Re: BUG #19727: pg-combinebackup fails to link

That's a good point. This is GCC 16.2 and binutils 2.47...

On Tue, 29 Sept 2026 at 15:48, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>
> PG Bug reporting form <noreply(at)postgresql(dot)org> writes:
> > When I build pg-combineback from postgress 18.6 (in Yocto, cross-compiled on
> > aarch64 to aarch64), it fails to link:
>
> > aarch64-poky-linux-ld: src/common/libpgcommon.a(jsonapi.o): in function
> > `json_lex_number':
> > src/common/jsonapi.c:2379:(.text+0x168): undefined reference to
> > `appendBinaryPQExpBuffer'
>
> You seem to be using a broken linker :-(
>
> pg_combinebackup doesn't use any of the functions in
> src/common/jsonapi.c. Therefore, the jsonapi.o member of
> libpgcommon.a shouldn't get pulled into the link, and its
> unsatisfied dependency on libpq.so shouldn't matter.
> Apparently, whatever build toolchain you're using has
> forgotten this decades-old principle of .a library usage.
>
> regards, tom lane