Subject: bug#8559: [Bug Report] gnulib pthread detection prevents coreutils sort from linking

From: "Gary V. Vaughan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:48:59 +0700

When building coreutils-8.11 on Irix 6.3 and Tru64 Unix 5.1, linking
of sort always fails because LIB_PTHREAD=''.  Looking through src/
Makefile.am shows that LIBMULTITHREAD='-lpthread' in both cases,
but sort links with LIB_PTHREAD which is empty, leaving pthread
symbols unresolved.

I'm guessing that the weak_threads test in gnulib pthread.m4 and
friends finds one of the weak pthreads symbols in libc, but sort
wants a symbol not provided by libc.

I have worked around this problem on Irix with:

  ./configure ac_cv_search_pthread_create=-lpthread <rest of args>

And on Tru64 with:

  ./configure CPPFLAGS=-D_REENTRANT ac_cv_search_pthread_create=-lpthread \
  <rest of args>

If I can help track down a better fix that allows pthreads to be
detected properly on these host for coreutils sort and friends,
please don't hesitate to ask.

Cheers,
-- 
Gary V. Vaughan (gary AT gnu DOT org)