Windows only | ffi-libarchive-binary/libarchive-13.dll': . (LoadError)

[CAMOBAP]

C:/Users/IEUser/packed-mn/build/ocrC328.tmp/lib/ruby/gems/2.7.0/gems/ffi-1.15.4-x64-mingw32/lib/ffi/library.rb:145:in `block in ffi_lib': Could not open library 'C:/Users/IEUser/packed-mn/build/ocrC328.tmp/lib/ruby/gems/2.7.0/gems/ffi-libarchive-binary-0.2.4-x64-mingw32/lib/ffi-libarchive-binary/libarchive-13.dll': . (LoadError)
Could not open library 'libarchive.so.13': The specified module could not be found.\r
.
Could not open library 'libarchive.so.13.dll': The specified module could not be found.\r
.
Could not open library 'libarchive.13': The specified module could not be found.\r
.
Could not open library 'libarchive.13.dll': The specified module could not be found.\r
.
Could not open library 'libarchive-13': The specified module could not be found.\r
.
Could not open library 'libarchive-13.dll': The specified module could not be found.\r
.
Could not open library 'libarchive.so': The specified module could not be found.\r
.
Could not open library 'libarchive.so.dll': The specified module could not be found.\r
.
Could not open library 'libarchive': The specified module could not be found.\r
.
Could not open library 'libarchive.dll': The specified module could not be found.\r
.
Could not open library 'archive': The specified module could not be found.\r
.
Could not open library 'archive.dll': The specified module could not be found.\r

[CAMOBAP]

Originally found in https://github.com/metanorma/iso-10303-2/issues/49

Crash related to missing dll dependency (ffi-libarchive->ffi-libarchive-binary->libarchive->libexpat-1). The last one libexpat-1 comes from msys2 this is why it doesn't fail on CI and in my environment initially

What I have done so far:

1. spent much time to find the root of the issue
2. checked possibility to build libarchive with static libexpat, there is no such option out of the box
3. tried to put all dependencies in the same directory as libexpat-1, doesn't work too
4. now I checking how ocra script will handle metadata["msys2_mingw_dependencies"] in gemfile

[maxirmx]

libarchive is the module that creates pain :)
On Linux its share version looks around to find other shared libraries which can do the real work. For example, if liblzma.so is found then libarchive supports lzma encoding. Static libary is compiled against predefined set of static archive libraries at the time when binary distribution created. This is not necessarily theset of libraries which is present at the system where this script is executed.
.
It looks like Windows version is eevn worse and seeks to replicate build environment even for shared (dll) version. It is possible that it is necessary to use the same pre-set of libraries both for build and distribution.

There is similar problem solved here: https://github.com/mhx/dwarfs/blob/main/CMakeLists.txt . Look for keyword "pain"

[CAMOBAP]

On Linux its share version looks around to find other shared libraries which can do the real work.

As far as I understood it depends on which flags were feeded to ./configure.
if we will pass --without-lzma it will not even try to lookup 'backend' library to do compression.

Static libary is compiled against predefined set of static archive libraries at the time when binary distribution created. This is not necessarily theset of libraries which is present at the system where this script is executed.

Agree this is what we did in fontist/ffi-libarchive-binary#8

It looks like Windows version is eevn worse and seeks to replicate build environment even for shared (dll) version

Yep, I have tried to put those missing DLLs in the same package where libarchive was, but "Windows doesn't like it" and still try to go own way to search places to load those DLLs (

BTW PR is green now so I hope we will not face this issue in future

[CAMOBAP]

@maxirmx maybe you can share your opinion what are downsides of static link, I trying to decide should we do static link only for windows or for all our platforms.

• Size not much different
• AFAIK zlib and libexpat present on all Linux distribs because it's very basic libraries

Anything else we should consider?

[CAMOBAP]

Fix verified

[maxirmx]

@maxirmx maybe you can share your opinion what are downsides of static link, I trying to decide should we do static link only for windows or for all our platforms.

• Size not much different
• AFAIK zlib and libexpat present on all Linux distribs because it's very basic libraries

Anything else we should consider?

IMHO statically linked module is easier to maintain. No other thoughts