Re: mutt on macOS and --with-curses=DIR

On Sun, Apr 12, 2026 at 03:38:12PM +0800, Kevin J. McCarthy wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 12, 2026 at 01:16:48PM +0800, Kevin J. McCarthy wrote:
> > What is installed in your ~/sw/include and lib directory for ncurses,
> > and exactly where?
> 
> And the same for the system libraries.

Here's how I run 'configure' for ncurses and mutt.

ncurses:

dennis@coredump:~/src/ncurses-6.6-20260411% ./configure --prefix=${MY_PREFIX} --mandir=${MY_PREFIX}/share/man --with-shared --without-debug --enable-widec --disable-home-terminfo --enable-sigwinch --without-ada --disable-rpath --enable-colorfgbg --without-tests --with-pcre2 --with-pkg-config --enable-pc-files

(make && make install)

mutt:

dennis@coredump:~/src/mutt-2.3.1% ./configure --prefix=${HOME}/sw --with-curses=${HOME}/sw --with-ssl=${HOME}/sw --with-homespool --enable-smtp --enable-imap --disable-nls --disable-doc --with-ssl --with-sasl --enable-hcache --with-lmdb

(make && make install)

dennis@coredump:~/src/mutt-2.3.1% type mutt
mutt is /Users/dennis/sw/bin/mutt

As mentioned earlier, otool is similar to ldd.

dennis@coredump:~/src/mutt-2.3.1% otool -L mutt
mutt:
	/usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.0)
	/Users/dennis/sw/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.3.2)
	/Users/dennis/sw/lib/libssl.3.dylib (compatibility version 3.0.0, current version 3.0.0)
	/Users/dennis/sw/lib/libcrypto.3.dylib (compatibility version 3.0.0, current version 3.0.0)
	/usr/lib/libsasl2.2.dylib (compatibility version 3.0.0, current version 3.15.0)
	/Users/dennis/sw/lib/liblmdb.dylib (compatibility version 0.0.0, current version 0.0.0)
	/usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib (compatibility version 7.0.0, current version 7.0.0)
	/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1356.0.0)

In ~/sw/include/ is the directory 'ncursesw', and all the header files
are located there:

dennis@coredump:~% ls -l ~/sw/include/
total 584
drwxr-xr-x@ 168 dennis  staff    5376 Jul 21  2025 FL
-rw-r--r--@   1 dennis  staff    6332 Jul 15  2025 gsasl-mech.h
-rw-r--r--@   1 dennis  staff    2484 Jul 15  2025 gsasl-version.h
-rw-r--r--@   1 dennis  staff   18895 Jul 15  2025 gsasl.h
drwxr-xr-x   29 dennis  staff     928 Mar 22 10:47 libavcodec
drwxr-xr-x    5 dennis  staff     160 Mar 22 10:47 libavdevice
drwxr-xr-x    7 dennis  staff     224 Mar 22 10:47 libavfilter
drwxr-xr-x    6 dennis  staff     192 Mar 22 10:47 libavformat
drwxr-xr-x  103 dennis  staff    3296 Mar 22 10:47 libavutil
drwxr-xr-x    4 dennis  staff     128 Jan 12  2025 libcanlock-3
drwxr-xr-x@   9 dennis  staff     288 Jan 17 13:38 libexttextcat
drwxr-xr-x@   2 dennis  staff      64 Jan 17 13:40 libltdl
drwxr-xr-x    5 dennis  staff     160 Mar 22 10:47 libswresample
drwxr-xr-x    5 dennis  staff     160 Mar 22 10:47 libswscale
-rw-r--r--@   1 dennis  staff   74012 Mar 29 13:03 lmdb.h
drwxr-xr-x   20 dennis  staff     640 Apr 12 11:15 ncursesw
drwxr-xr-x  144 dennis  staff    4608 May 19  2025 openssl
-rw-r--r--@   1 dennis  staff   51918 Dec  2 14:59 pcre2.h
-rw-r--r--@   1 dennis  staff    7276 Dec  2 14:59 pcre2posix.h
drwxr-xr-x@   3 dennis  staff      96 Jan 11  2025 pkgconf
drwxr-xr-x@  83 dennis  staff    2656 Apr 11 17:28 python3.14
drwxr-xr-x  207 dennis  staff    6624 Mar 22 10:52 unicode
-rw-r--r--@   1 dennis  staff   16921 Mar 22 10:58 zconf.h
-rw-r--r--@   1 dennis  staff  103848 Mar 22 10:58 zlib.h

