid as of 3.3.0a4.

[birkenfeld]

And will you fix it for beta1, or do you think it can be done later?

BTW, what is the syntax error here? I don't really see it...

[python-dev]

New changeset 2035c5ad4239 by Ned Deily in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-14225: Fix Unicode support for curses (bpo-12567) on OS X:
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/2035c5ad4239

[ned-deily]

It turns out that the Unicode support for curses did not build correctly on OS X at all. There were two issues:

1. On OS X, unlike many systems, does not supply separate libncurses and libncursesw in /usr/lib; same for libpanel/libpanelw. So the tests in setup.py based on the presence of the "w" libs failed, thus disabling the wide-char support in the extension modules even though the OS X libs supported it. The tests in setup.py are now fixed to handle building on OS X with either the system libs or locally-supplied copies.

2. The 32-bit-only installer has historically built and supplied its own copy of libncursesw so that installer build did find a wide lib. However, the wide code support within ncurses is conditional depending on _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED which is specifically not defined for OS X (platform=='darwin') builds. That caused the compile errors (things like cchar_t from the ncurses include files were not getting defined). The solution for that is to supply _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED locally to the _curses* extension module builds.

[vstinner]

Cool, thanks for the fix!

[ned-deily]

P.S. All is not perfect. I initially missed re-running test_curses with the system ncurses library on OS X where ncurses is at 5.4 or with the 32-bit-installer which builds ncurses 5.5. When I did, test_curses failed as described in bpo-15037. test_curses passes when Python is built with a MacPorts ncurses 5.9. The best solution would be to update the installer builds to build and use the latest ncurses 5.9. That may have to wait until after 3.3.0b1.

[ned-deily]

P.P.S. I've updated the OS X installers as of 3.3.0b2 to build and link with a local copy of ncurses 5.9 rather than older Apple-supplied ones. test_curses now passes.