[kw-pm] numerous "perl: symbol lookup error" issues in a large software build

[Fulko Hew]

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 8:13 AM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday at crashcourse.ca> wrote:

... snip ...

> ===== big snip here =====
> cd Pacemaker_Explained && /usr/local/bin/publican build --publish
> --langs=all --formats=pdf,html,html-single,txt
> perl: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/perl5/auto/HTML/Parser/Parser.so:
> undefined symbol: Perl_Istack_sp_ptr
> Makefile:617: *** [Pacemaker_Explained.txt] Error 127
> ===== end build =====
>
>  obviously(?), the publican package is invoking perl, and there's
> some XML and HTML parsing going on behind the scenes, at which point
> we have that symbol lookup error.

My take on this is that Parser is written partly in Perl, and partly
in (probably) C.
(the stuff in the .so file).  When 'Parser' was packaged/installed on Ubuntu,
they packaged up/installed the Perl part, but not the corresponding .so
file (or its an _incompatible_ version of the .so file).

... snip ...

> i need to replace/update that with the CPAN module.

Because that would provide you with the appropriate (working)
_pair_ of files.

>  if that's correct, i don't understand why.  also, i would think i'd
> have to remove that ubuntu package first, and there's a *ton* of
> packages that depend on it, so that's not going to happen.  would i
> simply use CPAN to install that module?  and would it take precedence?
> and, ***most importantly***, why would that solve things?  what kind
> of problem is this that installing a newer module would solve?  and
> does it represent something in the build software itself that needs to
> be tweaked?  in short, i not only want a solution, i want to know why
> this is happening and how to avoid it in the future.  but wait,
> there's more.

Hopefully when you rebuild it, it will be built (to install) in the same
places as what Ubuntu does when they create their distribution.

When you rebuild, you should pay attention to what is being installed
and where, so that you can console yourself that you've done the
right thing to the right places.

... snip ...

>  so ... what do i do?  do i just install a newer CPAN module, which
> would override the current ubuntu package module?  is that the
> recommended solution?  and why?

Yup, that would be my first approach (short of getting Ubuntu to fix their
distribution, but you said you need the problem fixed 'this morning').

Fulko