_curses.error: setupterm: could not find terminal, Raspberry Pi

Question

Every time I run this script on my Raspberry Pi:

import curses
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

GPIO.setwarnings(False)
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BOARD)

motor1a = 7
motor1b = 11
motor1e = 22
motor2a = 13
motor2b = 16
motor2e = 15

GPIO.setup(motor1a,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(motor1b,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(motor1e,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(motor2a,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(motor2b,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(motor2e,GPIO.OUT)

screen = curses.initscr()
curses.noecho()  
curses.cbreak()
curses.halfdelay(3)
screen.keypad(True)

try:
    while True:   
        char = screen.getch()
        if char == ord('q'):
            break
        elif char == curses.KEY_UP:
            GPIO.output(motor1a,GPIO.HIGH)
            GPIO.output(motor1b,GPIO.LOW)
            GPIO.output(motor1e,GPIO.HIGH)
            GPIO.output(motor2a,GPIO.HIGH)
            GPIO.output(motor2b,GPIO.LOW)
            GPIO.output(motor2e,GPIO.HIGH)
# except SOMEEXCEPTION is missing here, I am not sure why there is an exception in the first place

I get an error:

_curses.error: setupterm: could not find terminal

How can I fix this?

I saw a post where it said to do the following:

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

export TERM=linux ; export TERMINFO=/etc/terminfo

But I'm not sure where to do that step.

This code cannot work - the indents are essential in Python. It is also missing a piece at the end (the closure of `try:`). I fixed it to hopefully something more python-like (`except` is still missing) — WoJ, Jan 27 '18 at 12:38

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 27 '18 at 12:47

In order to use curses, you need to tell which terminal you are using so that the library can send correct commands. This is done by running the commands you provided in a shell, at the same place where you run your program

$ export TERM=linux
$ export TERMINFO=/etc/terminfo
$ python3 myprogram.py

($ is the prompt of the shell, you may have something else)

As I mentioned in my comment, your code will not run anyway, there is an except missing after the try (I am not sure what you need the try for, and you will need to understand this anyway in order to catch the right exception)

_curses.error: setupterm: could not find terminal, Raspberry Pi

1 Answers1