Re: Any AIX experts out there?

On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 10:25:00PM +0100, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> Laura Creighton wrote:
> >The Snake Farm is having trouble building Python on AIX.
> >See: 
> >http://lists.lysator.liu.se/pipermail/snake-farm/2003-January/000654.html
> >
> >Does anybody recognise these symptoms?
> 
> Some tips:
> 
> * you may not rename the binary of the interpreter after you have
>   built it; use a symbolic link instead (e.g. copying "python"
>   to "python2.2" and the running python2.2 will cause the AIX
>   dynamic linker to dump core).
> 
> * building has to be done with:
> 
>   configure --without-gcc
>   gmake CC=cc_r OPT="-O2 -qmaxmem=4000"
>   gmake CC=cc_r OPT="-O2 -qmaxmem=4000" install
> 
>   (gmake == GNU make; this is important !)

I am able to build now based on information provided by Gary Hooks
from IBM.  Here's what he said:

        The python.exp list is wrong.  Using only the #! means that
        every listed symbol is a deferred import, and those are
        resolved by loading subsequent modules or calling loadbind().
        What you need is a first line that has 3 characters: "#!."
        The period is critical.  It tells the binder,and later the
        loader, that the symbol comes from the main application.  This
        is why the module call-back fails.

        The "." syntax was introduced in AIX 4.2.  The question is
        really, what code was doing the dynamic loading?  If it worked
        on AIX 3.2 and 4.1, then it's pretty certain that Jens
        Uwe-Mager's dlopen implementation was being used, and his code
        did a full loadbind() of every module against every other
        module.  That would have resolved the deferred imports.
        AFAIK, that old dlopen code still works, although we encourage
        people to use the native dlopen API.

        If you put the period in, the import list won't be handled
        properly pre-4.2.  Yes, much changed in that release.  So you
        have a bit of a conundrum.  Not sure if configure can be
        trained to figure out the version/release and manipulate the
        import list appropriately...

I've modified configure to recognize if we are AIX 4.2+ and add in the
period.  Is it possible that no one else is using dynamic (shared)
libraries on AIX 4.2+?

Neal