configure doesn't find "major()" on HP-UX v11.31

[OrenHeld]

BPO	11102
Nosy	@loewis, @ZackerySpytz, @michael-o
PRs	bpo-11102: Make configure enable major(), makedev(), and minor() on HP-UX #19856
Files	config.log python-configure-hpux-major-fix.patch: Fixes the problem on HPUX. I'm really not sure if it's good for other platforms!

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2011-02-02.20:05:29.971>
labels = ['build', '3.9']
title = 'configure doesn\'t find "major()" on HP-UX v11.31'
updated_at = <Date 2020-06-18.09:13:10.934>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/OrenHeld'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2020-06-18.09:13:10.934>
actor = 'michael-o'
assignee = 'none'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Build']
creation = <Date 2011-02-02.20:05:29.971>
creator = 'Oren_Held'
dependencies = []
files = ['20652', '20653']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 11102
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 6.0
messages = ['127757', '127758', '127760', '127935', '138314', '138385']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['loewis', 'Oren_Held', 'ZackerySpytz', 'michael-o']
pr_nums = ['19856']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = 'patch review'
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'compile error'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue11102'
versions = ['Python 3.9']

[OrenHeld]

The effect eventually is that on HP-UX v3 there are no os.major() and os.minor() functions.

I tried to dig deeper to find out what's wrong, and it seems that 'configure' script fails on 'major' check and thus disables the 'major' feature:

'configure' finds well that /usr/include/sys/sysmacros.h has makedev(), major(), minor() definitions (MAJOR_IN_SYSMACROS==1).

The problem is that including sys/sysmacros.h is not enough, it depends (but doesn't #include) sys/types.h for the definition of dev_t (needed by makedev() macro).

See attached config.log for configure's behavior.

[OrenHeld]

Attaching a patch I've made for fixing the problem in HP-UX, simply by #including sys/types.h on the configure test..

1. I'm not sure it'll be good for all platforms; maybe we need more 'configure' magic here to make it #include <sys/types.h> on this configure test only when needed (e.g. HP-UX v3).

2. Once 'configure' decides to enable the "os.major" feature, 'make' simply compiles it well - I didn't have to fix things in Modules/posixmodule.c (apparently sys/types.h is already loaded). I'm not sure it's smart to count on it.

[loewis]

AFAICT, including sys/types.h by default in the test should be fine. It's a standard header file (atleast for Posixish systems), so it should always be present, and including it shouldn't cause harm even if it's not needed.

[OrenHeld]

Just a small note: after this patch applied, building Python 2.7.1 was successful on Linux (SLES 11, RHEL 5, Ubuntu 10.10), Solaris 10, and HP-UX 11 v3. (I didn't get to build Python on other platforms)

[OrenHeld]

Any tip on how to make this patch get committed? :)

[bitdancer]

Well, one way might be to set up and maintain an HP/UX buildbot :)

Other than that, just keep bugging us periodically until someone gets around to doing it.