I think it's definitely an issue with PyCXX. I installed the latest
version of PyCXX and tried their test example program, and got the
dreaded "Abort trap":
bash-3.2$ python
Python 2.6.2 (r262:71600, Sep 27 2009, 13:41:53)
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import CXX.example
CXX is installed.
The support files you need are in the PYTHON/etc/CXX directory.
The include files are in the distutils include path already.
Just refer to them as "CXX/CXX_Objects.h", etc.
range object created 0x1003140b0
range object destroyed 0x1003140b0
>>> CXX.example.test()
Example Test starting
Trying to convert a NULL to an Py::Int
Abort trap
bash-3.2$ pwd
/Users/was/build/sage-4.1.2.alpha4/spkg/build/matplotlib/trunk/matplotlib/pycxx-6.1.1/Demo/Python2
----
Note that installing PyCXX and their test program was not easy. I
watched their "python setup.py install" fail repeatedly, then I would
copy missing files where they should go, and iterate (about 6 times
I've cc'd the PyCXX maintainer Barry Scott. Barry, do you have access
to an OS X 10.6 install, since it seems PyCXX is broken there? If
not, I can give you an account on a machine at University of
Washington. PyCXX is the single component of Sage
(http://sagemath.org) that is holding us back from finishing the OS X
10.6 port.
-- William
Thanks for all your ideas. Inspired by your remarks I tried again
and the first thing I attempted was to take matplotlib's build lines
for building ft2font (which uses PyCXX) and just paste them into my
console instead of letting them be built under setup.py. Amazingly
enough doing that completely fixes all the problems. That suggests
there is something amis with the environment that Python's distutils
and matplotlib create when building ft2font + pyCXX.
My solution for Sage for now will be to rerun those lines explicitly
when building Sage on OS X 10.6, and hope for John Hunter to be able
to replicate the problem and come up with something better in the next
few weeks (or I'll come back to it later).
William