petitboot doesn't build against ncurses with NCURSES_OPAQUE_MENU

[ollieparanoid]

Building current version 1.14 (2c04d96) of petitboot in postmarketOS v23.12 / Alpine Linux 3.19, with ncurses 6.4_p20231125 and gcc 13.2.1_git20231014 fails with:

In file included from ui/ncurses/nc-cui.h:25,
                 from ui/ncurses/generic-main.c:41:
ui/ncurses/nc-menu.h: In function 'pmenu_dump_item':
ui/ncurses/nc-menu.h:129:47: error: invalid use of incomplete typedef 'ITEM' {aka 'const struct tagITEM'}
  129 |         pb_debug("%p %s\n", item, (item ? item->name.str : "(null)"));
      |                                               ^~
ui/ncurses/nc-menu.h: In function 'pmenu_dump_items':
ui/ncurses/nc-menu.h:138:45: error: invalid use of incomplete typedef 'ITEM' {aka 'struct tagITEM'}
  138 |                         (items[i] ? items[i]->name.str : "(null)"));
      |                                             ^~
make[2]: *** [Makefile:5726: ui/ncurses/petitboot_nc-generic-main.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/pmos/build/src/petitboot-v1.13'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:5907: all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/pmos/build/src/petitboot-v1.13'
make: *** [Makefile:2824: all] Error 2

Looking at ncurses menu.h:

  typedef struct tagITEM
#if !NCURSES_OPAQUE_MENU
    {
      TEXT name;                /* name of menu item                         */
      TEXT description;         /* description of item, optional in display  */
      struct tagMENU *imenu;    /* Pointer to parent menu                    */
      void *userptr;            /* Pointer to user defined per item data     */
      Item_Options opt;         /* Item options                              */
      short index;              /* Item number if connected to a menu        */
      short y;                  /* y and x location of item in menu          */
      short x;
      bool value;               /* Selection value                           */

      struct tagITEM *left;     /* neighbor items                            */
      struct tagITEM *right;
      struct tagITEM *up;
      struct tagITEM *down;

    }
#endif                          /* !NCURSES_OPAQUE_MENU */ 
  ITEM;  

So item_name() has to be used instead of item->name.str. Here is half a patch:

diff --git a/ui/ncurses/nc-menu.h b/ui/ncurses/nc-menu.h
index eb568c8..550c7e1 100644
--- a/ui/ncurses/nc-menu.h
+++ b/ui/ncurses/nc-menu.h
@@ -126,7 +126,7 @@ static inline struct pmenu *pmenu_from_scr(struct nc_scr *scr)
 
 static inline void pmenu_dump_item(const ITEM *item)
 {
-       pb_debug("%p %s\n", item, (item ? item->name.str : "(null)"));
+       pb_debug("%p %s\n", item, (item ? item_name(item) : "(null)"));
 }
 
 static inline void pmenu_dump_items(ITEM *const *items, unsigned int count)
@@ -135,7 +135,7 @@ static inline void pmenu_dump_items(ITEM *const *items, unsigned int count)
 
        for (i = 0; i < count; i++)
                pb_debug("%u: %p %s\n", i, items[i],
-                       (items[i] ? items[i]->name.str : "(null)"));
+                       (items[i] ? item_name(items[i]) : "(null)"));
 }
 
 #endif

However then it fails in another place, where petitboot tries to write to items[i]->name.str. Apparently there is no setter function for it in ncurses and a new label would need to be created instead (?) - I didn't look into it in detail.

[nroach44]

I can confirm the above from building it in buildroot. It's 6.4 20231021 that breaks it, which is when they enabled NCURSES_OPAQUE_MENU by default.

	+ change defaults for configure opaque and widec options (prompted by
	  discussion with Branden Robinson).

Same as @ollieparanoid I can't find "the new" way to rename a menu item, but the git repo is very hard to browse with about 3,700 lines changed each commit.

[nroach44]

@ollieparanoid there is a fix for the second issue; there's two patches in the petitboot mailing list that don't appear to have been applied:

• https://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/petitboot/2024-February/001544.html
• https://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/petitboot/2024-February/001546.html

I've tested this in buildroot against ncurses 6.5 20250517 and it build and runs fine

@jk-ozlabs Could we pretty please get those two merged?

[jk-ozlabs]

Can do, I'll take a look!

[jk-ozlabs]

OK, should be sorted by 1d94684. Let me know how you go.