Fedora 7 64bit /usr/lib/libexpat.so: could not read symbols: File in wrong format

GATTACA · 06-21-2007, 02:01 PM

I tried to compile Apache 2.2 from source on my Fedora 7 workstation (64bit install), and during the 'make' step I got this error message:

Code:

/usr/lib/libexpat.so: could not read symbols: File in wrong format

I'm making this post to help anyone else who might run into this problem.

The workaround that I used was to configure apache2 to use the built in expat libraries. So after you untar apache2 use this configure command:

Code:

./configure --with-expat=builtin

After that you should be able to do make and make install without problem.

HTH.

GregLee · 06-21-2007, 07:47 PM

The problem was that /usr/lib/libexpat.so is a 32-bit library, but you need to link with /usr/lib64/libexpat.so, the 64-bit counterpart. I think that deleting the file libtool before running ./configure might help with this, the hope being that a more appropriate version of libtool will be generated that knows to look in /usr/lib64. A more desperate strategy is to temporarily substitute the 64 bit libraries libexpat.* in /usr/lib64 for the 32 bit libraries in /usr/lib. (Or, of course, in this particular case, you can sidestep the issue.)