Re: [mdb-dev] Patch - mdbtools-0.6pre1 compilation problem

[Martin E. <m.a...@nc...>]

On Thursday 15 June 2006 17:10, Moloko Vellocet wrote:
> The problem is that the static variable `mdb_backends' will be declared
> only in the backend.c file, but the mdbtools.h header calls the variable
> (like extern) before the compilation of the backend.c file. 

I have no idea what you mean by "calls the variable".  Functions are called, 
not variables.  Perhaps you mean "declares" or "defines" but -  looking at 
the code - neither of those make sense either.

> The common action to the gcc compiler is to declare the variable (called as
> "extern") if the variable isn't currently declared, so gcc, will present a
> compilation error.

That's what happens on line 150 of mdbtools.h in pre1:

/* hash to store registered backends */
extern GHashTable	*mdb_backends;
 
> The solution for this is to declare a header that will contain the globals
> to the backend.c implementation or

That's a really ugly solution.

> , more commonly, declare the variable 
> mdb_backends as "extern" in each source where it will be used.

That's what happens on line 150, as above.

Looks like that compiler jsn't able to deal with a variable declared 
using 'extern', later being defined in the same compilation unit.  I 
reiterate, the compiler you are using is known to be very buggy.  That's not 
surprising really, x.0.0 releases of a lot of software tends to have the most 
glaring bugs.

You still haven't said what error you get.  I suggest you both a more recent 
compiler and a more recent version of mdbtools - particularly, mdbtools has 
improved a lot since 0.6pre1, which was released two years ago.

Martin