[issue44689] MacOS: Python binaries not portable between Catalina and Big Sur

[Tobias Bergkvist]

Tobias Bergkvist <tobias at bergkv.ist> added the comment:

An alternative to using _dyld_shared_cache_contains_path is to use dlopen to check for library existence (which is what Apple recommends in their change notes: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-big-sur-11_0_1-release-notes).

> New in macOS Big Sur 11.0.1, the system ships with a built-in dynamic linker cache of all system-provided libraries. As part of this change, copies of dynamic libraries are no longer present on the filesystem. Code that attempts to check for dynamic library presence by looking for a file at a path or enumerating a directory will fail. Instead, check for library presence by attempting to dlopen() the path, which will correctly check for the library in the cache. (62986286)

I have created a PR which modifies the current find_library from using _dyld_shared_cache_contains_path to dlopen. It passes all of the existing find_library-tests:
https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/27251

There might be downsides to using dlopen (performance?) or something else I haven't considered. The huge upside however, is that the function is basically available on all Unix-systems.

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