AIX + GCC 2.95.3 - Python (2.1 or 2.2) - building the shared library (.so) for python - HOW TO?!?

Donn Cave donn at u.washington.edu
Mon Jul 7 12:35:40 EDT 2003


In article <m3y8zdz9fe.fsf at mira.informatik.hu-berlin.de>,
 martin at v.loewis.de (Martin v. Lowis) wrote:

> hab <hab at polbox.com> writes:
> 
> > (If I use standard -shared linking, during the _import python is crashing.)
> > As seen in in AIX-NOTES there should be used ld_so_aix. But I suspect
> > that it was prepared for standard xlC (CC) compiler. How to make it
> > running for GCC compiler?
> 
> Nobody knows anything about AIX in the Python world. You have to make
> it work yourself.
> 
> > 1. Why is such nonuderstandable-ultimate-tricky solution prepared for AIX?
> 
> There are two possible reasons:
> 1. AIX is such a strange system that you need to play dirty tricks to
>    make it load modules dynamically.
> 2. Whoever ported shared loading to AIX didn't know anything about the
>    system, and tried random things until he got a working solution.
> 
> I don't know which one it is, but I'm leaning towards 1)

AIX is a classic example of underemployed engineers working in a
vacuum.  It's strange, sometimes arguably better but rarely worth
the trouble.  Linux strikes me a bit the same way, actually, and
IBM's interest in Linux is no surprise.  I doubt there are any really
dirty tricks, but there is a point at which things like this are
going to depend on the compiler software.  ld_so_aix works fine with
xlc, in my experience, and there's no reason to look for malfeasance
on either side to explain why it stops there.  If you want a normal
UNIX platform with an open architecture, try one of the BSDs, or Linux
if you're not that picky about the normal UNIX part.  If you're obliged
to work on AIX, then whoever's paying for AIX should happy to pay for
the compiler too.

   Donn Cave, donn at u.washington.edu




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