[Bug 1515159] Re: libfl.so contains text instead of ELF code

[Matthias Klose]

a linker script isn't something unusual. Maybe the versioned .so file as
a linker script is unusual.

flex (2.5.33-6) unstable; urgency=low

  * Starting with version 2.5.33-6 of flex we have started providing
    a static library compiled with position independent code, namely,
    libfl_pic.a.  The problem is with packages that contain share
    libraries with a flex scanner compiled in. Since flex generates code
    that is not self contained, and the missing symbols live in
    libfl.a. However, since linking a shared library with a object
    containing non position independent code stopped working with gcc 4.1
    (apparently, it was sheer luck that it worked at all). So now we also
    provide libfl_pic.a for shared library packages to link with.

    An alternative would have been to provide a full fledged
    shared library, but that would have been a major break with upstream
    and other distributions that also have flex, and would entail
    creating new library and devel packages for flex, which is more work
    that seems justified (considering that we would have to maintain the
    fork, and keep track of any ABI changes, and all that).


so what use case if failing for you?


** Changed in: flex (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Incomplete

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1515159

Title:
  libfl.so contains text instead of ELF code

Status in flex package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  All variants of the package libfl-dev (from precise to xenial, for
  both amd64 and i386) available from http://packages.ubuntu.com/
  contain a broken libfl.so or libfl.so.2.0.0. The file does not contain
  ELF code, but readable text (a GNU ld script according to the text).
  Trying to use a binary that relies on this shared library then
  obviously fails with "error while loading shared libraries:
  /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfl.so.2: invalid ELF header".

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