Re: Error making shared libpcap on AIX

[Guy Harris <guy () alum mit edu>]

Jonathan Gruenhut wrote:
> I’m working on an AIX 5.3, and trying to compile a shared libpcap library (version 0.9.8).

If you're using the source code from tcpdump.org, without any 
modifications, no support is in that source code for building shared 
libraries on AIX.  The person who contributed those patches made it work 
on OS X and Linux, but notes that the "right" solution would be to use 
libtool:

        http://www.tcpdump.org/lists/workers/2003/11/msg00134.html

The process for making shared libraries differs significantly between 
UN*Xes.  I think it's pretty much the same on UN*Xes that use the GNU 
linker and ELF, but that only covers Linux distributions and *BSD; it 
doesn't handle OSes that use ELF but not the GNU linker (e.g., 
SVR4-based UN*Xes such as SunOS 5.x), or OSes that use neither (such as 
AIX).  Thus, the shared library build process added by that patch should 
work on Linux distributions and, probably, *BSD.  The patch also can 
build OS X .dylib files.

The AIX build process is, I think, significantly different from that on 
other UN*Xes - and, if AIX shared libraries have names ending in ".a", 
as I have the impression they do, a simple change won't help, as the 
Makefile would have to have different rules for making libpcap.a on AIX 
and on other UN*Xes (where a .a file is an archive library).

> I searched for this extensively on Google, and kept finding things
> that were similar, but not helpful enough for me. I’d appreciate any
> pointers at all.

        http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual.html

Send us a patch when you get the build process working with libtool. 
(Hopefully there wouldn't be a licensing problem with distributing the 
GPLed scripts generated by libtoolize with the BSD-licensed libpcap.)
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