Subject: coreutils-8.24 - sync(1) fails to link on Solaris 10 - missing fdatasync() - solution provided (-lrt)
From: Peter Bray <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 13:10:16 +1000
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>

Greetings,

In attempting to build coreutils-8.24 on Sun Solaris 10 Update 8 and
Oracle Solaris 10 Update 11 (both X86 VMs where the OS is unpatched),
I found that the GNU coreutils sync(1) command would not link, failing
to find the symbol 'fdatasync'.

Investigations show that "configure" correctly detects that
fdatasync() is found in -lrt, the $(LIB_FDATASYNC) make variable has
the correct value. It is just not used in the building of sync(1).

The solution seems simple enough, the addition of $(LIB_FDATASYNC) to
the "src_sync_LDADD" line of the Makefile. This change has been tested
on both releases of Solaris 10 mentioned above and Oracle Solaris 11.2
were the change is not needed (as LIB_FDATASYNC value is the empty
string). That is, fdatasync() is no longer in -lrt on Solaris 11.2

The proper solution would be to update "Makefile.in" (identical
change) or more likely "src/local.mk" (identical change), but as these
systems do not yet have autotools, I have not developed or tested a
final solution. Given the trivial nature of the change, I hope this
will not be an impediment to its acceptance.

Regards,

Peter Bray
Sydney, Australia

The unified GNU diff(1) output of the change as tested is:

--- ./Makefile.orig     2015-07-13 09:33:44.202439000 +0000
+++ ./Makefile  2015-07-13 09:33:50.601564126 +0000
@@ -4534,7 +4534,7 @@
  src_stdbuf_LDADD = $(LDADD) $(LIBICONV)
  src_stty_LDADD = $(LDADD)
  src_sum_LDADD = $(LDADD)
-src_sync_LDADD = $(LDADD)
+src_sync_LDADD = $(LDADD) $(LIB_FDATASYNC)
  src_tac_LDADD = $(LDADD)
  src_tail_LDADD = $(LDADD) $(LIB_NANOSLEEP)
  src_tee_LDADD = $(LDADD)

 From the fdatasync(3RT) manual page, on Solaris 10:

NAME
        fdatasync - synchronize a file's data

SYNOPSIS
        cc [ flag... ] file... -lrt [ library... ]
        #include <unistd.h>

        int fdatasync(int fildes);