CPP usage in GHC.

[Karel Gardas]

On 08/11/14 01:27 AM, Carter Schonwald wrote:
> I could be wrong, but I think assembler-with-cpp came up only as part of
> certain clang work arounds,
> it should suffice to use any GCC like  traditional mode CPP (like the
> CPPHS tool).

This is interesting, but it looks like -x assembler-with-cpp is 
hard-coded into DriverPipeline.hs in doCpp function and either 
assembler-with-cpp or assembler is used in runPhase as and this is 
completely independent from target cpp even when configure with 
--with-hs-cpp= option.

> note that the configure script tries to detect what the CPP program you
> specify using --with-hs-cpp IS, and it only has logic for modern
> GCC/Clang/CPPHS, so you should specify a suitable set of flags if you're
> picking something different (theres a flag like --with-hs-cpp-flags you
> can set explicitly)

Hmm, seeing CPPHS give me an idea about either

- prioritizing CPPHS usage, when configure detects CPPHS availability it 
is then set as with --with-hs-cpp option and used as a preprocessor

or

- integrate CPPHS directly into GHC as it seems it provides some library 
API.


Sidenote: builders are testing ghc binary dist installed into the 
"install   dir" directory and it looks like this process of installation 
completely forgot about original --with-hs-cpp option. And seeing 
Solaris builder test_bindist[1] output it looks like not only 
--with-hs-cpp option is forgotten but every option of original configure 
run is forgotten...


Karel
[1]: http://haskell.inf.elte.hu/builders/solaris-x86-head/135/20.html

>
>
> On Sun, Aug 10, 2014 at 5:06 PM, Karel Gardas <karel.gardas at centrum.cz
> <mailto:karel.gardas at centrum.cz>> wrote:
>
>
>     Folks,
>
>     in my attempt to lower number of failing tests on Solaris I've found
>     several tests which fail on just difference in file name report. My
>     ghc reports warning/error in /tmp/ghc<something>/<some different
>     thing> while expected is clear T<something>.hs.
>
>     See
>     http://haskell.inf.elte.hu/__builders/solaris-x86-head/125/__21.html
>     <http://haskell.inf.elte.hu/builders/solaris-x86-head/125/21.html>
>     and search for T7145b as an example of this behavior.
>
>     The reason why this happen is that Solaris GNU C 4.x does not emit
>     line markers in preprocessed file when it's preprocessed with -x
>     assembler-with-cpp. The reason behind this is documented in this
>     thread[1] on GCC mailing list. Simply speaking Sun's assembler in
>     the past chokes on some linemarkers generated. This was apparently
>     case of as on older Solaris then 10 version and perhaps this will be
>     fixed in future major GCC release as Solaris 9 is not supported
>     anymore. Anyway, we still do have a case with GNU C compilers
>     provided by Solaris 10 and Solaris 11. FYI: Solaris' 10 GNU C 3.4.x
>     is OK, Solaris 11's GNU C 4.5.2 is broken and with this all more
>     modern 4.x releases so probably also all 4.x release provided by
>     Solaris 11.1/11.2.
>
>     So far I've solved the issue of those failing tests by passing
>     --with-hs-cpp=/usr/sfw/bin/gcc -- so configured this way GHC will
>     use old not-buggy GNU C 3.4.x on my Solaris 11 builder as CPP and
>     otherwise it'll use /usr/bin/gcc (GNU C 4.5.2) and everything will
>     pass fine hopefully.
>
>     Anyway, the thread[1] also contains a question which also rings in
>     my head and that is: why we use -x assembler-with-cpp at all? Isn't
>     simple -E enough. Or isn't simple usage of system provided CPP
>     enough /usr/lib/cpp on Solaris)? Or what will happen if we for
>     example change -x assembler-with-cpp to -x c or -x c-header or
>     something like that? Please note that the testcase is OK with -x
>     c/c-header even using this "buggy" GNU C 4.5.2 since the
>     compiler/cpp is really buggy just for the case of -x assembler-with-cpp.
>
>     Thanks!
>     Karel
>
>     [1]: https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/__2014-08/msg00114.html
>     <https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2014-08/msg00114.html>
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