Re: Curses-perl that doesn't live up to it's name?


"Fred Stone" <fstone69@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Xns9877EE73A6A99fstone69@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Does there exist a Curses module for ActiveState Perl on WinXP that
actually supports PDCurses?

I am a fairly experienced Windoze and GNU/Cygwin user but new to the Perl
environment(s). I have PDCurses working in multiple environments under
Visual C++ as well as under GNU/Cygwin.

Curses-1.15 from CPAN refuses to recognize either of them. I see the
install note about how it is supposed to "sort of" work with PDCurses, but
I cannot make heads or tails of the installation process.


Curses and PDCurses are things that I know nothing about.

I'm (initially) surprised to find that there's no perl interface to
(specifically) the PDCurses library. At least, if such an interface does
exist, then, like you, I'm unable to locate it.

Seemed to me that there's a good opportunity for someone to write such an
interface - eg Win32::PDCurses.

Anyway, with nothing better to do, I downloaded the MinGW PDCurses-2.8
pre-compiled build (since I normally use the MinGW compiler).

I thought I might be able to demonstrate to you the ease with which many of
those PDCurses functions could be wrapped into perl functions using
Inline::C. Those functions that cannot be wrapped *easily* could still be
wrapped - they just take a little more thought and work. And all of those
functions (both easy, and difficult, to wrap) could also be incorporated
into a perl extension (module) with no dependency on Inline::C - if such was
deemed desirable.

So I wrote the following demo:

-------------------------
use warnings;
use Inline C => Config =>
BUILD_NOISY => 1, # verbose build
LIBS => '-LF:/pdcurses_mingw -lpdcurses',
INC => '-IF:/pdcurses_mingw';

use Inline C => <<'EOC';

#include <curses.h>

int wrap_baudrate() {
return baudrate();
}

int wrap_beep() {
return beep();
}

EOC

$ret1 = wrap_baudrate();
$ret2 = wrap_beep();
$size = get_sizeof_chtype();

print $ret1, " ", $ret2, "\n";
-------------------------

But the compilation stage fails with the following errors:

------------------------
F:/pdcurses_mingw/curses.h:1225:17: macro "instr" requires 2 arguments, but
only 1 given
F:/pdcurses_mingw/curses.h:1541:1: warning: "instr" redefined
In file included from D:/perl58_M/5.8.8/lib/CORE/perl.h:3982,
from pdcurses_pl_5fd5.xs:2:
D:/perl58_M/5.8.8/lib/CORE/embed.h:2375:1: warning: this is the location of
the previous definition
dmake: Error code 129, while making 'pdcurses_pl_5fd5.o'
------------------------

Already there's a problem.

From F:/pdcurses_mingw/curses.h we have:
1541: # define instr(str) winnstr(stdscr, str, stdscr->_maxx)

And from D:/perl58_M/5.8.8/lib/CORE/embed.h we have:
2375: #define instr(a,b) Perl_instr(aTHX_ a,b)

I wouldn't like to try and build this interface without including embed.h
.... and I certainly wouldn't like to try and build it without curses.h :-)

Frankly, I don't know how to deal with this collision. It may be simple ...
or it may require that either PDCurses or Perl rename 'instr' to something
that doesn't clash.

And there may be other problems in store once that one has been overcome.

If you can think of some possible way of getting around that problem without
too much difficulty, then please let me know. I'd be interested in that -
and would be quite prepared to try it out and see where it leads.

Both my Cygwin and Visual C++-built perls also contain an 'embed.h' that
contains the same definition, so I would think that the same problem applies
equally to them.

Cheers,
Rob


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Curses-perl that doesnt live up to its name?
    ... Perl environment. ... I have PDCurses working in multiple environments ... I'm surprised to find that there's no perl interface to ... pre-compiled build (since I normally use the MinGW compiler). ...
    (comp.lang.perl.modules)
  • Curses-perl that doesnt live up to its name?
    ... Does there exist a Curses module for ActiveState Perl on WinXP that ... I am a fairly experienced Windoze and GNU/Cygwin user but new to the Perl ... I have PDCurses working in multiple environments under ... install note about how it is supposed to "sort of" work with PDCurses, ...
    (comp.lang.perl.modules)
  • Re: So whats new for next year?
    ... And please don't say "Use the C interface". ... little point in working against the XOpen standard for curses. ... panel.a was reduced to a symlink/exact copy of pdcurses.a in PDCurses 3.2. ... Microsoft compilers are different, of course. ...
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