332075 - Properly support MOZ_FIX_LINK_PATHS on AIX

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 450909

(Core :: XPCOM, defect)

Description

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

The AIX tinderbox is currently broken with this error:
xlC_r -qmkshrobj=1 -o libxpcom.so  nsXPComStub.o    -lpthreads -bh:5 -Wl,-brtl -blibpath:/usr/lib:/lib   -L../../dist/bin -L../../dist/lib -Wl,-rpath-link,../../dist/bin -lxpcom_core -L../../dist/lib -lplds4 -lplc4 -lnspr4 -lpthreads -ldl -lC_r -ldl -lm -lc_r    
ld: 0706-012 The -p flag is not recognized.
ld: 0706-012 The -a flag is not recognized.
ld: 0706-012 The -t flag is not recognized.
ld: 0706-012 The -h flag is not recognized.
ld: 0706-012 The -- flag is not recognized.
ld: 0706-006 Cannot find or open library file: -l ink
	ld:open(): No such file or directory

Sounds like AIX needs its own -rpath-link equivalent specified in configure.in, as MOZ_FIX_LINK_PATHS.

Comment 1

[jag (Peter Annema)]

If I understand things correctly, there's no direct equivalent to -rpath-link. Apparently if a -L<path_to_libs> is specified and libraries in it are linked in, that path_to_libs is recorded in the final binary (applied to each -L...), with :/usr/lib:/lib always appended at the end.

However, if -blibpath:<path1>:<path2>:... is specified, then that trumps the above and only the explicitly specified paths are recorded (:/usr/lib:/lib aren't appended, you need to specify them explicitly).

And we're already using -blibpath, so all we need to do is figure out if /usr/lib:/lib is sufficient, or if we need to add to it.

Oh, and override MOZ_FIX_LINK_PATHS to something without -Wl,-rpath-link,...

Comment 2

[jag (Peter Annema)]

See also bug 332053 comment 7 and 8

Comment 3

[Benjamin Smedberg]

The needed functionality of the flag is to specify a path to locate dependent libraries, so that you can link against the (frozen) libxpcom.so without specifying the (nonfrozen) libxpcom_core.so anywhere on the link line.

Comment 4

[jag (Peter Annema)]

Attachment: Clear out MOZ_FIX_LINK_PATHS

Comment 5

[jag (Peter Annema)]

So, AIX is green again, but it's not the right fix. I just didn't want any other bustage to go in unnoticed. I'm morphing this bug into properly supporting MOZ_FIX_LINK_PATHS on AIX.

At this point I'm taking suggestions as to how to do the following on AIX:

Given X.so which depends on Y.so, and A which depends on X.so, link A against X.so without having A know about Y.so so that at some point in the future X.so could be changed to not link against Y.so (e.g. because Y.so is going away) and A wouldn't have to be updated (e.g. because A is a third party app built on top of whatever provides X.so).

Yes, this is pretty much what bsmedberg said, but I didn't quite get that out of it until he explained things to me in a bit more detail, so I figure it's probably worth repeating here.

Comment 6

[Uli Link (:ul-mcamafia)]

using -blibpath:/usr/lib:/lib is sufficiant for my AIX 4.3.3 and AIX 5.1 builds as the libs installed by AIX toolbox under /opt/freeware/lib are symlinked into /usr/lib
AIX evaluates the LIBPATH environment variable for finding shared objects in addition to linked into -blibpath.
This may be useful if the libs are not installed at the target directory now.

Did this by simple patch setting MOZ_FIX_LINK_PATHS to an empty string in configure before "gmake -f client.mk build"

Comment 7

[Uli Link (:ul-mcamafia)]

Firefox's 3.0.1 "mozilla/configure" contains the fix, is it possible to push this fix also to the 1.8.1 branch?

So this bug can be closed "fixed".

Comment 8

[Uli Link (:ul-mcamafia)]

Have integrated jag's fix into my patch for MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH in bug 450909 and requested review for later landing on branch.