Re: G_MODULE_BIND_LOCAL broke nautilus-python extension

["Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro" <gjc inescporto pt>]

On Wed, 2006-01-25 at 10:15 +0100, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-01-25 at 00:22 +0000, Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro wrote:
> > Regarding this change (after 2.13.3):
> > 
> > 2005-12-13  Alexander Larsson  <alexl redhat com>
> > 
> > 	* libnautilus-private/nautilus-module.c (nautilus_module_load):
> > 	open modules G_MODULE_BIND_LOCAL
> > 
> > It has broken nautilus-python.  See bug #327739.  The problem is that
> > python modules expect to find some standard python symbols in the global
> > scope, but since nautilus is loading the nautilus-python extension
> > module---and consequently libpython24.so itself---in a private scope,
> > all python extension modules fail to load.
> > 
> >   Any thoughts?
> 
> The whole move to BIND_LOCAL is a gnome-wide thing we're doing for
> performance reasons. All other places loading modules were changed
> similarly. Maybe we should discuss this in a wider scope?

  I understand and generally agree with this.  Python itself loads all
modules in a local scope.  I remember how this used to affect some gtk
engines until they were fixed to link explicitly to gtk.

> 
> How can python module look up things in the global scope only? Surely
> the nautilus-python library links to libpython, and thus all the symbols
> in that should be availible to all code that nautilus-python loads?

  nautilus-python library links to libpython, but both nautilus-python
library and libpython are bound to a local scope.  libpython then loads
python modules, but python modules never explicitly link to libpython
(because many times there is no python dll available, only the exe).
Apparently, modules loaded by a library don't automatically use that
library's scope, but instead try to rely on the global scope.

  Clearly python is broken in this respect.  The python shared library
should always be available, and all python extension modules should link
to it.  Then we would not have this problem.  But as it is, there's
nothing we can do.  I wish there was some way to open an exception just
for nautilus-python, make it load with global symbol visibility instead?

  Maybe some metadata xml file.  Or some special naming convention for
the library name?  Yes, it's a bit hackish, I'm ashamed to suggest it :P

> (Clearly I'm not an expert in these things...)

  Me neither.  James, maybe you can help us? :)

  Regards,

-- 
Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro
<gjc inescporto pt> <gustavo users sourceforge net>
The universe is always one step beyond logic.