Re: pthread?

[Theodore Tso <tytso MIT EDU>]

On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 11:58:22PM +0200, Carlo Wood wrote:
> A user of ext3grep had a configuration problem
> that I tracked down to the fact that
> 
> pkg-config --cflags ext2fs
> 
> returns
> 
> -pthread
> 
> Why does it return -pthread ?

What distribution and what version of e2fsprogs is this user using?

I'm going to guess that he is using SuSE or some OpenSuSE derivitive,
and it's because SuSE bludgeoned in a pthreads mutex into the
internals of libcom_err.  Since libext2fs can call libcom_err, it
follows that a program that links with libext2fs needs to also be
compiled and linked with -pthread.

It's for this reason I've resisted including SuSE's, because the race
they are concerned about is largely theoretical, and it causes
problems for people who want to link against libcom_err.  

What I probably should do add in locking using sem_wait/sem_post,
which doesn't require any Posix pthread nonsense.

						- Ted