Can't build from source on MacOS without CPPFLAGS

[krykra7]

Hello,

I'm not proficient in C, but in mac to build from sources I need to specify both flags like this to make successfully:

LDLIBS="-L/opt/homebrew/opt/ncurses/lib/" CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/opt/ncurses/include" make

otherwise, only with LDLIBS, I'm getting following error:

cc -DNERD -DICONS_INCLUDE=\"icons-generated-nerd.h\" -std=c11 -Wall -Wextra -Wshadow -O3 -D_DARWIN_C_SOURCE  -o nnn  src/nnn.c -L/opt/homebrew/opt/ncurses/lib/ -lreadline -lncurses -lpthread
Undefined symbols for architecture arm64:
  "_endwin$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _main in nnn-38e436.o
      _clean_exit_sighandler in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      ...
  "_init_pair$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
      ...
  "_initscr$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
  "_keypad$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
  "_newterm$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
  "_printw$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _statusbar in nnn-38e436.o
      _statusbar in nnn-38e436.o
      _printent in nnn-38e436.o
      _printent in nnn-38e436.o
      _print_time in nnn-38e436.o
  "_start_color$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
  "_unget_wch$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
  "_use_default_colors$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _initcurses in nnn-38e436.o
  "_waddch$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _redraw in nnn-38e436.o
      _redraw in nnn-38e436.o
      _redraw in nnn-38e436.o
      _redraw in nnn-38e436.o
      _redraw in nnn-38e436.o
      _redraw in nnn-38e436.o
      _redraw in nnn-38e436.o
      _redraw in nnn-38e436.o
      _redraw in nnn-38e436.o
      _redraw in nnn-38e436.o
      _redraw in nnn-38e436.o
      _redraw in nnn-38e436.o
      ...
  "_waddnstr$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _load_input in nnn-38e436.o
      _xdiraccess in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      ...
  "_waddnwstr$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _xreadline in nnn-38e436.o
      _xreadline in nnn-38e436.o
      _printent in nnn-38e436.o
  "_wattr_off$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _load_input in nnn-38e436.o
      _xdiraccess in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      ...
  "_wattr_on$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _load_input in nnn-38e436.o
      _xdiraccess in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      ...
  "_wget_wch$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      ...
  "_wrefresh$NCURSES60", referenced from:
      _load_input in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      _browse in nnn-38e436.o
      ...
ld: symbol(s) not found for architecture arm64

My question is: is it specific to my machine, or should the wiki be updated on this topic?

[N-R-K]

This is due to homebrew installing libraries into non-standard locations which aren't part of the default library+include search path: https://github.com/orgs/Homebrew/discussions/1600

[N-R-K]

The wiki already mentioned LDLIBS but didn't have include path. I updated the wiki to also include the CPPFLAGS as well: https://github.com/jarun/nnn/wiki/Developer-guides#compile-for-macos

[N-R-K]

@krykra7 btw, what output do you get when you run the following command:

$ pkg-config --variable version ncurses

Is it picking the system ncurses over the homebrew one? (also, you've installed pkg-config from homebrew, yes?)

[krykra7]

@N-R-K
Thank you for your answer and updating the wiki. I was aware that specifying LDLIBS was necessary, just didn't know about CPPFLAGS since it was not mentioned in wiki.

Regarding your question:
pkg-config --variable version ncurses returns 6.0.20150808 while
brew list --versions | grep "ncurses" return ncurses 6.5 by that I assume it's is picking system ncurses even though I installed pkg-config with brew.

All of this is probably by design based on this info from brew:

==> Caveats
ncurses is keg-only, which means it was not symlinked into /opt/homebrew,
because macOS already provides this software and installing another version in
parallel can cause all kinds of trouble.

If you need to have ncurses first in your PATH, run:
  fish_add_path /opt/homebrew/opt/ncurses/bin

For compilers to find ncurses you may need to set:
  set -gx LDFLAGS "-L/opt/homebrew/opt/ncurses/lib"
  set -gx CPPFLAGS "-I/opt/homebrew/opt/ncurses/include"

For pkg-config to find ncurses you may need to set:
  set -gx PKG_CONFIG_PATH "/opt/homebrew/opt/ncurses/lib/pkgconfig"