dennis@coredump:~% ls -l ~/sw/include/ncursesw
total 720
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff  105332 Apr 12 11:15 curses.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff    7234 Apr 12 11:15 cursesapp.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff   28297 Apr 12 11:15 cursesf.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff   20061 Apr 12 11:15 cursesm.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff    8838 Apr 12 11:15 cursesp.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff   50357 Apr 12 11:15 cursesw.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff    7336 Apr 12 11:15 cursslk.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff    2969 Apr 12 11:15 eti.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff   10610 Apr 12 11:15 etip.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff   18917 Apr 12 11:15 form.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff   11893 Apr 12 11:15 menu.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff    4183 Apr 12 11:15 ncurses_dll.h
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 dennis  staff       8 Apr 12 11:15 ncurses.h -> curses.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff    4521 Apr 12 11:15 panel.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff    8703 Apr 12 11:15 term_entry.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff   42222 Apr 12 11:15 term.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff    3477 Apr 12 11:15 termcap.h
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff    3223 Apr 12 11:15 unctrl.h

dennis@coredump:~% ls -l ~/sw/lib/*curses*
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff  111536 Apr 12 11:15 /Users/dennis/sw/lib/libncurses++w.a
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 dennis  staff  364096 Apr 12 11:15 /Users/dennis/sw/lib/libncursesw.6.dylib
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dennis  staff  642392 Apr 12 11:15 /Users/dennis/sw/lib/libncursesw.a
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 dennis  staff      19 Apr 12 11:15 /Users/dennis/sw/lib/libncursesw.dylib -> libncursesw.6.dylib

'.dylib' is the macOS equivalent of '.so'.

The system-wide libraries and header files in macOS are located within
Xcode.app (Apple's development environment).

dennis@coredump:~% xcrun --show-sdk-path
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk

The header files are located directly in usr/include, not in a
subdirectory.

dennis@coredump:.../Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk% ls -l usr/include/(*curses|eti|form|menu|panel|term(\.|_|cap)|unc)*
-rw-r--r--@ 1 root  wheel  161910 Feb 22 00:00 usr/include/curses.h
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    2891 Feb 22 00:00 usr/include/eti.h
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   18265 Feb 22 00:00 usr/include/form.h
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   11950 Feb 22 00:00 usr/include/menu.h
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    4277 Feb 22 00:00 usr/include/ncurses_dll.h
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel       8 Mar 25 19:51 usr/include/ncurses.h -> curses.h
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    1062 Feb 21 23:59 usr/include/ncurses.modulemap
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    4062 Feb 22 00:00 usr/include/panel.h
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    8145 Feb 22 00:00 usr/include/term_entry.h
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   39957 Feb 22 00:00 usr/include/term.h
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    3476 Feb 22 00:00 usr/include/termcap.h
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    3099 Feb 22 00:00 usr/include/unctrl.h

dennis@coredump:.../Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk% ls -l usr/lib/*curses*
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     18 Mar 25 19:51 usr/lib/libcurses.tbd -> libncurses.5.4.tbd
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  21256 Feb 21 23:58 usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.tbd
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     18 Mar 25 19:51 usr/lib/libncurses.5.tbd -> libncurses.5.4.tbd
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     18 Mar 25 19:51 usr/lib/libncurses.tbd -> libncurses.5.4.tbd

dennis@coredump:.../Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk% grep libncurses usr/lib/libncurses.tbd
install-name:    '/usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib'

Dennis