"_dbm" is missing when compiling Python 3.12.8 on CentOS 6.x

Question

Problem

I'm trying to compile Python 3.12.8 from source on CentOS 6.x without root access because I have no sudo authority.

I ran the following commands for configuration and building:

../configure --prefix=$HOME/local/python --with-openssl=$HOME/local/openssl
make -j24

However, the build process encountered an error:

The necessary bits to build these optional modules were not found:
_dbm

What I tried

First, I installed gdbm 1.24 on $HOME/local/gdbm. The source code was obtained from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gdbm/gdbm-1.24.tar.gz using wget.

Next, I set the enviroment variables like below.

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/local/gdbm/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export CFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/gdbm/include $CFLAGS"
export CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/gdbm/include $CPPFLAGS"
export LDFLAGS="-L$HOME/local/gdbm/lib $LDFLAGS"
export PATH=$HOME/local/gdbm/bin:$PATH
export C_INCLUDE_PATH=$HOME/local/gdbm/include:$C_INCLUDE_PATH
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$HOME/local/gdbm/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH

However, _dbm is still missing.

What additional steps can I take to resolve the missing _dbm dependency and successfully compile Python?　Thank you for reading.

student · Accepted Answer · 2025-01-14 05:26:18Z

1

I solved this problem myself just now.

When compiling gdbm 1.24, I needed to append --enable-libgdbm-compat option. According to GDBM manual, this option provides compatibility for older libraries.

The code needed to run ../configure for gdbm is as follows:

../configure --prefix=$HOME/local/gdbm --enable-libgdbm-compat

After that, install gdbm with the code below as usual:

make
make install

With this fix, I was able to successfully compile and install Python using the code I previously provided in the question.

answered Jan 14 at 5:26

student

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1 Comment

daruma Sep 5 at 10:45

Very useful: the default dbm backend (dbm.dumb) being really bad in terms of performance compared to gdbm

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