Since bpo-42789 the AIX bot's have crashed - to the extent that the bot's did not even return results.

Part of this has been resolved, for now, by using:

$ export TERM=unknown
$ buildbot start buildarea

However, the test still crash because AIX default libcurses.a does not include support for update_lines_cols().

This patch should allow test_curses.py to pass in the buildbot.

When run from command-line as:

$ TERM=unknown ./python Lib/test/test_curses.py
.ss......ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Ran 71 tests in 0.121s

OK (skipped=64)
aixtools@cpython2:[/home/aixtools/py3a-10.0]

(When TERM is defined - a core dump still occurs - that will be a new issue and a new PR).

backports needed for 3.8 and 3.9

New changeset c8b5738 by Michael Felt in branch 'master':
bpo-43659: Fix test_curses on AIX (GH-25074)
c8b5738

Minor correction. update_lines_cols() is not provided by the underlying curses library, it is a helper defined in Python wrapper. But it is optional, snd skipping test is the correct solution. Thank you.

As for the core dump, could you please run the test in verbose mode with redirected stdout and stderr and show the result?

./python -m test -vuall test_curses 2>test.err >test.out

What is the default value of TERM? Does the result differ if set TERM=xterm?

New changeset e9092b2 by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.8':
bpo-43659: Fix test_curses on AIX (GH-25074)
e9092b2

New changeset f1d53bc by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.9':
bpo-43659: Fix test_curses on AIX (GH-25074)
f1d53bc

my default TERM=xterm

I'll also use 'ansi'

The filenames will be ${TERM}.err and ${TERM}.out

for TERM in xterm ansi; do
./python -m test -vuall test_curses 2>${TERM}.err >${TERM}.out
done

After TERM=ansi - my terminal is in raw mode (i.e.,
$ stty sane ^J

needed).

Thank you. I see that 7 tests are failed (test_background, test_color_attrs, test_color_content, test_getch, test_getstr, test_init_pair, test_insert_delete) and test_output_string perhaps crashes.

Could you please run tests with test_insert_delete skipped (option -i test_insert_delete or just skip in code)? If it crashes on other tests, skip them as well.

Please also try to comment out the following line in test_output_string. Does it help?

            s = '\u0661\u0662\u0663\u0664'
            try:
                func(s, 3)
            except UnicodeEncodeError:
                self.assertRaises(UnicodeEncodeError, s.encode, encoding)

./python -m test -vuall -i test_output_string -i test_insert_delete test_curses 2>test.err 1>test.out

returns four failures: see attached

'-i test_output_string' stops the crash

FYI: from a core dump - top of where is:

Segmentation fault in winsnstr at 0xd3ebc050
0xd3ebc050 (winsnstr+0x190) a4190002 lhzu r0,0x2(r25)
(dbx) where
winsnstr(??, ??, ??) at 0xd3ebc050
unnamed block in IPRA.$_curses_window_insstr_impl(self = 0x100fd954, group_left_1 = -739652824, y = 804382672, x = 804382676, str = 0x2ff1e7dc, group_right_1 = -739620304, attr = 0), line 1855 in "_cursesmodule.c"
IPRA.$_curses_window_insstr_impl(self = 0x100fd954, group_left_1 = -739652824, y = 804382672, x = 804382676, str = 0x2ff1e7dc, group_right_1 = -739620304, attr = 0), line 1855 in "_cursesmodule.c"
_curses_window_insstr(self = 0x100a96ec, args = 0x20088288), line 1160 in "_cursesmodule.c.h"
cfunction_call(func = 0x305337d0, args = 0x20088288, kwargs = 0x2ff1e8b0), line 567 in "methodobject.c"
_PyObject_MakeTpCall(tstate = (nil), callable = 0x20088288, args = 0x2ff1e930, nargs = 131, keywords = 0x10167b48), line 215 in "call.c"
_PyEval_EvalFrameDefault(tstate = 0x100b2a6c, f = 0x303a1268, throwflag = 806335952), line 1429 in "abstract.h"
_PyEval_Vector(tstate = 0x100ef278, con = 0x300fd59a, locals = 0x2ff1ea90, args = 0x20045994, argcount = 806339296, kwnames = 0x300ff6a0), line 46 in "pycore_ceval.h"

Dome some 'dumb' testing - and I hope this helps understand why it is failing:

With the the last two func() calls commented out, the function passes:

    def test_output_string(self):
        stdscr = self.stdscr
        encoding = stdscr.encoding
        # addstr()/insstr()
        for func in [stdscr.addstr, stdscr.insstr]:
            with self.subTest(func.__qualname__):
                stdscr.move(0, 0)
                func('abcd')
                func(b'abcd')
                s = 'à▒^▒ç▒^▒'
                try:
                    func(s)
                except UnicodeEncodeError:
                    self.assertRaises(UnicodeEncodeError, s.encode, encoding)
                func('abcd', curses.A_BOLD)
                # func(1, 2, 'abcd')
                # func(2, 3, 'abcd', curses.A_BOLD)