Re: Fedora 32 System-Wide Change proposal: Use update-alternatives for /usr/bin/cc and /usr/bin/c++

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On 12/20/2019 03:33 AM, Nicolas Chauvet wrote:
> Le jeu. 19 déc. 2019 à 22:44, Ben Cotton <bcotton@xxxxxxxxxx> a écrit :
>>
>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Use-Update-Alternatives-For-usr-bin-cc
>>
>> == Summary ==
>> Modify the gcc package so that the /usr/bin/cc and /usr/bin/c++
>> symlinks are managed by update-alternatives.
>>
>> == Owner ==
>> * Name: [[User:tstellar| Tom Stellard]]
>> * Email: <tstellar@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> == Detailed Description ==
>> The gcc package currently installs symlinks to /usr/bin/cc and
>> /usr/bin/c++ which point to /usr/bin/gcc and /usr/bin/g++
>> respectively.  For this change, the gcc package will be modified so
>> that update-alternatives creates and manages these symlinks.
>>
>> In addition to modifying the gcc package, the clang package will be
>> modified so that /usr/bin/clang and /usr/bin/clang++ can be used as
>> alternatives for /usr/bin/cc and /usr/bin/c++.  The clang alternatives
>> will have a lower priority than the gcc alternatives, so that by
>> default, gcc will provide the /usr/bin/cc and /usr/bin/c++
>> implementations.
>>
>> The clang package currently has a run-time dependency on gcc, so this
>> ensures that gcc will always provide the default implementation,
>> because it's impossible to install clang without gcc.
>>
>> The only way users will be able to change the /usr/bin/cc or
>> /usr/bin/c++ implementations will be by explicitly using the
>> update-alternatives tool.
>>
>> == Benefit to Fedora ==
>> Many build systems default to using /usr/bin/cc and /usr/bin/c++ as
>> the default C/C++ compilers.  Being able to easily swap out these
>> implementation will provide a lot of flexibility within Fedora for
>> doing things like:
>>
>> * Setting up alternative buildroots for testing.
>> * Installing a gcc wrapper script to /usr/bin/cc to help migrate
>> packages to new compiler flags or to capture statistics about compiler
>> usage.
>> * Letting users experiment easily with alternate compilers.
>> * Easily switch between system gcc and a development version of gcc.
>>
>> == Scope ==
>> * Proposal owners: The proposal owner will implement the necessary
>> changes in the gcc and clang packages.
>>
>> * Other developers: The gcc maintainers will be responsible for
>> reviewing and approving changes to the gcc package.
>>
>> * Release engineering: (a check of an impact with Release Engineering is needed)
>> * Policies and guidelines: No policies or guidelines will need to be
>> updated as a result of this change.
>> * Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
>>
>>
>> == Upgrade/compatibility impact ==
>> This change should not impact upgradeability.
>>
>> == How To Test ==
>> CI tests will be added to the gcc package to ensure that /usr/bin/cc
>> and /usr/bin/c++ still point to /usr/bin/gcc and /usr/bin/g++ when
>> installed.  There will also be a CI test added to the clang package to
>> ensure that /usr/bin/gcc and /usr/bin/g++ remain the default when
>> clang is installed.
>>
>> == User Experience ==
>> This change will give users a much better way to experiment using
>> other compilers for their own development.  They will be able to
>> easily switch between different compilers without having to modify
>> their projects build system or make non-standard changes to their
>> Fedora system.
>>
>> == Dependencies ==
>> This change has no other dependencies besides the changes to the gcc
>> and clang packages.
>>
>> == Contingency Plan ==
>> * Contingency mechanism: (What to do?  Who will do it?) Proposal Owner
>> will revert changes made to gcc and clang packages and rebuild.
>> * Contingency deadline: If the changes are not complete by 2 weeks
>> before the mass rebuild, then we will consider postponing to the next
>> Fedora release and back out any changes that were made.
>> * Blocks release? No
>> * Blocks product? None
>>
>> == Documentation ==
>> Release notes will be added for this change.
>>
>> == Release Notes ==
>> The user /usr/bin/cc and /usr/bin/c++ symlinks are now managed by
>> update-alternatives.  If you would like to change these symlinks to
>> point to another compiler, like clang, for example, you can use these
>> commands:
>>
>> `update-alternatives --set cc /usr/bin/clang`
>>
>> `update-alternatives --set c++ /usr/bin/clang++`
> 
> Does this process even works in RPM context ? given rpm -E %{__cc}
> outputs gcc, I don't think /usr/bin/cc is ever used anywhere. (same
> for __cxx, __cpp)

/usr/bin/cc is the default compiler for cmake projects.

> If that's only supposed to work in a local compilation context (not
> with RPM), what is the benefit from using alternatives rather than
> export CC=clang ?

I'm actually not sure how much better alternatives is that using only CC=clang.
I haven't done a full rebuild with only CC=clang and without
the proposed /usr/bin/cc alternative pointing to clang to see what the
numbers look like.

What I have done is build all the packages that depend on gcc with /usr/bin/cc
pointing to clang and also CC=/usr/bin/cc (and the same for the c++ compilers).
With these changes at least 1281 of 4271 packages still build with gcc.
So the best case scenario for CC=/usr/bin/clang is that it will work for about 70%
of packages.

> What about ccache ? (does it need to also be registered with alternatives) ?
> 

No, because if you want to use ccache with the cc compiler you run:
/usr/lib64/ccache/cc


> As I imagine, setting clang for a given package with such alternatives
> would requires to add a BR of some clang-default that will call
> alternatives in %post.
> At first sight, I would dramatically prefer to have a RPM macro that
> would set __cc, __cpp,__cxx and the relevant cflags ldflgas in %prep.
> (and eventually another macro that would set then back to default).
> 

This is something I have been looking at as well, but less as a solution
to the "mass-rebuilds with clang" problem, and more focused on getting
a consistent experience for packages that currently do build with clang.
e.g.

%enable_cc_clang \
  %__cc clang \
  %__cxx clang++ \
  %__cpp clang-cpp \
  %global optflags %(echo %{optflags} | sed -e-e 's/-fstack-clash-protection//g')

I think this is something packages could use in %prep, but it would be nice to
take this a step further and have something we could conditionally enable for all packages
to allow the kinds of mass rebuilds I would like to try.  I just haven't been able to
figure out the best way to do this yet.  If you have any suggestions for how to
make this work, I would like to hear them.

Thanks,
Tom 

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