Re: question about "invalid string offset" & "could not read symbols: Malformed archive" linker errors (fwd)

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Roger,

> Do you have any other ways I could extract tapp.o besides using ar?  

Nope, sorry.

> Please find libxvtxmapi.a and tapp.o 

Well that libxvtxmapi.a is definitely corrupt, and he tapp.o file is OK.

> If I take ranlib out of the link.txt file, and then try to build, I get 
> the same malformed archive message on libxvtxmapi.a, so it appears that 
> the corruption occurs before ranlib is called.

OK, then "ar" is the culprit.

> address@hidden debug]$ ar --version
> GNU ar (GNU Binutils) 2.18.50.20080822

Looks good - are you sure that this the version being used by cmake ? 
Ie is it possible that you have other versions of the ar program in your 
search path ?

> Do you have any suggestions in terms of how to intercept the build 
> process?

First check to see if the corruption takes place if you run the "ar" 
command by hand, ie not inside the cmake process.  If the corruption 
does happen then it is the ar program that is to blame.  If the 
corruption does not happen then it is the build process/cmake that is to 
blame.

If it is "ar" that is to blame, please could you see if you can reduce 
the test to as few input object files as possible (whilst still showing 
the corruption of tapp.o) and then put them together into a tarball and 
email it to me, along with a copy of the exact command line that you 
have been using. Ie I would like to try to reproduce the corruption locally.

Cheers
  Nick