ncurses 5.9: Mountain Lion: configuration gets stuck running gawk

[Community@…]

When trying to install ncurses 5.9 on my Mountain Lion box, the build process gets stuck during the configuration phase.

:
:
checking if you have specified an install-prefix... 
checking if libtool -version-number should be used... yes
checking if you want to build libraries with libtool... no
checking if you want to build shared libraries... yes
checking if you want to build static libraries... yes
checking if you want to build debug libraries... no
checking if you want to build profiling libraries... no
checking for specified models...  shared normal
<stuck/hanging>

(I let it run for more than 24 hours).

For more details/debug information please see enclosed installation log.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

This test ("checking for specified models") appears to be the first test that uses awk. From the configure.in:

AC_MSG_CHECKING(for default model)
DFT_LWR_MODEL=`echo "$cf_list_models" | $AWK '{print $1}'`
AC_MSG_RESULT($DFT_LWR_MODEL)

Earlier in your log it showed that it looked for and found gawk and is therefore using that as your awk program:

checking for mawk... no
checking for gawk... gawk

It does this on my system too and it works fine here but perhaps there is something the matter with your gawk program? What happens if you try to use gawk manually on the command line? If you just type "gawk" it should print a usage message if everything is working.

[Community@…]

bash# gawk
Usage: gawk [POSIX or GNU style options] -f progfile [--] file ...
Usage: gawk [POSIX or GNU style options] [--] 'program' file ...
POSIX options:		GNU long options: (standard)
	-f progfile		--file=progfile
	-F fs			--field-separator=fs
	-v var=val		--assign=var=val
Short options:		GNU long options: (extensions)
	-b			--characters-as-bytes
	-c			--traditional
	-C			--copyright
	-d[file]		--dump-variables[=file]
	-e 'program-text'	--source='program-text'
	-E file			--exec=file
	-g			--gen-pot
	-h			--help
	-L [fatal]		--lint[=fatal]
	-n			--non-decimal-data
	-N			--use-lc-numeric
	-O			--optimize
	-p[file]		--profile[=file]
	-P			--posix
	-r			--re-interval
	-S			--sandbox
	-t			--lint-old
	-V			--version

To report bugs, see node `Bugs' in `gawk.info', which is
section `Reporting Problems and Bugs' in the printed version.

gawk is a pattern scanning and processing language.
By default it reads standard input and writes standard output.

Examples:
	gawk '{ sum += $1 }; END { print sum }' file
	gawk -F: '{ print $1 }' /etc/passwd

bash# which gawk
/opt/local/bin/gawk

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

So does

echo "shared normal" | gawk '{print $1}'

work? Also attach the config.log please.

[Community@…]

bash# echo "shared normal" | gawk '{print $1}'
shared

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

What processes does Activity Monitor show running as children of the port tclsh process during the hang?

[Community@…]

24737	 	tclsh8.5	root		0,0	2	18,9 MB	Intel (64 bit)	37,9 MB	315	146	
+24760	 	sh		macports	0,0	1	972 KB	Intel (64 bit)	9,4 MB	54	22	
 +24761	 	sh		macports	0,0	1	1,2 MB	Intel (64 bit)	192 KB	722	356	
  +25365	sh		macports	0,0	1	480 KB	Intel (64 bit)	252 KB	12	6	
   +25367	gawk		macports	0,0	3	1,2 MB	Intel (64 bit)	21,6 MB	72	30	

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

So gawk is indeed getting stuck. Guess you could sample it to see if that tells us anything helpful. Given that it works for Ryan, is there anything unusual about your gawk? Did you build it with prerelease Xcode tools, for example?

[Community@…]

Not that I'm aware of; I installed it via MacPorts, without any modifications.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

Well yeah, but MacPorts uses whatever Xcode you have installed.

[Community@…]

Well, I've new renamed gawk...and everything is just peachy now! :)

Kind of odd, this gawk thinggy, right?

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

So wait, you did what? You renamed /opt/local/bin/gawk to something else, then presumably cleaned ncurses and tried again, and this time it worked? I'm glad you got it working, however it worked fine on my Mountain Lion system even with gawk installed. So this suggests something was amiss with your gawk. You should probably uninstall your gawk port if you don't need it:

sudo port uninstall gawk

or else rebuild it if you do:

sudo port -n upgrade --force gawk

[Community@…]

Yes, that's exactly what happened, what I did! :)

Thanks for your support, much appreciated!