[GRASS-user] readline issues

[Brad Douglas]

It's missing ncurses.  See my previous email.  That will fix it for
Fedora.

On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 17:36 -0600, Gerald Nelson wrote:
> Sounds like it is not worth the trouble to figure out. In case its useful, here's what appears to be the relevant part of config.log.
> 
> configure:7220: checking for location of Readline library
> configure:7245: checking for readline in -lreadline
> configure:7262: gcc -o conftest -g -O2     -Wl,--export-dynamic conftest.c -lreadline   1>&5
> /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so: undefined reference to `tgetnum'
> /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so: undefined reference to `tgoto'
> /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so: undefined reference to `tgetflag'
> /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so: undefined reference to `BC'
> /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so: undefined reference to `tputs'
> /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so: undefined reference to `PC'
> /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so: undefined reference to `tgetent'
> /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so: undefined reference to `UP'
> /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so: undefined reference to `tgetstr'
> collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
> configure: failed program was:
> #line 7251 "configure"
> #include "confdefs.h"
> 
> Jerry
> 
> ---- Original message ----
> >Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 23:06:39 +0000
> >From: Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>  
> >Subject: Re: [GRASS-user] readline issues  
> >To: "Jerry Nelson" <gnelson at uiuc.edu>
> >Cc: <grassuser at grass.itc.it>
> >
> >
> >Jerry Nelson wrote:
> >
> >> I've been commenting the with-readline=yes option out of my grass6.3
> >> configure command (run on a CentOS/Redhat distro) because it can't seem to
> >> find the library, even though I have told it where it is. But my question is
> >> whether and why this is necessary. My understanding is that readline is what
> >> makes command completion possible (in the shell, type a letter and readline
> >> will try to complete the word for you). It may also be what makes it
> >> possible to use the up and down keys to scroll through previous commands. In
> >> the grass command window, I can get previous commands, but I don't get
> >> command completion. I tried downloading the grass addon grass-complete but
> >> was told my bash was too new for it.
> >>  
> >> Any suggestions appreciated!
> >
> >The only part of GRASS which uses readline is r.mapcalc. If readline
> >is enabled, you can use its history/editing facilities when entering
> >r.mapcalc expressions on stdin.
> >
> >The GRASS shell is just your normal shell (e.g. bash) with a few
> >environment variables set. Command completion should work for GRASS
> >commands as with other commands. ISTR that grass-complete adds more
> >specific functionality (completing map names?).
> >
> >Problems with the configure script not "finding" the readline library
> >are invariably because it requires one of the terminal libraries
> >(libtermcap, libtinfo or lib[n]curses) but doesn't list the library as
> >a dependency.
> >
> >Consequently, when configure tries to link a test program (which is
> >how it checks for libraries) against readline, it fails due to
> >unresolved symbols (typically tgetent, tgetstr etc). You can confirm
> >this by examining the end of the config.log file.
> >
> >Normally, we would just add a list of optional libraries to the
> >configure check, so that it first tests readline alone, then tests
> >readline + libtermcap/libtinfo/lib[n]curses. E.g. for TIFF, in
> >addition to libtiff, it also tries all possible combinations of the
> >JPEG, zlib and math libraries until either one combination succeeds or
> >all eight combinations have failed.
> >
> >The problem here is that there are at least three common libraries
> >(counting libcurses/libncurses as one library) which may all provide
> >the same set of functions (the "termcap" API: tgetent() etc), and
> >there is no obvious "right" choice. It's quite possible that multiple
> >options will succeed, at least in terms of linking.
> >
> >However, using different libraries may produce different results. E.g. 
> >one library might use the termcap database while another uses the
> >terminfo database; some libraries might honour the TERMCAP and/or
> >TERMINFO environment variables, some might not.
> >
> >If we pick the wrong one, the configure test will succeed but any
> >program which uses it might not actually run. As r.mapcalc is a
> >critical module (a lot of scripts use it internally), ensuring that it
> >works has a higher priority than enabling interactive line editing.


-- 
Brad Douglas <rez touchofmadness com>                    KB8UYR/6
Address: 37.493,-121.924 / WGS84    National Map Corps #TNMC-3785