testsuite, failures galore

[Daniel Fischer]

On Tuesday 31 May 2011 12:31:36, Simon Marlow wrote:
> > The ticket has low priority, but if anybody has an idea how to check
> > whether libbfd depends on libz in the configure script, I'd appreciate
> > it.
> 
> Could you install a shared version of libbfd?

I have one,

$ locate libbfd
/home/dafis/.deps/libbfd.Plo
/usr/lib/libbfd-2.20.0.20100122-6.so
/usr/lib/libbfd.a
/usr/lib/libbfd.la

The problem is, as far as I can tell, that a) libbfd.a is picked up instead 
of the .so in the first place, and b) that both depend on libz:

$ ldd /usr/lib/libbfd-2.20.0.20100122-6.so 
        linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0xffffe000)
        libz.so.1 => /lib/libz.so.1 (0xb743e000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0xb72d3000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb76fd000)

There's

# Libraries that this one depends upon.
dependency_libs=' -lz'

in libbfd.la, and the inflate* symbols are undefined in libbfd*.

> Failing that, the
> easiest  thing to do would be to make a test that compiles a program
> depending on libbfd and if it fails to link, just disable HAVE_LIBBFD
> (it's no great loss).

I'm far from an expert, but as far as I can see, there is already such a 
test, in configure.ac:

AC_CHECK_LIB(bfd,    bfd_init)

with a test using bfd_init in configure. Unfortunately, that doesn't detect 
if libz is needed without using some functions depending on it.
If I had the slightest idea how to make it detect the dependency on libz, I 
happily would, but I've not yet found any introduction to shell scripting 
or using autotools accessible to a complete beginner.

> 
> Cheers,
>         Simon