Re: nvi with split system ncurses

[adr%SDF.ORG@localhost]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 09:45:37PM +0200, Leonardo Taccari wrote:
> adr writes:
> > Hello,
> >
> 
> Hello adr,
> 
> > Nvi needs to check if system curses is a split ncurses.
> > [...]
> 
> If I'm reading the code correctly I think that cl.h is included
> unconditionally and that always needs a curses implementation.
> 
> If that's the case the real root issue was that curses bl3 was not
> included in editors/nvi.  nvi on pkgsrc-current should be no longer
> problematic in that regard.
> 
> If that's not the case, can you please elaborate further?
> 
> 
> Thanks!

Ncurses has an option to split the library in two shared object
files: ncurses(w) and tinfo(w), so monstruosities like emacs can
be linked only with tinfo, for example. Some linux distributions
have their system's ncurses split like gentoo, and I think slackware
too. Other systems have whole ncurses, but they include a link or
a linker script named tinfo(w) for compatibility. Note that at any
time a distribution could decide to change between split|whole
ncurses. Packages (except some older ones) take this into account,
testing if the system has ncurses, and if they need tinfo or tinfow.

I found that someone added it to nvi using pkg-config, maybe you
prefer this that my diff:

https://repo.or.cz/nvi.git/patch/1a008e1a2b771b1decc82db2f641e821096ba0b8

But I don't know how stable is the code at that point. The last commit by
Sven Verdoolaege is 3 years older than that.

Pkgsrc ignore this "to be split or not to be split" question and some packages
end up with a wrong configuration.

Some distributions (like gentoo by an iproute2 dependency) use
libbsd, and you will have extra problems using linux with pkgsrc.
Note that some packages expect libbsd availabe in a linux distribution.
Some functions or macros will not be availabe using nbcompat. If
I remember correctly, bitstring.h is an example.

Note that nvi includes a copy of this macros, so you will not have a problem.

I'm not using pkgsrc anymore, and I'm not subscribed to this mailing list,
so please, do not CC me in the future.

Good luck,
adr.