We haven't seen any agreement emerge as to what is causing AIX 5.3 ML3

to fail to successfully build the release candidates.

However, a patch has emerged (thanks, Seneca!) that does allow it to
work, and which I'd expect to be portable (better still!).

We are still actively pursuing why it breaks, but supposing that still
remains outstanding, at least the following would allow AIX users to
better survive a build...

Chris Browne

doc/FAQ_AIX

 From: Zeugswetter Andreas <ZeugswetterA@spardat.at>
-$Date: 2005/10/24 22:30:35 $
+$Date: 2005/11/04 18:16:50 $
 
 On AIX 4.3.2 PostgreSQL compiled with the native IBM compiler xlc
 (vac.C 5.0.1) passes all regression tests.  Other versions of OS and
@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ Closed date	2005-07-18
 Last modified date	2005-09-06
 
 If you upgrade to maintenance level 5300-03, that will include this
-fix. Use the command "oslevel -r" to determine what maintenance level
+fix.  Use the command "oslevel -r" to determine what maintenance level
 you are at.
 ---
 From: Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@ca.afilias.info>
@@ -113,3 +113,63 @@ libraries, the following URLs may help you...
 http://www.faqs.org/faqs/aix-faq/part4/section-22.html
 
 http://www.han.de/~jum/aix/ldd.c
+---
+From: Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@ca.afilias.info>
+Date: 2005-11-02
+
+On AIX 5.3 ML3 (e.g. maintenance level 5300-03), there is some problem
+with the handling of the pointer to memcpy.  It is speculated that
+this relates to some linker bug that may have been introduced between
+5300-02 and 5300-03, but we have so far been unable to track down the
+cause.
+
+At any rate, the following patch, which "unwraps" the function
+reference, has been observed to allow PG 8.1 pre-releases to pass
+regression tests.
+
+The same behaviour (albeit with varying underlying functions to
+"blame") has been observed when compiling with either GCC 4.0 or IBM
+XLC.
+
+------------ per Seneca Cunningham -------------------
+
+The following patch works on the AIX 5.3 ML3 box here and didn't cause
+any problems with postgres on the x86 desktop.  It's just a cleaner
+version of what I tried earlier.
+
+*** dynahash.c.orig Tue Nov  1 19:41:42 2005
+--- dynahash.c  Tue Nov  1 20:30:33 2005
+***************
+*** 670,676 ****
+
+
+            /* copy key into record */
+            currBucket->hashvalue = hashvalue;
+!           hashp->keycopy(ELEMENTKEY(currBucket), keyPtr, keysize);
+
+
+            /* caller is expected to fill the data field on return */
+
+
+--- 670,687 ----
+
+
+            /* copy key into record */
+            currBucket->hashvalue = hashvalue;
+!           if (hashp->keycopy == memcpy)
+!           {
+!               memcpy(ELEMENTKEY(currBucket), keyPtr, keysize);
+!           }
+!           else if (hashp->keycopy == strncpy)
+!           {
+!               strncpy(ELEMENTKEY(currBucket), keyPtr, keysize);
+!           }
+!           else
+!           {
+!               hashp->keycopy(ELEMENTKEY(currBucket), keyPtr, keysize);
+!           }
+
+
+            /* caller is expected to fill the data field on return */
+
+------------ per Seneca Cunningham -------------------