--disable-shared is entirely broken these days

Started by Tom Lanealmost 14 years ago10 messageshackers
Jump to latest
#1Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us

A gripe today in pgsql-novice made me realize that configure's
--disable-shared option has been useless since 9.0, because it prevents
plpgsql.so from being built, which causes initdb to fail now that
plpgsql is installed "by default" --- which actually seems to mean
"you don't have any choice about whether to install it".

So, a few questions:

1. Should we honor the promise implicit in the "by default" wording
that there should be a way to initdb without plpgsql?

2. Seeing that this is the first complaint since 9.0, should we decide
that --disable-shared is no longer worth supporting? Seems like we
should either make this case work or remove this switch. I notice
that the switch isn't documented anywhere in the SGML docs, either.
If we do keep it, we'd better document that it results in a severely
crippled version of Postgres.

regards, tom lane

#2Daniel Farina
daniel@heroku.com
In reply to: Tom Lane (#1)
Re: --disable-shared is entirely broken these days

On Sat, May 26, 2012 at 12:53 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

2. Seeing that this is the first complaint since 9.0, should we decide
that --disable-shared is no longer worth supporting?  Seems like we
should either make this case work or remove this switch.  I notice
that the switch isn't documented anywhere in the SGML docs, either.
If we do keep it, we'd better document that it results in a severely
crippled version of Postgres.

I can't really imagine the reasons to support this switch at this
time. Compile times are fast, disk space cheap, and if one wanted to
avoid the dynamic linker entirely and use features like replication
(which, IIRC, is dynamically linked for libpqwalreceiver.so) and
plpgsql then people are out of luck without some work of (perhaps?)
questionable value.

--
fdr

#3Peter Eisentraut
peter_e@gmx.net
In reply to: Tom Lane (#1)
Re: --disable-shared is entirely broken these days

On lör, 2012-05-26 at 15:53 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:

2. Seeing that this is the first complaint since 9.0, should we decide
that --disable-shared is no longer worth supporting? Seems like we
should either make this case work or remove this switch.

I think the last remaining use was the QNX port, which didn't support
shared libraries.

We should just remove it now.

#4Bruce Momjian
bruce@momjian.us
In reply to: Peter Eisentraut (#3)
Re: --disable-shared is entirely broken these days

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 02:27:15AM +0300, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

On l�r, 2012-05-26 at 15:53 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:

2. Seeing that this is the first complaint since 9.0, should we decide
that --disable-shared is no longer worth supporting? Seems like we
should either make this case work or remove this switch.

I think the last remaining use was the QNX port, which didn't support
shared libraries.

We should just remove it now.

--disable-shared removed, with the attached, applied patch.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ It's impossible for everything to be true. +

Attachments:

share.difftext/x-diff; charset=us-asciiDownload+0-74
#5Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us
In reply to: Bruce Momjian (#4)
Re: --disable-shared is entirely broken these days

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 02:27:15AM +0300, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

We should just remove it now.

--disable-shared removed, with the attached, applied patch.

No documentation changes?

regards, tom lane

#6Bruce Momjian
bruce@momjian.us
In reply to: Tom Lane (#5)
Re: --disable-shared is entirely broken these days

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 04:50:22PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 02:27:15AM +0300, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

We should just remove it now.

--disable-shared removed, with the attached, applied patch.

No documentation changes?

I couldn't find any place we document it. I did:

grep _shared *.sgml

and no hits were returned. Should I search for something else?

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ It's impossible for everything to be true. +

#7Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us
In reply to: Bruce Momjian (#6)
Re: --disable-shared is entirely broken these days

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 04:50:22PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:

No documentation changes?

I couldn't find any place we document it. I did:
grep _shared *.sgml
and no hits were returned. Should I search for something else?

It's --enable-shared, not --enable_shared. I see at least one hit, in
installation.sgml.

regards, tom lane

#8Bruce Momjian
bruce@momjian.us
In reply to: Tom Lane (#7)
Re: --disable-shared is entirely broken these days

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 04:57:30PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 04:50:22PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:

No documentation changes?

I couldn't find any place we document it. I did:
grep _shared *.sgml
and no hits were returned. Should I search for something else?

It's --enable-shared, not --enable_shared. I see at least one hit, in
installation.sgml.

Oh, got -/_ mixed up. Fixed with attached applied patch.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ It's impossible for everything to be true. +

Attachments:

shared2.difftext/x-diff; charset=us-asciiDownload+3-3
#9Bruce Momjian
bruce@momjian.us
In reply to: Bruce Momjian (#8)
Re: --disable-shared is entirely broken these days

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 05:01:39PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 04:57:30PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 04:50:22PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:

No documentation changes?

I couldn't find any place we document it. I did:
grep _shared *.sgml
and no hits were returned. Should I search for something else?

It's --enable-shared, not --enable_shared. I see at least one hit, in
installation.sgml.

Oh, got -/_ mixed up. Fixed with attached applied patch.

Oops, that text is talking about Python's configure, so I put the text
back. Seemed we had _no_ mention of our own --enable-shared.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ It's impossible for everything to be true. +

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
new file mode 100644
index c02ed87..81cd550
*** a/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
--- b/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
*************** su - postgres
*** 234,241 ****
</para>
<para>
!       If you have problems, run <productname>Python</> 2.3 or later's
!       configure using the <literal>--enable-shared</> flag.  On some
operating systems you don't have to build a shared library, but
you will have to convince the <productname>PostgreSQL</> build
system of this.  Consult the <filename>Makefile</filename> in
--- 234,240 ----
</para>

<para>
! On some
operating systems you don't have to build a shared library, but
you will have to convince the <productname>PostgreSQL</> build
system of this. Consult the <filename>Makefile</filename> in

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ It's impossible for everything to be true. +

#10Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us
In reply to: Bruce Momjian (#9)
Re: --disable-shared is entirely broken these days

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 05:01:39PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:

Oh, got -/_ mixed up. Fixed with attached applied patch.

Oops, that text is talking about Python's configure, so I put the text
back. Seemed we had _no_ mention of our own --enable-shared.

Yeah, I just realized the same. Apparently the configure script's
--help output was indeed the only documentation.

regards, tom lane