Compiling Python with curses support

Question

My attempts to compile and install Python with curses support have failed and I've tried various iterations on my compile flags and whatnot, and can't seem to get this thing working.

This is on Solaris 11, Python version 3.4.3:

First off, here's the problem:

Python 3.4.3 (default, Mar  3 2015, 14:43:41) 
[GCC 4.5.2] on sunos5
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import curses
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/pkg/python/3.4.3/lib/python3.4/curses/__init__.py", line 13, in <module>
    from _curses import *
ImportError: No module named '_curses'

Various Googlez have told me that this is because when Python was compiled, the ncurses library wasn't found.

So I installed curses from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ (5.9) to /usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9 and attempted to recompile Python, passing in the location of ncurses:

export LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/lib
export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/include -I/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/include/ncurses"
./configure --enable-shared --prefix=/usr/local/pkg/python/3.4.3
make
make install

This seems like it should do it. The config.log doesn't seem to indicate any failures.

checking curses.h usability... yes
checking curses.h presence... yes
checking for curses.h... yes
checking ncurses.h usability... yes
checking ncurses.h presence... yes
checking for ncurses.h... yes

I also tried using the Solaris packaging tool OpenCSW to install these packages:

libncurses5          CSWlibncurses5       5.9,REV=2011.11.21         298.2 KB
libncurses_dev       CSWlibncurses-dev    5.9,REV=2011.11.21         258.4 KB
libncursesw5         CSWlibncursesw5      5.9,REV=2011.11.21         341.5 KB
mutt_ncurses         CSWmutt-ncurses      1.5.23,REV=2014.03.14      484.4 KB
ncurses              CSWncurses           5.9,REV=2011.11.21         123.1 KB

And then I tried:

export LDFLAGS=-L/opt/csw/lib
export CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/csw/include -I/opt/csw/include/ncursesw"
./configure --enable-shared --prefix=/usr/local/pkg/python/3.4.3
make
make install

In either case, same situation:

ImportError: No module named '_curses'

EDIT UPDATE:

I just realized the curses module is built during "make install" as opposed to "make", so I was missing some critical errors. Specifically when using the /usr/local/pkg installation of ncurses:

building '_curses' extension
gcc -fPIC -Wno-unused-result -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Werror=declaration-after-statement -I./Include -I. -IInclude -I/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/include -I/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/include/ncurses -I/usr/local/include -I/tmp/Python-3.4.3/Include -I/tmp/Python-3.4.3 -c /tmp/Python-3.4.3/Modules/_cursesmodule.c -o build/temp.solaris-2.11-i86pc.32bit-3.4/tmp/Python-3.4.3/Modules/_cursesmodule.o
gcc -shared -L/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/lib -L/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/lib -L/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/lib -I/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/include -I/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/include/ncurses build/temp.solaris-2.11-i86pc.32bit-3.4/tmp/Python-3.4.3/Modules/_cursesmodule.o -L. -L/usr/local/pkg/python/3.4.3/lib -L/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/lib -L/usr/local/lib -lncurses -lpython3.4m -o build/lib.solaris-2.11-i86pc.32bit-3.4/_curses.so
Text relocation remains                         referenced
    against symbol                  offset      in file
.rodata (section)                   0x50        /usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/lib/libncurses.a(lib_color.o)
... (followed by hundreds more lines like the above)
ld: fatal: relocations remain against allocatable but non-writable sections
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

Failed to build these modules:
_curses               _curses_panel         readline

And specifically when using the OpenCSW installation of ncurses:

building '_curses' extension
gcc -fPIC -Wno-unused-result -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Werror=declaration-after-statement -DHAVE_NCURSESW=1 -I/usr/include/ncursesw -I./Include -I. -IInclude -I/opt/csw/include -I/opt/csw/include/ncursesw -I/usr/local/include -I/tmp/Python-3.4.3/Include -I/tmp/Python-3.4.3 -c /tmp/Python-3.4.3/Modules/_cursesmodule.c -o build/temp.solaris-2.11-i86pc.32bit-3.4/tmp/Python-3.4.3/Modules/_cursesmodule.o
/tmp/Python-3.4.3/Modules/_cursesmodule.c:281:29: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘...’ before ‘cchar_t’
/tmp/Python-3.4.3/Modules/_cursesmodule.c: In function ‘PyCurses_ConvertToCchar_t’:
/tmp/Python-3.4.3/Modules/_cursesmodule.c:299:16: error: ‘wch’ undeclared (first use in this function)
/tmp/Python-3.4.3/Modules/_cursesmodule.c:299:16: note: each undeclared identifier is reported only once for each function it appears in
/tmp/Python-3.4.3/Modules/_cursesmodule.c: In function ‘curses_window_addch_impl’:
(...and many more messages like this)

Failed to build these modules:
_curses               _curses_panel         readline

Answer 1

When I originally posted, I hadn't compiled ncurses with "--with-shared". I recompiled ncurses with that option, and after which point, this worked:

export LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/lib
export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/include -I/usr/local/pkg/ncurses/5.9/include/ncurses"
./configure --enable-shared --prefix=/usr/local/pkg/python/3.4.3
make
make install

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Answer 2

It seems you are keen on reinventing the wheel. I recommend you to look at PKGSRC of NetBSD, which is compatible with Solaris and nowadays works quite well... even with SUN Studio compilers. There are binary packages for SmartOS/Illumos that can out-of-the-box work on Solaris 11 (if you are x86).

Note that this packaging stuff do have some patches + do patch Makefiles after autotools configure + injecting fake gcc, ld, as commands to PATH, which are scripts altering cmdline parameters for real compilers. Do you really want to reinvent all that again?