NetBSD curses and BSD bmake?

[mamccollum]

As potentially default alternatives to the ubiquitous ncurses, there is NetBSD curses (which has been ported to both musl libc and glibc).

There is also bmake as an alternative to GNU make, which is used with NetBSD's pkgsrc and works on nearly every Unix system (*BSD, Linux with multiple libcs, Illumos, etc). It uses autotools to ensure its portability when building it.

I feel that, since Copacabana is aiming for using smaller and alternative software projects, this could be a good option as the default make and libcurses (while still retaining the GNU equivalents for compatibility).

[takusuman]

I think NetBSD curses can be used, but isn't bmake incompatible with GNU make-style Makefiles? Maybe this would make impossible to compile even the Linux kernel.

[takusuman]

I thought about using OpenPAM, but modules would be needed to be ported.

[takusuman]

G'day! Long time no see.

I'm building Copacabana 0.5 and noticed that Heirloom NG needs to be compiled with NetBSD curses in mind.

cc -O0 -fomit-frame-pointer -D_GNU_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64L  -c ls.c
ls.c:869:49: error: too few arguments to function call, expected 10, have 2
  869 |                 char *cp = tparm(set_a_foreground, COLOR_BLACK);
      |                            ~~~~~                              ^
/llvmtools/include/term.h:1961:9: note: 'tparm' declared here
 1961 | char *          tparm(const char *, long, long, long, long, long,
      |                 ^     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 1962 |                 long, long, long, long);
      |                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ls.c:990:5: error: call to undeclared function 'vidattr'; ISO C99 and later do not support implicit function declarations [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
  990 |                                 vidattr(A_BOLD);
      |                                 ^
ls.c:995:11: warning: format string is not a string literal (potentially insecure) [-Wformat-security]
  995 |                         printf(color);
      |                                ^~~~~
ls.c:995:11: note: treat the string as an argument to avoid this
  995 |                         printf(color);
      |                                ^
      |                                "%s", 
ls.c:1057:4: error: call to undeclared function 'vidattr'; ISO C99 and later do not support implicit function declarations [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
 1057 |                         vidattr(A_NORMAL);
      |                         ^
ls.c:1062:10: warning: format string is not a string literal (potentially insecure) [-Wformat-security]
 1062 |                 printf(fc_get(FC_NORMAL));
      |                        ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ls.c:1062:10: note: treat the string as an argument to avoid this
 1062 |                 printf(fc_get(FC_NORMAL));
      |                        ^
      |                        "%s", 
2 warnings and 3 errors generated.
gmake[1]: *** [Makefile:326: ls.o] Error 1
gmake[1]: Leaving directory '/dsk/0v/usr/tmp/obj/copausrspc/heirloom-ng-250220/ls'
gmake: *** [makefile:26: all] Error 2
gmake: Leaving directory '/dsk/0v/usr/tmp/obj/copausrspc/heirloom-ng-250220'

So welp, there's no free lunch. LCURS = -ltinfo -DUSE_TERMCAP it is.

[takusuman]

Well, we have some problems, mainly regarding Heirloom...
When we build Heirloom NG with NetBSD curses like it's GNU ncurses, we get this at the first moment:

cc -O0 -fomit-frame-pointer -D_GNU_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64L  -c ls.c
ls.c:869:49: error: too few arguments to function call, expected 10, have 2
  869 |                 char *cp = tparm(set_a_foreground, COLOR_BLACK);
      |                            ~~~~~                              ^
/llvmtools/include/term.h:1961:9: note: 'tparm' declared here
 1961 | char *          tparm(const char *, long, long, long, long, long,
      |                 ^     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 1962 |                 long, long, long, long);
      |                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ls.c:990:5: error: call to undeclared function 'vidattr'; ISO C99 and later do not support implicit function declarations [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
  990 |                                 vidattr(A_BOLD);
      |                                 ^
ls.c:995:11: warning: format string is not a string literal (potentially insecure) [-Wformat-security]
  995 |                         printf(color);
      |                                ^~~~~
ls.c:995:11: note: treat the string as an argument to avoid this
  995 |                         printf(color);
      |                                ^
      |                                "%s",
ls.c:1057:4: error: call to undeclared function 'vidattr'; ISO C99 and later do not support implicit function declarations [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
 1057 |                         vidattr(A_NORMAL);
      |                         ^
ls.c:1062:10: warning: format string is not a string literal (potentially insecure) [-Wformat-security]
 1062 |                 printf(fc_get(FC_NORMAL));
      |                        ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ls.c:1062:10: note: treat the string as an argument to avoid this
 1062 |                 printf(fc_get(FC_NORMAL));
      |                        ^
      |                        "%s",
2 warnings and 3 errors generated.
gmake[1]: *** [Makefile:326: ls.o] Error 1
gmake[1]: Leaving directory '/dsk/0v/usr/tmp/obj/copausrspc/heirloom-ng-250220/ls'
gmake: *** [makefile:26: all] Error 2
gmake: Leaving directory '/dsk/0v/usr/tmp/obj/copausrspc/heirloom-ng-250220'

The first one can be simply fixed with -DTPARM_VARARGS at CPPFLAGS, not a big deal.
Then we get this:

error: call to undeclared function 'vidattr'; ISO C99 and later do not support implicit function declarations [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]

... which, if you guys have been careful, also appeared before.

This is a little bit trickier because NetBSD curses doesn't have these implemented per design:

https://github.com/sabotage-linux/netbsd-curses/blob/51d179dad861640caeb76674b5908ccd79f04fae/README.md#differences-from-ncurses

Of course, Heirloom was made thinking that one would want to run it in NetBSD, so it would be just to use -DUSE_TERMCAP at CPPFLAGS and have -lterminfo at LCURS, right?

No, absolutely erred.

cc -L/llvmtools/lib watch.o -lterminfo -L../libcommon -lcommon  -o watch
ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: newterm
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)

ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: start_color
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)

ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: use_default_colors
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)

ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: init_pair
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)

ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: clear
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)

ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: stdscr
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)

ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: getmaxx
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)

ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: attron
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)

ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: printw
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)
>>> referenced 1 more times

ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: attroff
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)

ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: reset_shell_mode
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)

ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: refresh
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)

ld.lld: error: undefined symbol: beep
>>> referenced by watch.c
>>>               watch.o:(main)
cc: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)
gmake[1]: *** [Makefile:323: watch] Error 1
gmake[1]: Leaving directory '/dsk/0v/usr/tmp/obj/copausrspc/heirloom-ng-250220/watch'

Heirloom's watch program wasn't written to support terminfo --- which, well, is my fault.
The solution for Heirloom would be to implement support for terminfo at watch, but I think this can cause problems on the future inside Copacabana since people will try to compile other programs, follow tutorials on ncurses, etc, so I was thinking on the possibility that we could try to implement some of these missing functions as patches and use netbsd-curses just fine.

What do you guys think, @mamccollum and @xplshn?