./python: symbol lookup error: ./python: undefined symbol: __gcov_indirect_call_profiler when compiling python

Question

I am compiling python with the following options...

./configure --prefix="$PREFIX" --enable-optimizations --enable-shared LDFLAGS="-Wl,--rpath=$PREFIX/lib"

and got the following error:

./python: undefined symbol: __gcov_indirect_call_profiler 

It compiled fine the first time, but when I started changing options and recompiling later, I got this error. Changing the options back to the original options didn't help.

What is causing this?

Answer 1

This error is also mentioned here, https://bugs.python.org/issue29712

What is happening is that if you've already done a compilation and installed into $PREFIX, then during a second compile, a step in the makefile will dynamically load the .so library from $PRFEFIX/lib rather than the build environment.

If you rm -rf $PREFIX prior to compiling, you should get a clean build.

I think this has to do with the profile based optimization step of the build and the installed library is missing some expected symbols for that.