Today I finally got some time to do maintenance work on one of my side-projects, but immediately was greeted with this while trying to do something locally…

FFI::NotFoundError: Function 'err_set_debug_level' not found in [libsphinxbase.dylib] /Users/mach/.rbenv/versions/2.4.0/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/ffi-1.9.18/lib/ffi/library.rb:275:in `attach_function' /Users/mach/Workspace/pocketsphinx-ruby/lib/pocketsphinx/api/sphinxbase.rb:22:in `<module:Sphinxbase>'

API changes are not something I immediately consider when working on C libraries that are implementing something from the late 70s, with libraries that began to be authored in the early 2000s. Generally, one would get this kind of error when they install an old version (e.g. the FFI tries to bind to some interface element that does not exist), so I spent 40 minutes attempting to fix my installation because I installed an old version from brew initially before installing the correct one. I thought I had caught on by unlinking and installing the correct version, but I go through this procedure again because maybe I forgot something. Built it from source and got the same result.

OK – time to trace through and see what’s going on over here. Here’s a copy of sphinxbase.rb:

module Pocketsphinx
  module API
    module Sphinxbase
      extend FFI::Library
      ffi_lib "libsphinxbase"

      class Argument < FFI::Struct
        layout :name, :string,
          :type, :int,
          :deflt, :string,
          :doc, :string
      end

      # TODO: Document on ruby side?
      attach_function :cmd_ln_parse_r, [:pointer, :pointer, :int32, :pointer, :int], :pointer
      attach_function :cmd_ln_float_r, [:pointer, :string], :double
      attach_function :cmd_ln_set_float_r, [:pointer, :string, :double], :void
      attach_function :cmd_ln_int_r, [:pointer, :string], :int
      attach_function :cmd_ln_set_int_r, [:pointer, :string, :int], :void
      attach_function :cmd_ln_str_r, [:pointer, :string], :string
      attach_function :cmd_ln_set_str_r, [:pointer, :string, :string], :void
      # L22: attach_function :err_set_debug_level, [:int], :int
      attach_function :err_set_logfile, [:string], :int
      attach_function :err_set_logfp, [:pointer], :void
    end
  end
end

L22 shows that we’re supposed to bind to err_set_debug_level(int). Time to head over to the GitHub repo for sphinxbase. The first thing I notice, is this commit:

Pull request is open here to fix the issue. Time to point my project at my local branch and get back to it.