Under Solaris, find_library can not give the correct path.
Solaris does not have /sbin/ldconfig, so _findLib_gcc is used.

def _findLib_gcc(name):
        expr = r'[^\(\)\s]*lib%s\.[^\(\)\s]*' % re.escape(name)
        fdout, ccout = tempfile.mkstemp()
        os.close(fdout)
        cmd = 'if type gcc >/dev/null 2>&1; then CC=gcc; else CC=cc; fi;' \
              '$CC -Wl,-t -o ' + ccout + ' 2>&1 -l' + name
        try:
            f = os.popen(cmd)
            trace = f.read()
            f.close()
        finally:
            try:
                os.unlink(ccout)
            except OSError, e:
                if e.errno != errno.ENOENT:
                    raise
        res = re.search(expr, trace)
        if not res:
            return None
        return res.group(0)

I executed these code manually, and after ‘trace = f.read()‘, I printed
the content of 'trace', which was just as following:

Undefined			first referenced
 symbol  			    in file
main                                /usr/lib/crt1.o
ld: fatal: symbol referencing errors. No output written to /tmp/tmpYN85Fm
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

I tested the command 'gcc -Wl,-t' on Ubuntu, it works fine.
But on Solaris, it doesn't work as expected.

Finally I find that gcc does not use GNU ld on Solaris, instead, it uses
SUN ld.

On Solaris, we can use crle to find system library path.

Attached a patch to get find_library work with Solaris.

Above patch failed in a TabError.
Attached a new one.

Under Ubuntu 11.04 is the _findLib_gcc used and not a ldconfig method.

Why should I install a gcc only to find a dynamic library ? It seems not a well design. The usage of ldconfig, what is more natural at a server in the net than a c compiler. Perhaps it can be changed in the next version, because I can see that on other os th ldconfig method would be preferred.

I'm not an python programmer and have not the possibilities to make a regeression test, thats why I can not help.

Is there still time to get this bug fixed in 2.7.3? I patched my 2.7 ctypes/util.py with the latest version (offset a few lines, but no other problems) and verified that it seems to fix the issue.  When running util.py as a main program I see this before running patch:

% python /opt/TWWfsw/python27/lib/python2.7/ctypes/util.py
None
None
None
<CDLL 'libm.so', handle fed807b8 at 82c320c>
<CDLL 'libcrypt.so', handle feb703a8 at 82c320c>
None

After applying the patch:
% python /opt/TWWfsw/python27/lib/python2.7/ctypes/util.py
libm.so.2
libc.so.1
libbz2.so.1
<CDLL 'libm.so', handle fed807b8 at 82c296c>
<CDLL 'libcrypt.so', handle feb703a8 at 82c296c>
libcrypt_d.so.1

New changeset d76fb24d79c3 by Benjamin Peterson in branch '2.7':
fix find_library on Solaris (closes #5289)
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/d76fb24d79c3

New changeset 73574de2068b by Benjamin Peterson in branch '3.3':
fix find_library on Solaris (closes #5289)
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/73574de2068b

New changeset 640a80adb9df by Benjamin Peterson in branch 'default':
merge 3.3 (#5289)
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/640a80adb9df