From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Dan Nicolaescu Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Cannot open termcap database Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2009 20:53:58 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <200912040453.nB44rwPp002343@godzilla.ics.uci.edu> References: <7dbe73ed0912031141h781e61d1l18776fb696cc4916@mail.gmail.com> <200912032120.nB3LK3MN028567@godzilla.ics.uci.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1259902557 28267 80.91.229.12 (4 Dec 2009 04:55:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2009 04:55:57 +0000 (UTC) Cc: A Soare , Mathias Dahl , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Dec 04 05:55:50 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1NGQCr-00048v-BD for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 04 Dec 2009 05:55:49 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:54781 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NGQCr-0005fx-1d for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:55:49 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NGQCi-0005d0-Nv for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:55:40 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NGQCe-0005Xn-Q6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:55:40 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=54833 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NGQCe-0005XX-LP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:55:36 -0500 Original-Received: from paul-mcgann-v0.ics.uci.edu ([128.195.1.147]:35851) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NGQCe-0006Ij-7I for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:55:36 -0500 Original-Received: from godzilla.ics.uci.edu (godzilla.ics.uci.edu [128.195.10.101]) by paul-mcgann-v0.ics.uci.edu (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id nB44rxxZ013557 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 3 Dec 2009 20:53:59 -0800 Original-Received: (from dann@localhost) by godzilla.ics.uci.edu (8.13.8+Sun/8.13.6/Submit) id nB44rwPp002343; Thu, 3 Dec 2009 20:53:58 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: (Stefan Monnier's message of "Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:47:46 -0500") Original-Lines: 27 X-ICS-MailScanner-Information: Please send mail to helpdesk@ics.uci.edu or more information X-ICS-MailScanner-ID: nB44rxxZ013557 X-ICS-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-ICS-MailScanner-SpamCheck: not spam, SpamAssassin (not cached, score=-1.44, required 5, autolearn=disabled, ALL_TRUSTED -1.44) X-ICS-MailScanner-From: dann@godzilla.ics.uci.edu X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:118233 Archived-At: Stefan Monnier writes: > >> > I tried to compile emacs for console, and I got the error > >> > Cannot open termcap database > >> > I solved the problem by installing ncurses-dev. > >> > One can introduce a check in ./configure.ac for the existence of terminfo data > >> > base when compiling for console and giving a suggestive error message? > >> I get bitten by this each time I compile and install Emacs on a new > >> Ubuntu GNU/Linux machine. Each time I have to surf around to > >> understand what to do about it. If it is possible for "us" to fix it > >> it would be nice. > > configure could try to detect either the termcap or terminfo headers and > > if none are present should error out. All the systems we support > > nowadays that use ttys have either termcap or terminfo, so we don't lose > > anything. > > I think the problem isn't so much the C headers, as the database. > For some reason, some distribution seem to have a tendency to install > some packages that provide the termcap header files without having the > termcap database installed, so compilation works fine, but it fails at > run-time. The problem is different. If both termcap and terminfo headers are missing emacs uses src/termcap.c files. But at run time it tries to look for /etc/termcap which modern distributions do not install (they install the terminfo database).