Re: building GNU gettext on AIX

[Bruno Haible <bruno@clisp.org>]

[CCing bug-gettext]

David Edelsohn wrote in
<https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc-patches/2023-November/636558.html>:
> The current gettext-0.22.3 fails to build for me on AIX.

Here are some hints to get a successful build of GNU gettext on AIX:

1. Set the recommended environment variables before running configure:
   https://gitlab.com/ghwiki/gnow-how/-/wikis/Platforms/Configuration

   Namely:
   * for a 32-bit build with gcc:
     CC=gcc
     CXX=g++
     CPPFLAGS="-I$PREFIX/include"
     LDFLAGS="-L$PREFIX/lib"
     unset AR NM
   * for a 32-bit build with xlc:
     CC="xlc -qthreaded -qtls"
     CXX="xlC -qthreaded -qtls"
     CPPFLAGS="-I$PREFIX/include"
     LDFLAGS="-L$PREFIX/lib"
     unset AR NM
   * for a 64-bit build with gcc:
     CC="gcc -maix64"
     CXX="g++ -maix64"
     CPPFLAGS="-I$PREFIX/include"
     LDFLAGS="-L$PREFIX/lib"
     AR="ar -X 64"; NM="nm -X 64 -B"
   * for a 64-bit build with xlc:
     CC="xlc -q64 -qthreaded -qtls"
     CXX="xlC -q64 -qthreaded -qtls"
     CPPFLAGS="-I$PREFIX/include"
     LDFLAGS="-L$PREFIX/lib"
     AR="ar -X 64"; NM="nm -X 64 -B"

   where $PREFIX is the value that you pass to the --prefix configure option.

   Rationale: you can run into all sorts of problems if you choose compiler
   options at random and haven't experience with compiler options on that
   platform.

2. Don't use ibm-clang.

   Rationale: It's broken.

3. Don't use -Wall with gcc 10.3.

   Rationale: If you specify -Wall, gettext's configure adds -fanalyzer, which
   has excessive memory requirements in gcc 10.x. In particular, on AIX, it
   makes cc1 crash while compiling regex.c after it has consumed 1 GiB of RAM.

4. Avoid using a --prefix that contains earlier installations of the same
   package.

   Rationale: Because the AIX linker hardcodes directory names in shared
   libraries, GNU libtool has a peculiar configuration on AIX. It ends up
   mixing the in-build-tree libraries with the libraries in the install
   locations, leading to all sorts of errors.

   If you really need to use a --prefix that contains an earlier
   installation of the same package:
     - Either use --disable-shared and remove libgettextlib.a and
       libgettextsrc.a from $PREFIX/lib before starting the build.
     - Or use a mix of "make -k", "make -k install" and ad-hoc workarounds
       that cannot be described in a general way.

Bruno