Ncurses 6.0 Compilation Error - error: expected ')' before 'int'

Question

Problem description

Trying to install ncurses 6.0 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS is failing with a compilation error:

In file included from ./curses.priv.h:325:0,
                 from ../ncurses/lib_gen.c:19:
_24273.c:843:15: error: expected ‘)’ before ‘int’
../include/curses.h:1631:56: note: in definition of macro ‘mouse_trafo’
#define mouse_trafo(y,x,to_screen) wmouse_trafo(stdscr,y,x,to_screen)
                                                    ^
Makefile:962: recipe for target '../objects/lib_gen.o' failed
make[1]: *** [../objects/lib_gen.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/netsamir/Sofware/Tmux/ncurses-6.0/ncurses'
Makefile:113: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

Configuration

netsamir@octopus:~/Sofware/Tmux/ncurses-6.0$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Release:    16.04
Codename:   xenial

netsamir@octopus:~/Sofware/Tmux/ncurses-6.0$ gcc --version
gcc (Ubuntu 5.3.1-14ubuntu2) 5.3.1 20160413
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

netsamir@octopus:~/Sofware/Tmux/ncurses-6.0$ cpp --version
cpp (Ubuntu 5.3.1-14ubuntu2) 5.3.1 20160413
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Solution 1

Solution

Export the variable CPPFLAGS in the shell with -P as follow

netsamir@octopus:~/$ export CPPFLAGS="-P"

Reference

http://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/19762

Solution 2

$ export CPPFLAGS="-P" This works for my local install of ncurses 6.0 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS as well.

Comments

[Thomas Dickey]

This was reported and fixed on the bug-ncurses mailing list several months before. The problem was Debian's version of mawk.

[jyalim]

Thomas Dickey's answer actually led to a fix for me, unlike the accepted answer to OP. I simply hacked the fix by editing MKlib_gen.sh such that PRG=gcc in place of the subshell involving awk.

[James Chung]

Thanks, TheDude. I was looking for the documentation for code highlights.

[iamgr007]

do this before configuring

[JohnMudd]

It can also be added to the configure command so it only has temporary effect. Example: ./configure <options> CPPFLAGS="-P"

[jpaugh]

@JohnMudd, well then there's also CPPFLAGS=-P ./configure, but that relies on having a particular shell. ;-)