NetBSD Problem Report #60945

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Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2026 22:58:39 +0000 (UTC)
From: nia@pkgsrc.org
Reply-To: nia@pkgsrc.org
To: gnats-bugs@NetBSD.org
Subject: libmenu (curses): arguments of new_item function should be constified
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X-From4GNATS: "nia@pkgsrc.org via gnats" <gnats-admin@NetBSD.org>

>Number:         60945
>Category:       lib
>Synopsis:       libmenu (curses): arguments of new_item function should be constified
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    lib-bug-people
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Fri Oct 30 23:00:00 +0000 2026
>Last-Modified:  Sun Nov 01 03:15:01 +0000 2026
>Originator:     nia
>Release:        
>Organization:
The CursedBSD Foundation
>Environment:
NetBSD siphon 11.99.9 NetBSD 11.99.9 (SIPHON) #2: Sun Oct 11 21:09:47 CEST 2026  nia@siphon:/encrypt/obj/sys/arch/amd64/compile/SIPHON amd64
>Description:
new_item(3) has the following signature:

ITEM *new_item(char *, char *);

in ncurses it has the following signature:

extern MENU_EXPORT(ITEM *) new_item(const char *, const char *);

The lack of const causes problems because API users probably want to
pass string literals to this function. And then gcc complains that
the const is being discarded.

I don't see why it would need to modify the strings: "new_item()
allocates storage for a new item then copies in the item name
and description for the new item."

libmenu is not part of X/Open Curses, and there's no specification
to go on here. Looks like illumos (i.e. SVR4) libmenu has the same
signature as NetBSD:

extern ITEM *new_item(char *, char *);

Recent decisions made in this field would perhaps indicate we value
compatibility with ncurses over history here.
>How-To-Repeat:

>Fix:

>Audit-Trail:
From: Valery Ushakov <uwe@stderr.spb.ru>
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: lib/60945: libmenu (curses): arguments of new_item function
 should be constified
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2026 06:02:51 +0300

 On Fri, Oct 30, 2026 at 23:00:00 +0000, nia@pkgsrc.org via gnats wrote:

 > new_item(3) has the following signature:
 > 
 > ITEM *new_item(char *, char *);

 The 80's calling :)

 We should fix the constness and align with ncurses.

 -uwe

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