CTemplate build issue

[tkoskela]

Ref UCL-CCS/HemePure#34

I'm having a similar issue when building dependencies for HemePure-GPU with the hipcc compiler on the Cosma system.

I'm using

module load hipcc/6.3amd
module load openmpi/5.0.3
cmake .. -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=hipcc -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=hipcc
make

which goes on to compile the threaded libctemplate_* objects and fails with

CXXLD  libctemplate.la
./libtool: eval: line 958: syntax error near unexpected token `|'
./libtool: eval: line 958: `/usr/bin/nm -B  .libs/libctemplate_la-arena.o .libs/libctemplate_la-per_expand_data.o .libs/libctemplate_la-template.o .libs/libctemplate_la-template_annotator.o .libs/libctemplate_la-template_cache.o .libs/libctemplate_la-template_dictionary.o .libs/libctemplate_la-template_modifiers.o .libs/libctemplate_la-template_namelist.o .libs/libctemplate_la-template_pathops.o .libs/libctemplate_la-template_string.o .libs/libctemplate_la-htmlparser.o .libs/libctemplate_la-jsparser.o .libs/libctemplate_la-statemachine.o   |  | /usr/bin/sed 's/.* //' | sort | uniq > .libs/libctemplate.exp'
make[4]: *** [Makefile:1325: libctemplate.la] Error 2
make[3]: *** [Makefile:1202: all] Error 2
make[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/CTemplate.dir/build.make:86: CTemplate-prefix/src/CTemplate-stamp/CTemplate-build] Error 2
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/Makefile2:141: CMakeFiles/CTemplate.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [Makefile:91: all] Error 2

For reference, compiling with cmake .. -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=gcc -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=g++ and

Currently Loaded Modulefiles:
 1) cosma/2024(default)      3) armforge/23.1.0   5) gadgetviewer/1.2.0   7) gnu_comp/14.1.0(default)   9) nvhpc/25.3  
 2) python/3.12.4(default)   4) hdfview/3.3.2     6) utils/202402         8) openmpi/5.0.3(default) 

compiles the libctemplate_nothreads_* objects and completes successfully. I will see if I can understand where the choice of threads vs nothreads is made.

[tkoskela]

Paraphrasing @izacharo's email response to this issue

Solution:

Go to the directory dep/build/CTemplate-prefix/src/CTemplate e.g. in my case:

I. cd /cosma8/data/do018/dc-zach1/code_compilation/HemeLB_GPU_UCL_CCS@ga008/HemePure-GPU/dep/build/CTemplate-prefix/src/CTemplate

II. Open the file named libtool in a text editor

III. Search for global_symbol_pipe=. You will likely find it looks like global_symbol_pipe="".

IV. Replace it with a standard filter. Change that line to use a generic sed command that usually works for Linux/GCC systems (which hipcc mimics):

global_symbol_pipe="sed -n -e 's/^.*[ ]\([ABCDGIRSTW][ABCDGIRSTW]*\)[ ][ ]*\([_A-Za-z][_A-Za-z0-9]*\)$/\1 \2 \2/p'"

V. Run make manually

VI. Go back to the main project directory and resume the main compilation.

[tkoskela]

• This error is a known issue related to outdated libtool scripts generated by older autotools versions failing when executed by modern shell environments or interacting

• with newer compilers like clang-20. It is not specific to ctemplate 2.3 itself but occurs during the compilation of many older packages.

• Solutions to fix this error:

• Regenerate Build System: Run autoreconf -fiv in the source directory to update the libtool script to a version compatible with your current environment.

• Use Alternative Build Methods: Try using cmake instead of the autotools (./configure) method if supported by the project.

• Update Libtool: If autoreconf does not work, ensure your system's libtool package is updated to the latest version.

• The error occurs when libtool tries to process object files, and the nm command fails due to improper parsing of special characters.

One possibility is to rebuild the auto tools (autoconf/automake/libtool) from source.