Comment 7 for bug 1775673

Thanks for the patch and the steps to reproduce the bug Iain! I played with it and it indeed fixes the package and now I can "require 'ncurses'" in Bionic.

To get it ready for the SRU we need to fix a couple of things in your patch:

* The version string. You used 1.4.9-1ubuntu1 but this version is greater than what we have in Focal (1.4.9-1build5) and it'd cause issues during the upgrade. We should use this version string: 1.4.9-1build3ubuntu0.18.04.1 (it's a not common version string but it will avoid an upgrade issue).

* Closing bugs in the debian/changelog file. You used "Closes: #NNNN" but it will not close bugs filed in Launchpad (it'd close bugs in the Debian BTS). So you should use "LP: #NNNN".

What I mentioned above is mandatory if we want to land this fix. Below I'll mention something that is a suggestion and it is not a blocker (but good to have):

* Patch's headers. I'd add DEP-3 headers [1] at the top of your patch which means a short description, the author, when it was created, and whatever you think it might be useful. Something like this:

Description: Fixes LoadError "ncursesw_bin.so: undefined symbol: set_menu_win"
Author: Georg Müller <https://launchpad.net/~georgmueller>
Reviewed-By: Iain Parris <email address hidden>
Forwarded: not-needed
Ubuntu-Bug: LP#1775673, LP#1787763
Last-Updated: YYYY-MM-DD

With these headers in place you can cleanup your changelog entry and make it more simple, something on this line:

* Add patch to link against libmenuw (LP: #1775673, LP: ##1787763)

Let me know if you have any doubt or problem. I am willing to drive you through the whole process and get this fix landed in Bionic as soon as we can.

[1] https://dep-team.pages.debian.net/deps/dep3/