README_hpux11

The idl compiler omniidl requires python. Installing python is normally a simple affair but on HPUX, some more work is required.

If you don't want to build python yourself, you can download the minimal python package from:

ftp://ftp.uk.research.att.com/pub/omniORB/python/

Otherwise, you have to treak the build process of python to get python to install properly. On HPUX 11.00 (haven't tested on 10.x), the python 1.5.2 source from python.org does not build out of the box. Some treakings are required. The source from HP Software Porting And Archive Centre (http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/) is a good starting point but unfortunately the binary package cannot load C++ shared library as python extension modules.

To build a python installation that works for omniORB (and omniORBpy), you should compile python's main() function with aCC. (See the footnote for an explanation of why this is necessary) This involves changing <python_src>/Modules/python.c to something like this:

-------------
/* Minimal main program -- everything is loaded from the library */

#include "Python.h"

#ifndef __cplusplus
extern DL_EXPORT(int) Py_Main();

int
main(argc, argv)
        int argc;
        char **argv;
{
        return Py_Main(argc, argv);
}

#else

extern "C" DL_EXPORT(int) Py_Main(int argc, char** argv);

int
main(int argc, char** argv)
{
        return Py_Main(argc, argv);
}

#endif
-----------------

And compile python.o with the C++ compiler- aCC. This involves adding a dependency rule in Modules/Makefile to use aCC:

python.o: $(srcdir)/python.c
        aCC +DAportable $(CFLAGS) -c $(srcdir)/python.c

Of course the executable python should also be linked with aCC. This is done by changing Modules/Makefile:

LINKCC=         $(PURIFY) aCC

Footnote

On this platform, dlopen(3) refuses to load any library that contains Thread Local Storage (TLS) and is not loaded during program startup. This creates a problem with loading the omniidl C++ support library in python. When the library is built with aCC, the library requires the runtime library libcl which contains TLS. dlopen refuse to load the library because of this dependency.

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Copyright 2000 - AT&T Laboratories Cambridge

omniORB on HPUX 11

Footnote