Re: [Bug-GnuCOBOL] [GnuCOBOL 3.0-rc1] testsuite 18 19 20 failed

[James K. Lowden]

On Sun, 9 Sep 2018 20:24:49 +0200
Simon Sobisch <address@hidden> wrote:

> All fail with
> +libcob: entry point 'prog' not found
> 
> This is a place where we should extend the error handling to show more
> details, but in general this always happens if the runtime:
> 
> * find the so/dll
> * loads the so/dll
> * cannot call the entry point that was generated
> 
> Interesting questions:
> * Do you have any other cobc/cobcrun/libcob in PATH?
> * Do you have any other prog.exe/prog.dll in PATH?

Doesn't that message also happen if Program-ID doesn't match the SO
name?  I might be misremembering.  

Suggestion: if failure to find the entry point can be caused by using
the wrong supporting dynamic library due to PATH configuration, it
would be useful to display (perhaps in some verbose mode) which
libraries are in use at the time the error occurs.  It's much easier
for the user to track down why library X is being used when X is
known, than to look for all possible versions of X by recreating the
search implied by PATH.  And, if X is the correct version, it saves the
effort of eliminating an impossibility.  

Under Linux the dynamic linker is documented, and the sophisticated
user can provoke debugging messages to trace its operation. Under
Windows, not so much.  I don't know where that line is crossed in
Cygwin.  If ld.so is documented, it might be possible to make it report
which libraries it loads in a specific process, using environment
variables.