[Python-Dev] How to build Python 2.6.2 on HP-UX Itanium with thread support?

[David Ripton]

On 2009.05.13 10:34:55 +0200, henning.vonbargen at arcor.de wrote:
> How to build Python 2.6.2 on HP-UX Itanium with thread support?
> Note: I know that the first address to post this question is comp.lang.python, but
> I posted this question a week ago on comp.lang.python
> (http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/c7006ad8e5cf81e8)
> and unfortunately, I didn't receive any answers.
> 
> According to Patch 1225212, 
> at least Peter Kropf was able to get Python running with threading support 
> on this platform, though AFAIK he was not using GCC.
> 
> But I guess it should be possible with GCC as well.
> 
> Is anyone able to confirm that Python (built with GCC)
> does or does not work with multi-threading on HP-UX Itanium?

The good news:

I did get Python 2.4.x working on HP-UX Itanium, with threading.  The
compiler was gcc 4.0.x.  (I also tried building Python with aCC, but
failed.)  I remember building both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

I don't remember it being that hard.  Used the source for the package at
hpux.connect.org.uk as a starting point, since it had a lot of good
porting tweaks, but it needed some further tweaking.  (The main one I
remember that is that the shared library extension for Itanium should be
.so not .sl  There were also a bunch of paths that required appending 32
or 64.)

We used that build of Python in production, for very heavily
multithreaded code, on multi-CPU boxes.  Worked fine.  AFAIK they're
still using it.

I'm not sure why the binary available at hpux.connect.org.uk has
threading disabled.  I suspect that some older version of HP/UX had
pthread bugs that got fixed somewhere along the line.


The bad news:

I did this about 3.5 years ago, and I don't work there anymore, so I
don't have access to that HP-UX hardware anymore, or to the notes I made
when I was doing the port.  So I can give you encouragement but not
step-by-step instructions.  Sorry.

-- 
David Ripton    dripton at ripton.net