[Haskell-cafe] ncurses trouble

Andrew Pennebaker andrew.pennebaker at gmail.com
Wed Apr 6 05:46:10 CEST 2011 

I'm having trouble using Haskell and ncurses Mac OS X (10.6.6 to be
precise).

GHC 6.12.3 gives me a lot of trouble, and GHC 7.0.2 even more.

rogue.hs, is a text adventure game in the works.

$ cat rogue.hs
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
import Data.Text
import UI.NCurses

main :: IO ()
main = runCurses $ do
    win <- defaultWindow
    updateWindow win $ do
        moveCursor 10 10
        drawText "Hello world! Hit 'q' to exit"
    render
    waitForQ win

waitForQ :: Window -> Curses ()
waitForQ win = do
    ev <- getEvent win Nothing
    case ev of
        Just (EventCharacter 'q') -> return ()
        _ -> waitForQ win

$ sudo port install ncurses ncursesw
$ cabal install ncurses
Resolving dependencies...
Configuring ncurses-0.2...
cabal: c2hs version >=0.15 is required but it could not be found.
cabal: Error: some packages failed to install:
ncurses-0.2 failed during the configure step. The exception was:
ExitFailure 1

Hmm. Cabal couldn't find a solution to the c2hs dependency. So I install it
manually.

$ cabal install c2hs
$ cabal install ncurses
Resolving dependencies...
Configuring ncurses-0.2...
cabal: Missing dependency on a foreign library:
* Missing C library: ncursesw
This problem can usually be solved by installing the system package that
provides this library (you may need the "-dev" version). If the library is
already installed but in a non-standard location then you can use the flags
--extra-include-dirs= and --extra-lib-dirs= to specify where it is.
cabal: Error: some packages failed to install:
ncurses-0.2 failed during the configure step. The exception was:
ExitFailure 1

MacPorts' ncurses isn't detected by Haskell, so I use Homebrew's.

$ brew install ncursesw
$ ghc --make -o rogue rogue.hs
[2 of 2] Compiling Main             ( rogue.hs, rogue.o )
Linking rogue ...
ld: warning: in /usr/local/lib/libncursesw.dylib, file was built for
unsupported file format which is not the architecture being linked (i386)

It appears that the Homebrew ncurses library is x86, and GHC is x86_64, or
vice-versa.

$ sudo port install ncurses +universal
$ sudo port install ncursesw +universal
$ brew install --universal ncursesw

These don't visibly improve compilation in any way.

I thought updating Haskell would fix the problem.

$ wget
http://lambda.galois.com/hp-tmp/2011.2.0.0/Haskell%20Platform%202011.2.0.0-i386.pkg
$ sudo installer -pkg "Haskell Platform 2011.2.0.0-i386.pkg" -target /
$ ghc --version
The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System, version 7.0.2
$ cabal --version
cabal-install version 0.10.2
using version 1.10.1.0 of the Cabal library

But it only made the problem worse. Now ncurses won't even build.

$ cabal install ncurses
Resolving dependencies...
Configuring ncurses-0.2...
Preprocessing library ncurses-0.2...
Building ncurses-0.2...
[1 of 4] Compiling UI.NCurses.Enums ( dist/build/UI/NCurses/Enums.hs,
dist/build/UI/NCurses/Enums.o )
[2 of 4] Compiling UI.NCurses.Types ( UI/NCurses/Types.hs,
dist/build/UI/NCurses/Types.o )
[3 of 4] Compiling UI.NCurses       ( dist/build/UI/NCurses.hs,
dist/build/UI/NCurses.o )
[4 of 4] Compiling UI.NCurses.Panel ( dist/build/UI/NCurses/Panel.hs,
dist/build/UI/NCurses/Panel.o )

UI/NCurses/Panel.chs:49:1:
    Warning: The import of `UI.NCurses' is redundant
               except perhaps to import instances from `UI.NCurses'
             To import instances alone, use: import UI.NCurses()

hsncurses-shim.c:5:29:
     error: ncursesw/curses.h: No such file or directory
cabal: Error: some packages failed to install:
ncurses-0.2 failed during the building phase. The exception was:
ExitFailure 1

I'd settle for using hscurses, but it won't compile with GHC 7, and it has
its own internal bugs besides.

$ cabal install hscurses
Resolving dependencies...
Configuring hscurses-1.4.0.0...
configure: WARNING: unrecognized options: --with-gcc
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of executables...
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed
checking for addnstr in -lcurses... yes
checking for addnstr in -lncurses... yes
checking for waddnwstr in -lncursesw... yes
checking for iconv in -liconv... yes
checking for libiconv in -liconv... yes
checking for libiconv... yes
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /usr/bin/grep
checking for egrep... /usr/bin/grep -E
checking for ANSI C header files... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for memory.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking iconv.h usability... yes
checking iconv.h presence... yes
checking for iconv.h... yes
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
checking ncursesw/ncurses.h usability... no
checking ncursesw/ncurses.h presence... yes
configure: WARNING: ncursesw/ncurses.h: present but cannot be compiled
configure: WARNING: ncursesw/ncurses.h:     check for missing prerequisite
headers?
configure: WARNING: ncursesw/ncurses.h: see the Autoconf documentation
configure: WARNING: ncursesw/ncurses.h:     section "Present But Cannot Be
Compiled"
configure: WARNING: ncursesw/ncurses.h: proceeding with the preprocessor's
result
configure: WARNING: ncursesw/ncurses.h: in the future, the compiler will
take precedence
checking for ncursesw/ncurses.h... yes
checking locale.h usability... yes
checking locale.h presence... yes
checking for locale.h... yes
checking langinfo.h usability... yes
checking langinfo.h presence... yes
checking for langinfo.h... yes
checking wchar.h usability... yes
checking wchar.h presence... yes
checking for wchar.h... yes
checking limits.h usability... yes
checking limits.h presence... yes
checking for limits.h... yes
checking signal.h usability... yes
checking signal.h presence... yes
checking for signal.h... yes
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating hscurses.buildinfo
config.status: creating cbits/config.h
configure: WARNING: unrecognized options: --with-gcc
cabal: Missing dependency on a foreign library:
* Missing (or bad) header file: HSCurses.h
This problem can usually be solved by installing the system package that
provides this library (you may need the "-dev" version). If the library is
already installed but in a non-standard location then you can use the flags
--extra-include-dirs= and --extra-lib-dirs= to specify where it is.
If the header file does exist, it may contain errors that are caught by the
C
compiler at the preprocessing stage. In this case you can re-run configure
with the verbosity flag -v3 to see the error messages.
cabal: Error: some packages failed to install:
hscurses-1.4.0.0 failed during the configure step. The exception was:
ExitFailure 1

Cheers,

Andrew Pennebaker
www.yellosoft.us
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