On some 64-bit platforms, which include, but is not limited to: * Some version of OS X (I don't know what versions or processors) * Solaris on SPARC processors. * Solaris on x86 processors. * OpenSolaris on SPARC processors. * OpenSolaris on x86 processors. * HP-UX on PA-RISC processors. the default is to build 32-bit objects, but 64-bit objects can be created if needed. This is usually done via adding the -m64 flag when compiling with GCC or SunStudio, though the flag will be different with HP's compiler. Numpy is used as part of Sage, but it would appear that adding -m64 to CFLAGS will not work. A comment in the script used to build numpy shows: # numpy's distutils is buggy and runs a conftest without # taking CFLAGS into account. With 64 bit OSX this results # in *boom* it then goes on to copy a file called gcc_fake, which is basically a script which gets renamed to gcc, but includes the -m64 flag. We are using numpy-1.3.0. Is this a known bug? If not, can I submit it to a bug database? Better still, does anyone have a patch to resolve it - I hate the idea of making I've now changed the build method in Sage so it does not only work on OS X, and does not hard-code the path to gcc. I have: if [ "x$SAGE64" = xyes ]; then echo "Building a 64-bit version of numpy" # HACK ALERT # HACK ALERT # HACK ALERT echo "HACK ALERT - HACK ALERT - HACK ALERT" echo "HACK ALERT - HACK ALERT - HACK ALERT" echo "HACK ALERT - HACK ALERT - HACK ALERT" echo "Creating a sort of fake gcc, which has the -m64 flag" echo "#!/usr/bin/env bash" > $SAGE_LOCAL/bin/gcc echo "`command -v gcc` -m64 \$@" >> $SAGE_LOCAL/bin/gcc chmod 755 $SAGE_LOCAL/bin/gcc fi This this file $SAGE_LOCAL/bin/gcc is used to build just numpy. After that, we can remove it if [ "x$SAGE64" = xyes ]; then echo "deleting fake gcc" rm $SAGE_LOCAL/bin/gcc fi and let the normal gcc program be used with an appropriate setting of CFLAGS to make other packages build 64-bit. I know this issue has been known in Sage for a long time (years) but I don't know if it was ever reported to the Numpy mailing list or added to any bug database Dave