In a recent newlisp build on Linux by user hartrock (Stephan), the test qa-ffi failed because it couldn't find where libc was located on hartrock's Linux system. hartrock was building on a 64 bit system and qa-ffi was looking for the 32 bit libc (which naturally didn't exist on his system). The discussion was fleshed out a little here: http://www.newlispfanclub.alh.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4377.
The upshot is that the current expression which establishes the libc pointer is now the following.
("Win32" "msvcrt.dll")
("OSX" "libc.dylib")
("Linux" (if is64bit
"/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6"
"/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libc.so.6"))
))
But hartrock suggested that the definition might be changed to be more robust ("Works for me (Debian 64-bit), but should be checked for other Linuxes, too"). He's right, of course.
So, here are two methods I found which seem more robust than the current method. I wonder if you Linux gearheads here would scrutinize these.
One method is to ask gcc where libc is located. This method is discussed here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9705660/check-glibc-version-for-a-particular-gcc-compiler#9706172. Here it is implemented.
(case ostype
("Win32" "msvcrt.dll")
("OSX" "libc.dylib")
("Linux"
(letn (libc-name (first (exec "gcc -print-file-name=libc.so"))
libc-filetype (first (exec (string "file -b " libc-name))))
(if (find "ASCII" libc-filetype)
(first (regex "[^ t]+/libc\.so\.*[0-9]*" (read-file libc-name)))
libc-name)))
))
Another method is to call ldd on the newlisp executable. This resource talks about this: http://mylinuxbook.com/how-to-determine-gnu-c-library-glibc-version-on-linux-system/. Here is that one implemented. It assumes that the user has built the newlisp executable in the build directory.
(case ostype
("Win32" "msvcrt.dll")
("OSX" "libc.dylib")
("Linux"
(nth 2
(parse
(first
(filter (curry find "libc.so")
(if (ends-with (real-path) "qa-specific-tests")
(exec "ldd ../newlisp")
(exec "ldd ./newlisp")))))))
))
I've only tested these on an Ubuntu 12.04 system. I favor the first method. Thoughts? Thanks!
Thanks Rick. Also runs fine on the next version UBUNTU 13.04 32-bits.