Question about compiled moduls and dlopen

[caeshmer at yahoo.com]

I'm running Red Hat Linux 7.0, and I installed the RPMs for Python 2.1
from python.org.  I downloaded pygtk from Ximian
(pygtk-0.6.8-ximian.1) which uses python 1.5.2 as shipped by Red Hat,
and patched it to compile with /usr/bin/python2, put stuff in the
python2.1 directory, etc.  So I have both versions of python
installed, and two compilations of pygtk.  Everything works fine
except gdkpixbuf, which is a compiled module.  This is my test
program:

import gdkpixbuf

p = gdkpixbuf.new_from_file("/tmp/spicy.gif")
print p

Under python 1.5.2, it works fine, just loads the file, displays 
<GdkPixbuf object at 80cf920>, and exits.  But when I run it under
python 2.1, I get this error:

python2: error while loading shared libraries:
/usr/lib/gdk-pixbuf/loaders/libpixbufloader-gif.so: undefined symbol:
g_malloc0

What seems to be happening is that the libgdk_pixbuf library (which
the module calls into) loads .so modules of its own to handle
different kinds of image files.  I've used ldd on these
/usr/lib/gdk-pixbuf/loaders/libpixbufloader-????.so files, and it
shows that they aren't linked with libglib, even though they make
calls like g_malloc.  Any program that links directly with
libgdk_pixbuf would generally have to link with libglib, and I'm
assuming dlopen() could resolve g_malloc that way, but I don't know
what happens when you link a python module with libgdk_pixbuf.

I'm assuming something changed in python from version 1.5.2 to 2.1
that caused this problem, I just don't know what.  I noticed that
there are new functions sys.getdlopenflags() and sys.setdlopenflags()
in 2.2, and I'm wondering if they might help solve this problem
somehow.  Did the flags used to open a compiled module change between
1.5.2 and 2.1?

This is a problem that will have to be addressed at some point, and I
figure we may as well discuss it before 2.2 is finally released.