From: Bryan Hundven <bryanhundven@gmail.com>
To: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
Cc: crossgcc maillist <crossgcc@sourceware.org>,
"Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>,
Ray Donnelly <mingw.android@gmail.com>,
Yann Diorcet <diorcet.yann@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC] Refactor autoconf options and build scripts
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2015 21:23:00 -0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAJ+oik3wyZa_8AjJVRLVKZMAwRDjVmZXGxcW_9qBGdwzEG8XBw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20150912200305.69b80a14@free-electrons.com>
Thomas, Jasmin, all,
On Sat, Sep 12, 2015 at 11:03 AM, Thomas Petazzoni
<thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com> wrote:
> Bryan,
>
> On Tue, 8 Sep 2015 10:32:20 -0700, Bryan Hundven wrote:
>
>> Crosstool-NG has become a very useful and valuable tool for creating
>> custom GCC based toolchains, and over time a lot of new features have
>> been added.
>>
>> The addition of features, and the complexity of options each component
>> can support makes developing new features (multi_cc, multiple
>> different libcs, new targets, new hosts, etc...) very difficult.
>>
>> A large majority of components Crosstool-NG builds utilize the
>> autotools build approach, and have a multitude of different options
>> that may have many external dependencies. These dependencies are
>> difficult at best to track in one build script, let alone across many
>> scripts.
>>
>> My first proposal on re-factoring Crosstool-NG is to move these
>> autoconf arguments (--with-options) to Kconfig options/strings that
>> can be selected or depended on by other components and move them out
>> of the build scripts to additionally simplify the build scripts.
>>
>> For instance:
>>
>> https://github.com/crosstool-ng/crosstool-ng/blob/master/scripts/build/cc/100-gcc.sh#L242
>> ==========================================================
>> if [ "${CT_CC_CXA_ATEXIT}" = "y" ]; then
>> extra_config+=("--enable-__cxa_atexit")
>> else
>> extra_config+=("--disable-__cxa_atexit")
>> fi
>> ==========================================================
>>
>> Could turn into:
>> ==========================================================
>> if CC_CXA_ATEXIT
>> config CC_CXA_ATEXIT_CONFIG
>> string "--enable-__cxa_atexit"
>> depends on CC_CXA_ATEXIT
>> else # ! CC_CXA_ATEXIT
>> config CC_CXA_ATEXIT_CONFIG
>> string "--disable-__cxa_atexit"
>> depends on !CC_CXA_ATEXIT
>> endif # CC_CXA_ATEXIT
>> ==========================================================
>
> I am really unsure this is making things simpler. I personally find
> this in fact more complicated to understand.
>
> However, what I think makes Crosstool-NG overly complicated is the way
> too large number of options. There should be some rationalization:
> support only a smaller subset of the gcc/binutils/C library versions,
> remove seldom used configuration options, etc.
I agree with this. I guess that's why it's an RFC :)
> This profusion of config options also means that a lot of combinations
> are not tested and do not build. My personal experience with
> Crosstool-NG, and the feedback from several users on the list is that
> you very often get build failures when you start toggling options.
Well, I can admit that I have committed updated versions of newer
components without testing all combinations, let alone all samples. I
have also merged PR with out checking if the developer has as well. I
really need a computer where I can run build tests on. Yann has given
me access to one he uses for building, and I need to get time to sit
down and get some build tests going, for at least the samples/
directory.
I would also hope in that testing that I might be able to expose and
to utilize a randconfig for ct-ng. This would help to build random
configs and find combinations of options that should have constraints.
> For
> example, Crosstool-NG does not ensure that the proper cloog/mpc/gmp
> version is selected for a given version of gcc (solution: make the
> version of those components not configurable).
With current master, I know this to be true. I need to be more strict with PRs.
>> My second proposal is to refactor the build scripts themselves into a generic
>> build script. Then the current build scripts (i.e.: scripts/build/cc/100-gcc.sh)
>> would override variables and functionality in the generic build script, as
>> needed.
>>
>> The benefits of making the build scripts more generic and moving the
>> configuration options out of the build scripts would allow for Crosstool-NG to
>> become more flexible for future development.
>
> I think you might be confusing complexity with length. The current build
> scripts may be long, but if it's just a list of:
>
> if [ "${CT_CC_CXA_ATEXIT}" = "y" ]; then
> extra_config+=("--enable-__cxa_atexit")
> else
> extra_config+=("--disable-__cxa_atexit")
> fi
>
> Then it is trivial to understand. If you replace that by something
> "generic" that is shorter but in fact trickier to understand, there is
> no real benefit.
I don't feel that I expressed myself fully, and will re-write my RFC
with a better plan. I still see the value in what I mean, I just don't
think I thought it through enough before sending it.
I appreciate your comments! I will keep those in mind while I rewrite.
> Thomas
> --
> Thomas Petazzoni, CTO, Free Electrons
> Embedded Linux, Kernel and Android engineering
> http://free-electrons.com
--
For unsubscribe information see http://sourceware.org/lists.html#faq
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2015-09-12 21:23 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 26+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2015-09-08 17:32 Bryan Hundven
2015-09-08 23:42 ` Jasmin J.
2015-09-12 18:03 ` Thomas Petazzoni
2015-09-12 21:23 ` Bryan Hundven [this message]
2015-09-13 14:13 ` Trevor Woerner
2015-09-13 23:19 ` Jasmin J.
2015-09-13 23:35 ` Jasmin J.
2015-09-14 0:31 ` Jasmin J.
2015-09-15 14:21 ` Jean-Marie Lemetayer
2015-09-15 14:39 ` Trevor Woerner
2015-09-15 15:22 ` Jean-Marie Lemetayer
2015-09-15 18:30 ` Jasmin J.
2015-09-15 20:38 ` Jasmin J.
2015-09-15 20:49 ` Bryan Hundven
2015-09-15 22:46 ` Jasmin J.
2015-09-15 23:21 ` Bryan Hundven
2015-09-16 11:17 ` Jasmin J.
2015-09-16 11:45 ` Jean-Marie Lemetayer
2015-09-16 11:47 ` Jean-Marie Lemetayer
2015-09-16 13:20 ` Jasmin J.
2015-09-16 13:47 ` Jean-Marie Lemetayer
2015-09-16 14:50 ` Jasmin J.
2015-09-21 22:55 ` Jasmin J.
2015-09-22 8:17 ` Jean-Marie Lemetayer
2015-09-22 21:18 ` Bryan Hundven
2015-09-13 22:59 ` Jasmin J.
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=CAJ+oik3wyZa_8AjJVRLVKZMAwRDjVmZXGxcW_9qBGdwzEG8XBw@mail.gmail.com \
--to=bryanhundven@gmail.com \
--cc=crossgcc@sourceware.org \
--cc=diorcet.yann@gmail.com \
--cc=mingw.android@gmail.com \
--cc=thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com \
--cc=yann.morin.1998@free.fr \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).