undefined reference to `stdscr'

Question

I am trying to compile my code in Ubuntu 11.10 and getting these errors and more.So far by googling it I think it is a linking error. Specifically, there have been suggestions to make sure you have the right headers and link the -lncurses library. I have already done that. I'm still getting this error. I also read that may be i should install the libncurses, but I already have it installed.

My MakeFile:
CPP           = g++
CPPFLAGS      = -c -Wall -g
LINK          = g++
LDFLAGS_LINUX = -lpthread -lncurses
LDFLAGS       = $(LDFLAGS_LINUX)
RM            = rm


.SUFFIXES:
.SUFFIXES: .o .cpp

.cpp.o:
    $(CPP) $(CPPFLAGS) $*.cpp -o $(SRC_DIR)$*.o

all: skygrid

skygrid: skygrid.o commServer.o pose.o robot.o
    $(LINK) $(LDFLAGS) -o $@ $^

clean:
    $(RM) -rf *.o skygrid

skygrid.o:  skygrid.cpp definitions.h commServer.h pose.h robot.h
commServer.o:   commServer.cpp commServer.h
pose.o:     pose.cpp pose.h
robot.o:    robot.cpp robot.h pose.h

My Errors:

/home/fari/Desktop/FarahSkygrid/skygrid/src/skygrid.cpp:1094: undefined reference to `stdscr'
/home/fari/Desktop/FarahSkygrid/skygrid/src/skygrid.cpp:1094: undefined reference to `stdscr'
/home/fari/Desktop/FarahSkygrid/skygrid/src/skygrid.cpp:1094: undefined reference to `stdscr'
/home/fari/Desktop/FarahSkygrid/skygrid/src/skygrid.cpp:1094: undefined reference to `stdscr'
/home/fari/Desktop/FarahSkygrid/skygrid/src/skygrid.cpp:1104: undefined reference to `werase'
/home/fari/Desktop/FarahSkygrid/skygrid/src/skygrid.cpp:1106: undefined reference to `wprintw'
/home/fari/Desktop/FarahSkygrid/skygrid/src/skygrid.cpp:1107: undefined reference to `wprintw'
/home/fari/Desktop/FarahSkygrid/skygrid/src/skygrid.cpp:1109: undefined reference to `wprintw'
/home/fari/Desktop/FarahSkygrid/skygrid/src/skygrid.cpp:1111: undefined reference to `stdscr'
/home/fari/Desktop/FarahSkygrid/skygrid/src/skygrid.cpp:1111: undefined reference to `wgetch'
/home/fari/Desktop/FarahSkygrid/skygrid/src/skygrid.cpp:1116: undefined reference to `wtouchln'

Answer 1

I came up with the same problem when building cscope 15.8.

After ./configure, I first get error saying "ncurses.h" not found. It's because there is no libncurses-dev installed on my os.

After installing libcurses-dev, I run make directly. Then got dozens of the "undefined reference to" error.

After rebuild from start again, these errors were gone.

./configure

make

Answer 2

I was having this problem with an ncurses program on Centos 6.2. It turns out that ncurses is sometimes split into two libraries, ncurses and tinfo. In my case, stdscr exists in libtinfo, not in libncurses, so adding -ltinfo to the link line, after -lncurses, solved the problem.

Answer 3

I know you've moved on, but for future reference: my guess is that the problem is in the placement of the -l argument. Try:

skygrid: skygrid.o commServer.o pose.o robot.o
    $(LINK) -o $@ $^ $(LDFLAGS)

For more information, see the gcc manual: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Link-Options.html

and this thread on SO: Placement of `-l' option in gcc

Answer 4

user1246043,

I've been having a similar problem. Basically, I can't compile wiht g++ 4.5 or g++ 4.6, so I installed g++ 4.4 and used that. This specifically solved my problem with linking to ncursesw.

# Makefile:
CXX=g++-4.4                                                                  
CXXLIBS=-lncursesw                                                           
CXXFLAGS=-Wall
# Other stuff omitted

Answer 5

Since the error messages refer to specific lines in your skygrid.cpp source file, they're not linker errors.

You probably need to add

#include <curses.h>

to the top of that source file.

Answer 6

I faced with similar problem, when use Qt timer and ncurses: timeout macros ruin out Qt code =) Solution was "#undef timeout" after #include <ncurses.h> to prevent macros from working. And if in some cases You will need ncurses timeout, you can run wtimeout(stdscr,delay) directly.