I compiled and installed boost 1.46.1 from source recently using: $ ./bootstrap.sh --with-python-version=3.1 $ sudo ./bjam -j4 install I then created the following trivial python extension: #include struct mystruct { int i; }; BOOST_PYTHON_MODULE(test) { using namespace boost::python; class_<mystruct>("Mystruct") .def_readwrite("i", &mystruct::i) ; } and compiled and ran it, but got an undefined symbol error: $ g++ -shared question.cpp -I/usr/include/python3.1 -lboost_python3 -otest.so $ python3 Python 3.1.2 (release31-maint, Sep 17 2010, 20:34:23) [GCC 4.4.5] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

...

...

import test Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> ImportError: ./test.so: undefined symbol: _ZN5boost6python6detail11init_moduleEPKcPFvvE

ldd confirms the missing symbol: $ ldd -r test.so linux-gate.so.1 => (0x00221000) libboost_python3.so.1.46.1 => /usr/local/lib/libboost_python3.so.1.46.1 (0x00a3d000) libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 (0x0022b000) libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x00960000) libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00316000) libutil.so.1 => /lib/libutil.so.1 (0x004b8000) libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00cf2000) libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00be4000) librt.so.1 => /lib/librt.so.1 (0x005d3000) libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00489000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x00fd5000) undefined symbol: PyExc_ImportError (/usr/local/lib/libboost_python3.so.1.46.1) undefined symbol: PyProperty_Type (/usr/local/lib/libboost_python3.so.1.46.1) ... snip ... *undefined symbol: _ZN5boost6python6detail11init_moduleEPKcPFvvE (./test.so) * undefined symbol: _Py_NoneStruct (./test.so) undefined symbol: PyLong_FromLong (./test.so) undefined symbol: PyLong_Type (./test.so) However nm confirms that the symbol exists in /usr/local/lib/libboost_python3.so.1.46.1: $ nm /usr/local/lib/libboost_python3.so.1.46.1 | c++filt | grep init_module 00031a00 T boost::python::detail::init_module(PyModuleDef&, void (*)()) I've tried running ldconfig to update the library cache, as well as compiling the extension with -lpython3.1, but no luck. Ideas appreciated, Vivek