Re: [HACKERS] Why is libcurses added to build by configure?

Tom Lane wrote:
>
> Karl Auer <auer(at)kom(dot)id(dot)ethz(dot)ch> writes:
> > psql (at least in 6.3.2) uses curses and readline. I know this because
> > I tried to compile under a SuSE 5.3 distribution.
>
> Hmm. psql does use readline, but there's no direct dependency on
> curses. (I verified this by building without curses; it works, here.)
>
> Perhaps there are some implementations of readline that depend on
> curses? The GNU libreadline I have here appears to use termcap,
> but not curses. There might be other versions though.
>
> I think it would be possible to extend configure to detect which
> library(s) libreadline depends on, and only include those in the link.
> But that's not something to risk at this stage...

readline needs terminfo/termcap. On many Linux systems terminfo support
is in the [n]curses library.

Phil