[Python-Dev] ctypes and powerpc

[Thomas Heller]

I'd like to ask for help with an issue which I do not know
how to solve.

Please see this bug http://python.org/sf/1563807
"ctypes built with GCC on AIX 5.3 fails with ld ffi error"

Apparently this is a powerpc machine, ctypes builds but cannot be imported
because of undefined symbols like 'ffi_call', 'ffi_prep_closure'.

These symbols are defined in file
  Modules/_ctypes/libffi/src/powerpc/ffi_darwin.c.
The whole contents of this file is enclosed within a

#ifdef __ppc__
...
#endif

block.  IIRC, this block has been added by Ronald for the
Mac universal build.  Now, it seems that on the AIX machine
the __ppc__ symbols is not defined; removing the #ifdef/#endif
makes the built successful.

We have asked (in the SF bug tracker) for the symbols that are defined;
one guy has executed 'gcc -v -c empty.c' and posted the output, as far as I
see these are the symbols defined in gcc:

-D__GNUC__=2
-D__GNUC_MINOR__=9 -D_IBMR2 -D_POWER -D_AIX -D_AIX32 -D_AIX41 -D_AIX43
-D_AIX51 -D_LONG_LONG -D_IBMR2 -D_POWER -D_AIX -D_AIX32 -D_AIX41 -D_AIX43
-D_AIX51 -D_LONG_LONG -Asystem(unix) -Asystem(aix) -D__CHAR_UNSIGNED__
-D_ARCH_COM

What should we do now?  Should the conditional be changed to

#if defined(__ppc__) || defined(_POWER)

or should we suggest to add '-D__ppc__' to the CFLAGS env var, or what?
Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Thomas