Re: debugging guile test failure and segfault.

[Greg Troxel]

address@hidden (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

>> --- guile-config/guile-config.in.orig   2006-09-20 00:19:02.000000000 +0000
>> +++ guile-config/guile-config.in
>> @@ -155,7 +155,7 @@
>>                 (if (or (string=? libdir "/usr/lib")
>>                         (string=? libdir "/usr/lib/"))
>>                    ""
>> -                  (string-append "-L" (get-build-info 'libdir)))
>> +                  (string-append "-Wl,-R" (get-build-info 'libdir) "
>> -L" (get-build-info 'libdir)))
>>                (string-join other-flags)
>>
>>                )))
>
> Can you explain why this is needed?  `guile-config' is only used by
> applications that link against Guile.  Did you have troubles compiling
> such applications?

Sorry if this is stuff everyone knows, but..

There are several ways that programs find shared libraries at runtime.
Some of my info is old, so sorry if I am incorrect:

debian way: -rpath is evil.  all libs are in /usr/lib, or use ld.so.conf
or ldconfig of some kind

netbsd way: by default, /usr and /usr/lib are searched.  ldconfig is
messy and LD_LIBRARY_PATH is a gross hack for other than debugging.
Programs should be compiled with -R for directories that are to be
searched at runtime.  In particular, /usr/local/lib and /usr/pkg/lib are
not in the default library search path.

darwin way: absolute path is resolved at link time, and stored, so you
get the same library you linked with (not quite sure on this).

> Besides, `-Wl,-R' can probably not be considered portable.

Probably you are right.  But not having a way to include some sort of
rpath when needed isn't portable either.

My view is that the right answer from a portability viewpoint is to be
aware of the rpath issue and to detect at configure time what the  local
rules are and then follow them.

So probably --enable-rpath at configure should subsistute #t for
@WANT_RPATH@ (instead of #f without) and the code above could be
conditional.

I've had to do similar things on various bits of guile over the years.