HP-UX 10.20 build issues

[ Note: I'm sending this message to get it into the archives, so that others will hopefully not waste hours tracking this down. ] [ Note^2: although I work for HP, the following is *UNOFFICIAL* and *UNSUPPORTED*. This merely reflects my own personal experiences in trying to get XEmacs working under HP-UX. ] OK, I've tracked down the exact cause of my recent build failures with HP-UX 10.20 and XEmacs, but I'm not sure what to do about it. The basic problem is that the undumped XEmacs binary immediately dumps core when run. The cause is, basically, due to recent versions of the audio shared library pulling in the libdce library, which pulls in the libcma threads library. The libcma threads library redefines _start and calls sbrk() (*before* main() is called!) before XEmacs has had a chance to properly adjust the brk() value (via Restore_Shared_Data() in src/unexhp9k800.c). The result is that the call to sbrk() truncates the data segment. To not crash, the undumped XEmacs binary needs to adjust the brk() value, but it's never getting a chance to do so, as libcma is calling sbrk() before main() is even entered. To encounter this crash, you must have enabled native sound in XEmacs and be using a recent version of the audio shared library. Older versions do not pull in the libdce library. I believe versions of the audio library past December 1998 will trigger this problem, and I believe that you have to install audio library patches to encounter this. I'm not sure, but I think the audio patch PHSS_17121 (or a superceeding one, like PHSS_17554, PHSS_17971, or PHSS_18777, etc.) will trigger this. To check if your audio library will cause problems for XEmacs, run "chatr /opt/audio/lib/libAlib.sl". If "libdce" appears in the displayed shared library list, XEmacs will probably encounter problems if audio is enabled. Disabling the use of shared libraries (i.e., use all archive libraries only) is an obvious solution, but the HP-UX audio library only comes in shared form; a static archive version is not available. Unfortunately, without resorting to some really ugly code, I think this means that XEmacs can no longer use recent/newer versions of the audio library under HP-UX 10.20; native audio can no longer be used. I guess the "fix" is to not enable native audio. I don't know if this issue exists under HP-UX 11.0. -- Darryl Okahata darrylo(a)sr.hp.com DISCLAIMER: this message is the author's personal opinion and does not constitute the support, opinion, or policy of Hewlett-Packard, or of the little green men that have been following him all day.