[Python-Dev] Broken build

[Guido van Rossum]

> Based upon Barry's speculation that something might have changed in the
> configure process I mv'd my config.cache out of the way before configuring
> (like Barry, after a cvs up -A).  I was a bit surprised to see these
> changes:
> 
>     % diff config.cache.save config.cache | less
>     185a186
>     > ac_cv_pthread_system_supported=${ac_cv_pthread_system_supported=no}
>     190c191
>     < ac_cv_sizeof_fpos_t=${ac_cv_sizeof_fpos_t=12}
>     ---
>     > ac_cv_sizeof_fpos_t=${ac_cv_sizeof_fpos_t=16}
>     194c195
>     < ac_cv_sizeof_off_t=${ac_cv_sizeof_off_t=4}
>     ---
>     > ac_cv_sizeof_off_t=${ac_cv_sizeof_off_t=8}
> 
> Given that my system hasn't changed in the past couple of days, I wonder why
> it thought the default size of some of these offsets should change.  (New
> update of configure, perhaps?)  Still, I had no problem building on my
> Mandrake 8.0 system.

It has to do with this NEWS item:

- Large file support (LFS) is now automatic when the platform supports
  it; no more manual configuration tweaks are needed.  On Linux, at
  least, it's possible to have a system whose C library supports large
  files but whose kernel doesn't; in this case, large file support is
  still enabled but doesn't do you any good unless you upgrade your
  kernel or share your Python executable with another system whose
  kernel has large file support.

I believe there's an SF bug report mentioning the same problem that
Barry reports.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)