Index: test/fiddle/test_handle.rb
===================================================================
--- test/fiddle/test_handle.rb	(revision 46310)
+++ test/fiddle/test_handle.rb	(working copy)
@@ -153,22 +153,37 @@
         handle = Handle::NEXT
         refute_nil handle['malloc']
       rescue
-        # BSD
-        #
-        # If dlsym() is called with the special handle RTLD_NEXT, then the search
-        # for the symbol is limited to the shared objects which were loaded after
-        # the one issuing the call to dlsym().  Thus, if the function is called
-        # from the main program, all the shared libraries are searched.  If it is
-        # called from a shared library, all subsequent shared libraries are
-        # searched.  RTLD_NEXT is useful for implementing wrappers around library
-        # functions.  For example, a wrapper function getpid() could access the
-        # "real" getpid() with dlsym(RTLD_NEXT, "getpid").  (Actually, the dlfunc()
-        # interface, below, should be used, since getpid() is a function and not a
-        # data object.)
-        # --- FreeBSD 8.0 dlsym(3)
-        require 'objspace'
-        handle = Handle::NEXT
-        refute_nil handle['Init_objspace']
+        begin
+          # BSD
+          #
+          # If dlsym() is called with the special handle RTLD_NEXT, then the search
+          # for the symbol is limited to the shared objects which were loaded after
+          # the one issuing the call to dlsym().  Thus, if the function is called
+          # from the main program, all the shared libraries are searched.  If it is
+          # called from a shared library, all subsequent shared libraries are
+          # searched.  RTLD_NEXT is useful for implementing wrappers around library
+          # functions.  For example, a wrapper function getpid() could access the
+          # "real" getpid() with dlsym(RTLD_NEXT, "getpid").  (Actually, the dlfunc()
+          # interface, below, should be used, since getpid() is a function and not a
+          # data object.)
+          # --- FreeBSD 8.0 dlsym(3)
+          require 'objspace'
+          handle = Handle::NEXT
+          refute_nil handle['Init_objspace']
+        rescue
+          # AIX
+          #
+          # The behavior of AIX for RTLD_NEXT is the same as that of BSD.
+          # However, the problem is that on AIX, Ruby's extension libraries do not
+          # export their symbols, because they are loaded not by dlopen(3)/dlsym(3)
+          # but by load(3) (See dln.c).  This means 'Init_objspace' is not the search
+          # target of RTLD_NEXT and the test above results in nil.
+          # Fortunately, on AIX, helper.rb creates and loads a dummy shared library,
+          # libaixdltest.so, which contains 'strcpy' and some other functions,
+          # so we can take advantage of it for testing RTLD_NEXT.
+          handle = Handle::NEXT
+          refute_nil handle['strcpy']
+        end
       end
     end unless /mswin|mingw/ =~ RUBY_PLATFORM