Thanks. Indeed, libffi is alive and well:
...
checking for ffi_closure_alloc in -lffi... yes
checking ffi/ffi.h usability... no
checking ffi/ffi.h presence... no
checking for ffi/ffi.h... no
checking ffi.h usability... yes
checking ffi.h presence... yes
checking for ffi.h... yes
checking whether we can use the existing libffi library ... yes
...
;;; gcc -o libecl.so
-L/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/var/tmp/sage/build/ecl-21.2.1/src/build/
c/main.o c/all_symbols2.o liblsp.a libeclmin.a
-Wl,--rpath,/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib/ -shared
-Wl,-rpath-link,/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib
-L/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib
-Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib
-Wl,-rpath-link,/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib
-L/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib
-Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib
-Wl,-soname,libecl.so.21.2 -lgmp -lgc -lffi -lgc -ldl -lm
Comparing with the failed call
Error code 1 when executing
(EXT:RUN-PROGRAM "gcc" ("-o" "binary-ecl/maxima-package.fas"
"-L/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib/" "/tmp/eclinit0kBo2G.o"
"binary-ecl/maxima-package.o"
"-Wl,--rpath,/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib/" "-shared"
"-Wl,-rpath-link,/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib" "-L/usr
/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib"
"-Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib"
"-Wl,-rpath-link,/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib"
"-L/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib"
"-Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/sage/sage-9.3/local/lib" "-lecl" "-lgmp" "-lgc"
...)):
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lffi
does not seem to reveal anything interesting.
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