[Pythonmac-SIG] No arbitrary precison math on Mac-tel say it ain't so!

[Alex Martelli]

On Apr 22, 2006, at 11:23 AM, Daniel Lord wrote:
    ...
>> Apple's assembly syntax is totally irrelevant here.  The reason make
>> check fails is Apple's creative *ld semantics*: an object file inside
>> a library file is NOT brought in if the only symbols it satisfies are
>> DATA ones.
    ...
>> http://swox.com/list-archives/gmp-bugs/attachments/20060407/f364005b/
>> patch-0001.obj
>
> Thanks Alex! I'll give this a try. I have to believe there is a way  
> around this--we just need to find the right person at Apple. I know  
> someone who might know someone...

OK, let's give it a try.  But making 'make check' pass is secondary:  
we already have the tiny patch to GMP 4.2 to do so, getting it into  
GMP 4.2 itself is important (to help out others) but mostly a  
political fight (on which pressure from Apple might hinder as much as  
help!-).

> I'll try to do what I can to help with gmpy though the inner  
> workings of ld are probably too arcane and labyrinthine for me.

It's not just gmpy, but anything that needs to be linked as -bundle,  
whatever that means exactly.  The workings of ld are slightly arcane  
-- I did already ask for advice from colleagues who I thought SHOULD  
know; for example, Matt Austern, who besides authoring "Generic  
programming and the STL" and shepherding library standards for the  
next generation of C++, led the gcc 4 group at Apple, focusing on  
many optimizations therefor... *he* easily admits that linking on  
MacOSX (as soon as dylibs, bundles, frameworks, and the interplay of  
their namespaces and constraints enters the picture) is something he  
never fully fathomed (no real need for him to delve into that, it  
appears).  autoconf and friends are even scarier (to me, at  
least)...;-).


Alex