The word from the BDFL himself: ----- Forwarded message from Guido van Rossum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -----
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 23:16:48 -0500 From: Guido van Rossum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Python-Dev] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Our application doesn't work with Debian packaged Python] > This message was on the debian-python list. Does anyone know why > the patch is needed? > - handle = dlopen(pathname, RTLD_LAZY); > + handle = dlopen(pathname, RTLD_LAZY | RTLD_GLOBAL); This comes back every once in a while. It means that they have an module whose shared library implementation exports symbols that are needed by another shared library (probably another module). IMO this approach is evil, because RTLD_GLOBAL means that *all* external symbols defined by any module are exported to all other shared libraries, and this will cause conflicts if the same symbol is exported by two different modules -- which can happen quite easily. (I don't know what happens on conflicts -- maybe you get an error, maybe it links to the wrong symbol.) The proper solution would be to put the needed entry points beside the init<module> entry point in a separate shared library. But that's often not how quick-and-dirty extension modules are designed... --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) ----- End forwarded message -----
