287248 - Mozilla requires Apple version of GCC

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox Build System :: General, defect)

Description

[Arthur Wiebe]

GCC 4.0.0 is nearing release with the branch "open for regression fixes only."

It would be nice if we can get it building now so it'll work when Mac OS X 10.4
(Tiger) is released. Most likely in April.

Currently mozilla (Includes Firefox, Thunderbird, etc) cannot be built using GCC
4.0.0 because of errors in the code that earlier versions ignored. Also some
compiler flags defined in the configure are no longer supported in GCC and cause
configure to fail.

On Mac OS X I have it building up to gfx/src/mac but using some terrible hacks.
This should be fixed proper like ;)

A lot of the errors have to do with converting constants and variables.

Comment 1

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

Can you post some concrete error messages? There are already some bugs filed
that deal with gcc 4 (for example in combination with 64bit platforms).

Comment 2

[Arthur Wiebe]

I'll have to make a new source tree then so I can get the errors without my
changes messing it up.

Will post some this evening.

Comment 3

[Arthur Wiebe]

Attachment: configure hack

This hack for configure let's configure run fine. The two flags that are
removed cause configure to fail on the optimization check.

Next I'll do NSPR

Comment 4

[Arthur Wiebe]

Attachment: nsprpub hack

This hack to nsprpub/configure also removes two flags that caused it to fail.
These are no longer supported in GCC 4 just like previous ones.

Comment 5

[Arthur Wiebe]

The main problem seems to be a direct result of Pascal Strings. See:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/gcc-3.3/gcc/Pascal-Strings.html

For example nsAppFileLocationProvider fails like this:

nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp
c++ -o nsAppFileLocationProvider.o -c  -DOSTYPE=\"Darwin7.8.0\"
-DOSARCH=\"Darwin\" -D_IMPL_NS_COM -I.. -I../../dist/include/string
-I../../dist/include/macmorefiles -I../../dist/include/xpcom
-I../../dist/include
-I/Users/arthur/Mozilla/mozt/mozilla/obj-dir/dist/include/nspr        -fPIC  
-fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -Wall -Wconversion -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align
-Woverloaded-virtual -Wsynth -Wno-ctor-dtor-privacy -Wno-non-virtual-dtor
-Wno-long-long -fno-common -fshort-wchar -I/Developer/Headers/FlatCarbon -pipe 
-DDEBUG -D_DEBUG -DDEBUG_arthur -DTRACING -g -O   -DMOZILLA_CLIENT -include
../../mozilla-config.h -Wp,-MD,.deps/nsAppFileLocationProvider.pp
/Users/arthur/Mozilla/mozt/mozilla/xpcom/io/nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp
/Users/arthur/Mozilla/mozt/mozilla/xpcom/io/nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp:613:1:
warning: unknown escape sequence '\p'
/Users/arthur/Mozilla/mozt/mozilla/xpcom/io/nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp: In
member function 'virtual nsresult nsAppFileLocationProvider::GetFile(const
char*, PRBool*, nsIFile**)':
/Users/arthur/Mozilla/mozt/mozilla/xpcom/io/nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp:220:
error: invalid conversion from 'const char*' to 'const unsigned char*'
/Users/arthur/Mozilla/mozt/mozilla/xpcom/io/nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp:220:
error:   initializing argument 3 of 'OSErr FSMakeFSSpec(short int, long int,
const unsigned char*, FSSpec*)'
/Users/arthur/Mozilla/mozt/mozilla/xpcom/io/nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp:613:1:
warning: unknown escape sequence '\p'
/Users/arthur/Mozilla/mozt/mozilla/xpcom/io/nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp:231:
error: invalid conversion from 'const char*' to 'const unsigned char*'
/Users/arthur/Mozilla/mozt/mozilla/xpcom/io/nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp:231:
error:   initializing argument 3 of 'OSErr FSMakeFSSpec(short int, long int,
const unsigned char*, FSSpec*)'
/Users/arthur/Mozilla/mozt/mozilla/xpcom/io/nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp:613:1:
warning: unknown escape sequence '\p'
/Users/arthur/Mozilla/mozt/mozilla/xpcom/io/nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp:242:
error: invalid conversion from 'const char*' to 'const unsigned char*'
/Users/arthur/Mozilla/mozt/mozilla/xpcom/io/nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp:242:
error:   initializing argument 3 of 'OSErr FSMakeFSSpec(short int, long int,
const unsigned char*, FSSpec*)'
make[4]: *** [nsAppFileLocationProvider.o] Error 1
make[3]: *** [libs] Error 2
make[2]: *** [tier_2] Error 2
make[1]: *** [default] Error 2
make: *** [build] Error 2

I had to remove the -fpascal-strings flag because it's no longer supported.

Comment 6

[Arthur Wiebe]

Moving back to Mac OS X and rewriting summary.

Mozilla can still be compiled using the Apple version of GCC 4.0. But cannot be
built with the official branch.

Comment 7

[cls]

I'm pretty sure that requiring the Apple version of gcc to build on OSX is not
considered to be a bug.

Comment 8

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

Just because you said?

Comment 9

[cls]

Because we obviously use code that is OSX specific and requires the Apple GCC
changes.  But don't take my word for it, I cc'd the main Mac developers for a
reason.

Comment 10

[Josh Aas]

I'll second cls's WONTFIX on the grounds that monkeying with unreleased
compilers is not worth anyone's time. I highly doubt anyone with the power to
approve patches for this will even look at them - there are way better things to
be doing. I don't know if Apple is going to use standard gcc, patch it a bit,
whatever, but the gcc dev process isn't our concern. I say we wait until there
is a released compiler available. Those of us who have ADC seed accounts should
get the final version early and we can worry about it then in order to be
building on the day Tiger ships.

Comment 11

[Arthur Wiebe]

I'm fine with won't fix.

I actually filed this bug because I thought it didn't build on OS X with GCC 4
at all.
Later I found out that is was because of the pascal-strings. So as long as
mozilla uses pascal strings on OS X it will require Apple's GCC 4.

So won't fix is fine with me.