Autodetect /usr/ccs/bin?

[Anders Qvist]

Several machines in the snake farm fail to build libpython2.3 because
they don't have ar in their path. ar, ld and the like live in
/usr/ccs/bin, which seems to be some kind of standard (for generous
values of standard) as both SunOS 5.8, AIX 4.3 and HP/UX 11.00 seems
ot have this dir.

Should the configure script try with /usr/ccs/bin/ar and ld if none is
explicitly supplied?

[Guido van Rossum]

[Anders Qvist]

Post by Anders Qvist
Several machines in the snake farm fail to build libpython2.3 because
they don't have ar in their path. ar, ld and the like live in
/usr/ccs/bin, which seems to be some kind of standard (for generous
values of standard) as both SunOS 5.8, AIX 4.3 and HP/UX 11.00 seems
ot have this dir.
Should the configure script try with /usr/ccs/bin/ar and ld if none is
explicitly supplied?

This may be a good idea, but I don't know zit about this area. I'm
cc'ing python-dev, maybeo someone there understands this.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

[Martin v. Loewis]

Post by Guido van Rossum

Post by Anders Qvist
Several machines in the snake farm fail to build libpython2.3 because
they don't have ar in their path. ar, ld and the like live in
/usr/ccs/bin, which seems to be some kind of standard (for generous
values of standard) as both SunOS 5.8, AIX 4.3 and HP/UX 11.00 seems
ot have this dir.
Should the configure script try with /usr/ccs/bin/ar and ld if none is
explicitly supplied?

This may be a good idea, but I don't know zit about this area. I'm
cc'ing python-dev, maybeo someone there understands this.

Trying ar from /usr/ccs/bin might be reasonable, but it *must* try
ar from PATH before that.

I fail to see what common scenario this would fail for, though: If you
don't have ar(1) in your path, how do you find make(1)?

In no case configure should try /usr/ccs/bin/ld: Invoking ld directly
is always incorrect (except for archaic systems).

Regards,
Martin

[Tim Rice]

Post by Guido van Rossum
[Anders Qvist]

Post by Anders Qvist
Several machines in the snake farm fail to build libpython2.3 because
they don't have ar in their path. ar, ld and the like live in
/usr/ccs/bin, which seems to be some kind of standard (for generous
values of standard) as both SunOS 5.8, AIX 4.3 and HP/UX 11.00 seems
ot have this dir.
Should the configure script try with /usr/ccs/bin/ar and ld if none is
explicitly supplied?

How about?
AC_PATH_PROG(AR, ar,[AC_MSG_ERROR(Can't find ar in your path)])

Post by Guido van Rossum
This may be a good idea, but I don't know zit about this area. I'm
cc'ing python-dev, maybeo someone there understands this.
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

[Skip Montanaro]

Post by Anders Qvist
Should the configure script try with /usr/ccs/bin/ar and ld if none
is explicitly supplied?

I think you should add /usr/ccs/{lib,bin,include} and /sw/{lib,bin,include}
to places you automatically search for "useful stuff". As Anders pointed
out, /usr/ccs is something of a standard among the more proprietary of the
Unix platforms. /sw/... is where the fink gang installs all the various GNU
goodies on MacOS X. While you won't need to search /sw/bin for ar and ld,
you might well find useful third-party libraries there which various wrapper
modules can use. When I configured XEmacs without asking it to look in
/sw/... it came up with a fairly feeble configuration (no jpeg or png
support). That said, perhaps the /sw thing will work with a simple change
to setup.py. I'm testing a change right now to see if my build picks up
readline or not.

Skip