I believe ncurses.h is in the standard place, but not where it is
configures looks for and the sources include it:

/usr/local/src/build/zsh-4.3.4-dev-2$ grep 'include.*curses' **/*.c
Src/Modules/curses.c:#include "curses.mdh"
Src/Modules/curses.c:#include "curses.pro"
Src/Modules/curses.c:# include <ncurses.h>
Src/Modules/curses.c:#  include <curses.h>
Src/Modules/curses.c:#include "curses_keys.h"
Src/Modules/termcap.c:#   include <curses.h>
Src/Modules/terminfo.c:# include <curses.h>

/usr/local/src/build/zsh-4.3.4-dev-2$ locate ncurses.h
/usr/local/include/ncurses/ncurses.h
/usr/local/include/ncursesw/ncurses.h

so, one should have
#include <ncursesw/ncurses.h>

rather than
#include <ncurses.h>

in Src/Modules/curses.c

Perhaps I should add -I/usr/local/include/ncursesw to the CPPFLAGS?

On 20/11/07 16:14, Peter Stephenson wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:09:27 +0200
> "Zvi Har'El" <rl@math.technion.ac.il> wrote:
>   
>> Another problem. I have two Solaris systems, 2.8 and 2.9. The tar, as
>> well as the CVS Head, do not build. Last time I was able to build was,
>> from the Head
>>
>> -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 548196 2007-11-08 10:24:53.000000000 +0200
>> /usr/local/bin/zsh
>>
>> The I have in these systems, in addition to Solaris's curses, also gnu
>> ncurses 5.6 (installed at /usr/local). For some reason, configure finds
>> ncursesw.so but doesn't find ncurses.h. I attach config.log and
>> config.h.
>>     
>
> Thanks.  We shouldn't search the ncurses library if we haven't found
> the ncurses header.
>
> Obviously it's better to find the header, but the shell may need help doing
> that.  I've added a note to the installation instructions.
>
> The last hunk was supposed to add "-expect_unresolved '*'" to DLLDFLAGS on
> Tru64 Unix, but the mail I sent seems to have gone astray.  I haven't
> tested this.  The idea that the OS still appeared to autoconf as osf* was
> suggested by Google but I don't know that for sure either.
>
> Index: INSTALL
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvsroot/zsh/zsh/INSTALL,v
> retrieving revision 1.32
> diff -u -r1.32 INSTALL
> --- INSTALL	12 Oct 2007 10:18:58 -0000	1.32
> +++ INSTALL	20 Nov 2007 14:08:56 -0000
> @@ -328,6 +328,14 @@
>  to the developers at zsh-workers@sunsite.dk and attempt to recompile with
>  --with-term-lib="tinfo termcap ncurses curses" (see below).
>  
> +Note that use of ncurses requires the header ncurses.h, so this
> +needs to be in the include path.  configure will not search for
> +ncurses or ncursesw unless this is the case.  If you have installed
> +ncurses.h in a non-standard place you may need to pass
> +CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include (or wherever the header is found) to
> +configure.  Similarly, you may need to pass LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/lib
> +(or wherever) in order to find the library.
> +
>  On some systems a suitable development package with a name such as
>  curses-devel or ncurses-devel needs to be installed before zsh can
>  be compiled.  This is likely to be contained on any installation media,
> Index: configure.ac
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvsroot/zsh/zsh/configure.ac,v
> retrieving revision 1.78
> diff -u -r1.78 configure.ac
> --- configure.ac	10 Nov 2007 20:29:27 -0000	1.78
> +++ configure.ac	20 Nov 2007 14:08:58 -0000
> @@ -636,6 +636,17 @@
>  
>  AC_CHECK_LIB(m, pow)
>  
> +dnl Various features of ncurses depend on having the right header
> +dnl (the system's own curses.h may well not be good enough).
> +dnl So don't search for ncurses unless we found the header.
> +if test x$ac_cv_header_ncurses_h = xyes; then
> +  ncursesw_test=ncursesw
> +  ncurses_test=ncurses
> +else
> +  ncursesw_test=
> +  ncurses_test=
> +fi
> +
>  dnl Prefer BSD termcap library to SysV curses library, except on certain
>  dnl SYSV-derived systems.  However, if we find terminfo and termcap
>  dnl stuff in the same library we will use that; typically this
> @@ -648,12 +659,13 @@
>    termcap_curses_order="$withval"
>    AC_SEARCH_LIBS(tigetstr, [$termcap_curses_order])
>  else
> -  termcap_curses_order="ncursesw tinfo termcap ncurses curses"
> +  termcap_curses_order="$ncursesw_test tinfo termcap $ncurses_test curses"
>  fi],
>  [case "$host_os" in
>    hpux10.*|hpux11.*|solaris*)
> -      termcap_curses_order="Hcurses ncursesw ncurses curses termcap" ;;
> -  *)             termcap_curses_order="ncursesw tinfo termcap ncurses curses" ;;
> +   termcap_curses_order="Hcurses $ncursesw_test $ncurses_test curses termcap" ;;
> +  *)
> +   termcap_curses_order="$ncursesw_test tinfo termcap $ncurses_test curses" ;;
>  esac])dnl
>  
>  AH_TEMPLATE([HAVE_BOOLCODES],
> @@ -2357,7 +2369,8 @@
>      esac
>    fi
>    case "$host_os" in
> -    *freebsd*|linux*|irix*|osf*|gnu*|dragonfly*) DLLDFLAGS="${DLLDFLAGS=-shared}" ;;
> +    osf*) DLLDFLAGS="${DLLDFLAGS=-shared -expect_unresolved '*'}" ;;
> +    *freebsd*|linux*|irix*|gnu*|dragonfly*) DLLDFLAGS="${DLLDFLAGS=-shared}" ;;
>      sunos*)       DLLDFLAGS="${DLLDFLAGS=-assert nodefinitions}" ;;
>      sysv4*|esix*) DLLDFLAGS="${DLLDFLAGS=-G $ldflags}" ;;
>      netbsd*)      DLLDFLAGS="${DLLDFLAGS=${DLLDARG}-x -shared --whole-archive}" ;;
>
>   

-- 
Dr. Zvi Har'El      mailto:rl@math.technion.ac.il    Department of Mathematics
tel:+972-54-4227607                  Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
fax:+972-4-8293388  http://www.math.technion.ac.il/~rl/    Haifa 32000, ISRAEL
"If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all." -- Thumper (1942)