This is not really a bug.
ctypes uses 'objdump', which is not available by default.
(There are reasons not to install binutil on Solaris)

There is no 'objdump' but Solaris has 'elfdump', instead.

ctypes.util.py can use 'elfdump' instead of 'objdump'.

#        cmd = "objdump -p -j .dynamic 2>/dev/null " + f
        cmd = "elfdump -d 2>/dev/null " + f

#        res = re.search(r'\sSONAME\s+([^\s]+)', os.popen(cmd).read())
        res = re.search(r'\sSONAME\s+([^\s]+)\s+([^\s]+)', os.popen(cmd).read())        if not res:
            return None
        return res.group(2) # <<<--- 

//

./Modules/_ctypes/libffi/config.guess
also uses objdump so that file probably needs to be updated as well.

Thank you for your attention.

Thomas, could you take a look?

This is an experimental patch (solaris.patch).  Can you please proofread
it and try it out on the solaris machine?

Hello Thomas,

Thank you for creating the patch.
Unfortunately, it didn't work.
(I rerun the whole installation process)

You used the following to check if the os is Solaris:

if sys.platform.startswith("solaris"):

Under Solaris 2.x sys.platform returns "sunos5".
You could use ...startswith("sunos") but things may be different under
"sunos6" so I usually prefer to use sys.platform == "sunos5".

After fixing this, my application with ctypes works okay.

I'm happy to try out if you create another patch.

Thank you,
Aki-

The patch looks fine to me (with the addition of checking for sunos5
instead). A few things to consider:
- you could check the system at import time, rather than call time, of
_get_soname()
- notice that the file is located in /usr/ccs/bin, which may not be
  in everybody's path. So using an explicit path would be better.
- Sun itself recommend dump(1) instead of elfdump(1) for use 
  in "shell scripts". "/usr/ccs/bin/elfdump -Lpv /lib/libc.so.1"
  gives output including the line "[6]\tSONAME          libc.so.1\n"

Martin, here is a patch (solaris-2.patch), hopefully according to your
comments.

Can someone please test the patch and report back?  -- Thanks

Sorry for not having done this earlier.
I thought this was already closed ...

I used your updated patch and installed the Python 2.5.1 from scratch.
It worked without any problem except python-config issue, which I have
reported in another case [issue1095].

Fixed in SVN: trunk rev 58155, release25-maint rev 58158.
Thanks.