[boost] Re: Trouble with shared_ptr and Forte

From: Christopher Currie (christopher_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-07-23 16:04:41

Brian Oberholtzer wrote:
> I'm trying to use shared_ptr in Forte 5.4 and am getting a link-time error
> like the following indicating an undefined reference...
> 
> The error includes the following hint:
> Hint: static member
> boost::__RTTI__1nFboostPchecked_delete4CpnDstMbasic_string... must be
> defined in the program.  To me it appears that the compiler is expecting a
> parameterized checked_delete to be defined.

You're close; it's actually trying to find the run-type typeinfo for an 
instantiation of boost::checked_deleter, which due to a bug in the Sun 
CC 5.4 compiler doesn't get linked in properly.

Sun is aware of this bug; they have it listed as as bug number 4878628. 
Their bug report provides three workarounds. One is to explictly 
instantiate an instance of boost::checked_deleter in your source code:

// Some file
#include <typeinfo>
#include <string>

namespace
{
   std::type_info const & ti =
     typeid( boost::checked_deleter<std::string> );
}

Bear in mind that you can only do this in one source file. Another 
workaround is to use command-line flags to change how the C++ compiler 
generates template instances. One is to use -instances=global, to give 
template instances global linkage (I haven't tested this, it might 
result in duplicate symbols).

Another is to use the undocumented flags "-Qoption CC -xcomdat", which 
switch the compiler to a new linkage mode for templates. This linkage 
mode is the default in the SunONE Studio 8 compiler. This option does 
work, and makes Sun CC's handling of templates much better (no more 
template repository, joy!), but is not supported by Sun until CC 5.5, 
and it is not compatible with some third party tools such as Purify. YMMV.

If none of these options is acceptable to you, I urge you to contact 
your Sun support representative and demand a patch for bug 4878628 for 
Sun CC 5.4. It does not appear that Sun is willing to fix bugs for which 
there are code workarounds, unless customers insist.

Hope this helps,
Christopher