Re: [bug-gtypist] gtypist fails to build with ncurses[tinfo]

[Felix Natter]

Felix Natter <address@hidden> writes:

hi Tim,

> Tim Marston <address@hidden> writes:
>> I also found a discussion[5] suggesting that you can "invoke
>> AC_CHECK_LIBS first, then conditionally invoke PKG_CHECK_MODULES, and
>> then invoke AC_CHECK_LIBS again to validate the information found by
>> PKG_CHECK_MODULES".  This sounds a lot more complicat       ed and (as far as
>> I can see) only gives us the benefit of including pkg-config in the
>> build process.  But since that's not really the goal here -- it was
>> just a proposed solution -- I suggest we try one of the above first.
>
> Why not try PKG_CHECK_MODULES, and use AC_CHECK_LIB/AC_CHECK_HEADER as a
> fallback? Ok, I realize that this a problem with systems using
> pkg-config, but in a broken way (see [5]).
>
>> [1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf/2009-10/msg00132.html
>> [2] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=483778
>> [3] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf/2009-10/msg00149.html
>> [4]
>> https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.69/html_node/Libraries.html
>> [5]
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10220946/pkg-check-modules-considered-harmful
>
> Ok, now I see
> (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10220946/pkg-check-modules-considered-harmful):
>
> "In short, to use PKG_CHECK_MODULES correctly, it is necessary to invoke
> AC_CHECK_LIBS first, then conditionally invoke PKG_CHECK_MODULES, and
> then invoke AC_CHECK_LIBS again to validate the information found by
> PKG_CHECK_MODULES."
>
> But we only need to cover gentoo's pkg-config setup...
>
> What do you think, shall I try the above solution (AC_CHECK_LIB(S),
> PKG_CHECK_MODULES, AC_CHECK_LIB(S)) can you think of easier solution?

I coded a very simple solution (PKG_CHECK_MODULES, if that fails use
AC_CHECK_HEADER/LIB), which works both with "ncursesw.pc" and without:

diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index c1d23f0..4772cd8 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -45,17 +45,20 @@ AC_FUNC_STRTOD
 AC_CHECK_FUNCS([__argz_count __argz_next __argz_stringify dcgettext getcwd 
getwd mempcpy memset munmap nl_langinfo setlocale stpcpy strcasecmp strchr 
strcspn strdup strstr strtoul])
 
 # check for libncursesw
-
-AC_CHECK_HEADER(ncursesw/ncurses.h, HAVE_NCURSESW_H=1)
-AC_CHECK_LIB(ncursesw, add_wch, HAVE_LIBNCURSESW=1)
-if test -n "$HAVE_NCURSESW_H" -a -n "$HAVE_LIBNCURSESW";  then
-   LIBS="-lncursesw $LIBS"
-else
-   echo -e "Error:  both library and header files for the ncursesw library\n"\
-       "are required to build this package.  See INSTALL file for"\
-       "further information. On Debian/Ubuntu you need to install 
libncursesw5-dev."
-   exit 1;
-fi
+PKG_CHECK_MODULES(NCURSESW, ncursesw, [
+   LIBS="$NCURSESW_LIBS $LIBS"
+   CFLAGS="$NCURSESW_CFLAGS $CFLAGS"], [
+   AC_CHECK_HEADER(ncursesw/ncurses.h, HAVE_NCURSESW_H=1)
+   AC_CHECK_LIB(ncursesw, add_wch, HAVE_LIBNCURSESW=1)
+   if test -n "$HAVE_NCURSESW_H" -a -n "$HAVE_LIBNCURSESW";  then
+      LIBS="-lncursesw $LIBS"
+   else
+      echo -e "Error:  both library and header files for the ncursesw 
library\n"\
+      "are required to build this package.  See INSTALL file for"\
+      "further information. On Debian/Ubuntu you need to install 
libncursesw5-dev."
+      exit 1;
+   fi
+])
 
 # iconv
 
=> this will break if there is a broken ncursesw.pc, but I don't care
much about that. What do you think?

Best Regards,
-- 
Felix Natter