Re: A Valgrind-observant ncurses

[Thomas Dickey]

On Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 08:03:54AM -0400, Steve Litt wrote:
> :-)
> 
> Every two years I observe that programs compiled with ncurses make
> Valgrind throw an error, and could somebody please have a command line
> option to make ncurses get rid of all its RAM. From the responses the
> last several years I assume the answer is probably still no.
> 
> So this year I'll ask a different question. My understanding is that
> ncurses can be slightly modified and then compiled to not throw that
> Valgrind error, the downside being worse performance and possible loss
> of some functionality. So what I'd like to do is compile a special,
> diagnostic ncurses that doesn't throw the Valgrind error, use it for
> testing, and then switch to the version of ncurses that comes with my
> Linux distribution (Void Linux in my case). So here are some questions:
> 
> 1) How do I keep my diagnostic ncurses completely separate from my
> distro provided ncurses so that my distro-provided applications don't
> go slower or lose functionality?
> 
> 2) Where can I find instructions on how to compile my diagnostic ncurses
> so that my home-brew applications don't throw Valgrind errors (assuming
> I have no memory leaks in the code I wrote) when compiled with my
> diagnostic ncurses?

I'd do it by

(a) looking to see what options the system's packagers user for configuring
    ncurses

(b) configuring with the same options, but adding --with-trace

(c) configuring with --prefix and installing into some non-conflicting
    location is best practice (though often I just use the build-tree)

(d) use the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to overide the loader's
    search path.

That'll work on most platforms, though not those where the library's path
is compiled/linked in.  Such as MacOS.

> Thanks,
> 
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt 
> http://444domains.com
> 

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
https://invisible-island.net

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