[cmake-developers] Handling the NCurses fragmentation [yet another topic on this issue]

[Brad King]

On 05/13/2013 05:15 PM, Kamil Rytarowski wrote:
> There is an old known problem with the NCurses library: missing links 
> against ncursesw, and additionally ncursest with ncurseswt [1].
> 
> There is a bug report [2] marked as a backlog

I've cross-linked that issue back to this thread:

 http://www.cmake.org/Bug/view.php?id=10347#c33044

> 3. If we add the support of ncursesw then we ran into troubles: what's 
> up with the ncursest and ncurseswt flavours? Then we will produce all 
> possible variations of include files:
[snip]
> and then manage relations, libraries, paths.. and so on... cost and trouble.

For reference, we started proliferation of combinations here:

 http://cmake.org/gitweb?p=cmake.git;a=commitdiff;h=c41f7983

Do these environments actually expect projects to use

 #include <ncurses/ncurses.h>

or instead use -I/usr/include/ncurses and

 #include <ncurses.h>

?  The answer may depend on how the headers include each other.

> I am encouraging to close the bug [3] as "wont-fix", encourage everybody 
> and every system to maintain the compatibility on its own.

If we can determine a recommended way to deal with this then we should
teach FindCurses.cmake to help.  I think the issue can remain open
until someone proposes a solution.

Thanks,
-Brad