[bug-notifications] [ncurses 0003457]: Ncurses lacks wide character support

[Mantis Bug Tracker]

The following issue has been CLOSED 
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http://www.opencsw.org/mantis/view.php?id=3457 
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Reported By:                skayser
Assigned To:                dam
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Project:                    ncurses
Issue ID:                   3457
Category:                   other
Reproducibility:            have not tried
Severity:                   feature
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     closed
Resolution:                 open
Fixed in Version:           
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Date Submitted:             2009-03-05 23:01 CET
Last Modified:              2009-03-31 23:35 CEST
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Summary:                    Ncurses lacks wide character support
Description: 
Just wanted to build nano 2.0.9 against ncurses and using mGARv2

  ./configure $(DIRPATHS) --enable-all 

complains:

configure: WARNING:
*** Insufficient UTF-8 support was detected in your curses and/or C
*** libraries.  If you want UTF-8 support, please verify that your slang
*** was built with UTF-8 support or your curses was built with wide
*** character support, and that your C library was built with wide
*** character support.

>From having a look at the ncurses README --enable-widec does seem to
contain some caveats. Filing this as a feature request.
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---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 (0005684) skayser (administrator) - 2009-03-20 17:42
 http://www.opencsw.org/mantis/view.php?id=3457#c5684 
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I am just trying to build mcabber, which also complains about missing UTF-8
support in ncurses. What's worse this time is that mcabber then uses VT100
line drawing characters (via ncurses) to draw its TUI and this doesn't work
with a UTF-8 CSWxterm (and i suppose neither with any other UTF-8 terminal
emulator). The vertical lines are shifted, sometimes they don't display at
all and words are not correctly wrapped on the right hand side of the
terminal.

I can work around this by either setting NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS=1 when
calling mcabber or using xterm in non UTF-8 mode, but IMHO it could be more
straight-forward when we would have UTF-8 support in ncurses.

I had a look at the ncurses README again: --enable-widec produces a
separate set of libs with a "w" suffix. Those are _not_ compatible with the
regular ncurses libs, but because of the "w" suffix they don't clash, so i
think it should be safe to build an additional wide ncurses version without
breaking existing stuff. Debian does it this way, they have libncurses5 and
libncursesw5. 

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 (0005806) dam (manager) - 2009-03-31 23:35
 http://www.opencsw.org/mantis/view.php?id=3457#c5806 
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Fixed in 5.7,REV=2009.03.31 

Issue History 
Date Modified    Username       Field                    Change               
====================================================================== 
2009-03-05 23:01 skayser        New Issue                                    
2009-03-20 17:42 skayser        Note Added: 0005684                          
2009-03-26 15:51 dam            Status                   new => assigned     
2009-03-26 15:51 dam            Assigned To               => dam             
2009-03-31 23:35 dam            Note Added: 0005806                          
2009-03-31 23:35 dam            Status                   assigned => closed  
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