Re: Core dumps building Python on AIX

Guido van Rossum wrote:

> Alternatively, you may try to enable most modules statically in the
> Modules/Setup file, and forget about dynamically loading of
> extensions.  But that seems a shame, and should be done as a last
> resort only.

From what I've seen so far.  AIX uses a special functions to do
the dynamic loading in Python/dynload_aix.c.  This was 'necessary'
prior to AIX 4.2 (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/aix-faq/part4/section-21.html).

I *think* we should try to get rid of this mechanism and use the generic
versions of dlopen, dlsym, dlclose from dynload_shlib.  I don't use AIX 
much any more, so this may not be the best approach.

To support earlier versions of AIX (3.2.5 & 4.1.x), there is a dl library
which I believe works.  The dl library is also mentioned in the FAQ
above.

To make this happen, the special casing for AIX in configure.in would
have to be removed.  Probably need some other magic in configure to support
the 3rd party dl library.

AIX 4.2 is pretty old and I don't think IBM supports it anymore.
It looks like IBM is supporting 5.1 and 4.3.  I think 4.2 came
out around 1997 (based on memory).

Neal