Setupterm could not find terminal, in Python program using curses

python curses
user1017102 picture user1017102 · Feb 28, 2012 · Viewed 26.8k times · Source

I am trying to get a simple curses script to run using Python (with PyCharm 2.0).

This is my script:

import curses
stdscr = curses.initscr()
curses.noecho()
curses.cbreak()
stdscr.keypad(1)
while 1:
    c = stdscr.getch()
    if c == ord('p'): print("I pressed p")
    elif c == ord('q'): break

curses.nocbreak(); stdscr.keypad(0); curses.echo()
curses.endwin()

When I run this from my IDE (PyCharm 2) I get the following error:


_curses.error: setupterm: could not find terminal
Process finished with exit code 1

If I run the script from bash it will simply be stuck in the while loop not reacting to either pressing p or q.

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer

irk_coder picture irk_coder · Feb 5, 2014

You must set enviroment variables TERM and TERMINFO, like this:

export TERM=linux
export TERMINFO=/etc/terminfo

And, if you device have no this dir (/etc/terminfo), make it, and copy terminfo database.

For "linux", and "pcansi" terminals you can download database:

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