Help getting package to find dynamic library

[Joshua Robbins]

Hello! I've been using PyInstaller gainfully for a while now, but a recent addition of a new package to my installer is causing me some troubles, and I'm stumped as to how one normally solves this issue.

The problem library is Capstone (https://pypi.org/project/capstone/), to be specific. Upon trying to load capstone in single-file Linux executable, it immediately crashes with this error:

     File "capstone/__init__.py", line 315, in <module>

    ImportError: ERROR: fail to load the dynamic library.

I can confirm that the dynamic library that it searches for, libcapstone.so, is present in the installer. I include libcapstone.so by passing it in the​ "binaries" argument to "Analysis" in my .spec file. The relevant code in Capstone that tries to load the library and fails is as such:

    _lib = "libcapstone.so"

    _found = False

    def _load_lib(path):

        lib_file = join(path, _lib)

        if os.path.exists(lib_file):

            return ctypes.cdll.LoadLibrary(lib_file)

        return None

    

    _cs = None

    

    _path_list = [os.getenv('LIBCAPSTONE_PATH', None),

                pkg_resources.resource_filename(__name__, 'lib'),

                join(split(__file__)[0], 'lib'),

                '',

                distutils.sysconfig.get_python_lib(),

                '/usr/lib64']

    

    for _path in _path_list:

        if _path is None: continue

        _cs = _load_lib(_path)

        if _cs is not None: break

    else:

        raise ImportError("ERROR: fail to load the dynamic library.")

What is the standard operating procedure for getting libraries linked to packages that look them up in pkg_resources? If there isn't a way, is there a method of ensuring the "LIBCAPSTONE_PATH" environment variable is set to "_MEIPASS" before any other code runs?

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[bwoodsend]

This is a pretty standard recipe for any missing DLL problems. Edit your spec file putting:

from PyInstaller.utils.hooks import collect_dynamic_libs

at the top then set the binaries argument to collect_dynamic_libs("capstone"):

a = Analysis(...,
             binaries=collect_dynamic_libs("capstone"),
             ...

Then rebuild using:

pyinstaller project-name.spec

​

[Joshua Robbins]

Ah, so that's the trick. I tried it and I can confirm it works. Thanks a million for your help!