I should make the icu-le backend optional.  We definitely don't want to build it by default.  I'll fix that this week and make a new release.

FYI icu 4.8.1 is installed and harfbuzz 0.9.3 was successfully building with it, but 0.9.4 is not.

FYI, upgrading icu to 49.1.2 did not help.

I have a similar, related issue. libharfbuzz is built, but it has a reference to __cxa_pure_virtual bit is not linked to stdc++:

$ nm -D /usr/lib/libharfbuzz.so.0 | grep pure_virtual
         U __cxa_pure_virtual


The __cxa_pure_virtual is defined in libstdc++:
$ nm -D /usr/lib/libstdc\+\+.so.6 | grep pure_virtual
0004c6d0 T __cxa_pure_virtual


My first reaction was that we need link libharfbuzz with -lstdc++, but then I noticed this in configure.ac:

        # Make sure we don't link to libstdc++
        CXXFLAGS="$CXXFLAGS -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions"

So I am a bit confused now...

The problem itself showed up for when building avahi after upgrading pango. from config.log:
configure:22042: checking for python module gtk

/usr/bin/python2.7: symbol '__cxa_pure_virtual': can't resolve symbol in lib '/usr/lib/libharfbuzz.so.0'.

/usr/bin/python2.7: symbol '_ZdlPv': can't resolve symbol in lib '/usr/lib/libharfbuzz.so.0'.

(In reply to comment #4)
> /usr/bin/python2.7: symbol '__cxa_pure_virtual': can't resolve symbol in lib
> '/usr/lib/libharfbuzz.so.0'.

This definitively related icu. When compilini hrafbuzz without icu the problem goes away.

So currently, if icu is used, then harfbuzz should link with -libstdc++. I bet adding -lstdc++ would solve the issue on OSX too.

Thank you, I confirmed that adding -lstdc++ fixed the harfbuzz 0.9.5 build on OS X. I tested on OS X 10.8.2 x86_64 and OS X 10.5.8 i386.

I'm hitting something similar in a regular Fedora box:

make[3]: Entering directory `/home/claudio/git/gnome/harfbuzz/test/api'
  CCLD   test-blob
  CCLD   test-buffer
  CCLD   test-common
  CCLD   test-font
../../src/.libs/libharfbuzz.so: error: undefined reference to 'operator delete(void*)'
../../src/.libs/libharfbuzz.so: error: undefined reference to '__cxa_pure_virtual'
../../src/.libs/libharfbuzz.so: error: undefined reference to 'operator new(unsigned long)'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make[3]: *** [test-blob] Error 1

This is definitely not the right fix but it works it around for me:

diff --git a/src/Makefile.am b/src/Makefile.am
index b7896bf..5505cb1 100644
--- a/src/Makefile.am
+++ b/src/Makefile.am
@@ -196,7 +196,7 @@ harfbuzz_def_dependency = harfbuzz.def
 libharfbuzz_la_LINK = $(CXXLINK) $(libharfbuzz_la_LDFLAGS)
 else
 # Use a C linker, not C++; Don't link to libstdc++
-libharfbuzz_la_LINK = $(LINK) $(libharfbuzz_la_LDFLAGS)
+libharfbuzz_la_LINK = $(LINK) $(libharfbuzz_la_LDFLAGS) -lstdc++
 endif
 
 libharfbuzz_la_SOURCES = $(HBSOURCES) $(HBHEADERS)
diff --git a/test/api/Makefile.am b/test/api/Makefile.am
index c5a015f..2b05c80 100644
--- a/test/api/Makefile.am
+++ b/test/api/Makefile.am
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ MAINTAINERCLEANFILES =
 
 if HAVE_GLIB
 AM_CPPFLAGS = -DSRCDIR="\"$(srcdir)\"" -I$(top_srcdir)/src/ -I$(top_builddir)/src/ $(GLIB_CFLAGS) $(GTHREAD_CFLAGS)
-LDADD = $(top_builddir)/src/libharfbuzz.la $(GLIB_LIBS) $(GTHREAD_LIBS)
+LDADD = $(top_builddir)/src/libharfbuzz.la $(GLIB_LIBS) $(GTHREAD_LIBS) -lstdc++
 
 EXTRA_DIST += hb-test.h

I think I fixed this now.