Re: Verbose modes for eCos makefiles

[Sergei Gavrikov <sergei.gavrikov@gmail.com>]

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On Sun, 21 Aug 2011, John Dallaway wrote:

> Hi Sergei
 
Hi John,

> Sergei Gavrikov wrote:
> 
> > It was added a few checks for "V" variable (a verbose level) in eCos
> > ``rules.mak`` file and the level of the verbosity is set in a top most
> > eCos ``makefile`` (which is auto-generated). The level of verbosity can
> > be set from a command line as ``make V=x`` where "x" can be set to 0, 1,
> > or 2)
> > 
> >   V=0   - silent build (it is equal to a call ``make --silent``)
> >   V=1   - "semi-silence", when ``make`` outputs a kind of work is
> >           doing now
> >   V=2   - full output (it is equal to "old" call of ``make``)
> > 
> > Default level is 1 (semi-silence). IMHO, it is right value and it is no
> > need to type ``make V=1`` every time.
> > 
> > Pros (V=1):
> > 
> >   - He/she will be know what is running.
> >   - He/she will be know/learn an order the build process.
> >   - He/she will see any warnings and possible they will sent us the
> >     patches to fix it :-)
> > 
> >   % make tests
> >   ...
> >     CC    strtoul.c
> >     LINK  strtoul
> >     CC    memchr.c
> >   /home/sg/repo/ecos-hg/packages/language/c/libc/string/current/tests/memchr.c: In function ‘main’:
> >   /home/sg/repo/ecos-hg/packages/language/c/libc/string/current/tests/memchr.c:107: warning: assignment discards qualifiers from pointer target type
> >     LINK  memchr
> >   ...
> 
> I can appreciate that the "semi-silent" output you are proposing makes
> warning messages stand out more clearly, but this appears to be the only
> benefit. The existing output already indicates what is running and the
> order of the build process. Have I missed something?

You are right, it is only benefit (it only added a pretty printing for
V=1 choice).

Besides I've changed my view since that my post about default verbose
level and now I think that nothing has not to been changed from default
behaviors, thus, default make outputs for ``make`` and ``make -s`` must
not been touched. So, I corrected my patch already (set V=2 by default).

> > Cons:
> > 
> >   - It is needed to re-built ``ecosconfig`` to get it working.
> > 
> >     NOTE: Only a few lines were added to only one source
> >           host/tools/configtool/common/common/build.cxx
> > 
> >   - Very few people work with command-line and they need to know about
> >     V=x (V=2).
> >   - eCos ConfigTool (may be "semi-silence" is odd for it, not tested).
> 
> I would also be concerned about the processing overhead on Cygwin hosts
> and the possiblility of unexpected output when using multiple eCos
> repositories or older eCos host tools.

Ah! You are right again. I missed the main thing (compatibility with old
tools and repositories (== rules.mak)), however, when I did set value of
V to 2 by default, nothing won't change if we will just type "make").
Of course, the checks of "V" variable in every build rule can waste a
bit of time, but, output of the long lines in a terminal also takes a
time (but, I did not check time penalty).

> Is your proposal based on another build system you have used?

No. I used GNU make. In my patch the configtool's build.cxx "included"
an 1-line *not forced* inclusion to an auto-generated eCos top-level
makefile:

  -include make.mak

and "generated" that ``make.mak'' which is

  # eCos makefile
  
  # This is a generated file - do not edit
  
  export V := $(if $(findstring s,$(MAKEFLAGS)),0,2)
  ifneq (,$(or $(filter 0,$(V)),$(filter 1,$(V))))
  .SILENT:
  endif

On top of eCos ``rules.mak'' I added

  # NOTE: default level of verbosity is 2 (full output).
  V ?= $(if $(findstring s,$(MAKEFLAGS)),0,2)
  ifneq (,$(or $(filter 0,$(V)),$(filter 1,$(V))))
  .SILENT:
  endif

and fixed (added the checks) there for every build rule, e.g.

  %.o.d : %.c
          ...
  ifeq ($(V),1)
          @echo "  CC    $(notdir $<)"
  endif

etc.

This is almost all.

But, I must confess that full patch requires to add many small, however,
trivial fixes to eCos config files which uses "make" and "make_object"
rules:

  % grep -rl --include=*.cdl 'make.*{' $ECOS_REPOSITORY
  155


This fact and your "Cons." has beaten my small "benefit" :-) and I'm
totally agreed with your concern now.

So, John, I want to say thank you for your time on thinking about and I
must be more accurate with "feature" requests which would break things.


Sergei

> John Dallaway
> eCos maintainer
> http://www.dallaway.org.uk/john
>