615532 - verbose mode for cross-platform build

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Tamarin Graveyard :: Tools, enhancement, P4)

Description

[Felix S. Klock II [:pnkfelix, :fklock]]

In Bug 500817 Steven (rightfully) patched the xplat build infrastructure so that make invocations would not echo every command to the console, focusing its output on things like the emitted warnings.

However, some investigations (e.g. comparing how different builds proceed, or what compiler flags are in use) would be easier if we went back to the noisy mode.

While one could revert Steven's patch (attachment 385505 [details] [diff] [review]) to achieve this, I suggest we implement a single point of control for this, e.g. add a variable to the generated makefile that controls this behavior.  I'm thinking something with end result that

  % make VERBOSE=1

would cause the command invocations to be echoed to the console.

I'm not a Make expect; if there's a trivial way to get this effect that still keeps the current less noisy default (i.e. the -s suggestion from bug 500817, comment 3 is not in the running) then I'm all ears.

Comment 1

[Edwin Smith]

Before Steven's patch, I habitually ran "make -sj8".  -s has roughly the same effect as Steven's patch.  It doesn't print filenames, but in "silent" mode, who cares.  (make -s would be quieter, actually).

One thing I don't like about the way the build works currently is that the "Compiling <file>" message is printed when the file is preprocessed (.cpp -> .ii), and not when it is actually compiled.  So, you see lots of those messages, then make stands still for as long as it takes to actually compile (.ii -> .o) each file.

Comment 2

[Felix S. Klock II [:pnkfelix, :fklock]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> One thing I don't like about the way the build works currently is that the
> "Compiling <file>" message is printed when the file is preprocessed (.cpp ->
> .ii), and not when it is actually compiled.  So, you see lots of those
> messages, then make stands still for as long as it takes to actually compile
> (.ii -> .o) each file.

I was going to actually make a note that perhaps the number passed to VERBOSE could control the level of verbosity (but could not think of a good candidate of what would be tuned other than things like passing "-v" to the compiler, which with gcc makes it print the command it in turn executes).  The two steps you mention above sound like good candidates to me for different tiers of verbosity.

Comment 3

[Felix S. Klock II [:pnkfelix, :fklock]]

Attachment: separate preprocessor and compile notifications.

I got tired of the long pause with no output after all the preprocessing is over.

(Note that this patch "only" makes the default build twice as verbose; it does not add any sort of parameterization of verbosity, which is what I was originally aiming for and would still like.)

Comment 4

[James Sudduth]

Comment on attachment 502529 [details] [diff] [review]
separate preprocessor and compile notifications.

R+

Comment 5

[Tamarin Bot]

changeset: 5755:c7c184b8a8f6
user:      Felix S Klock II <[e-mail]>
summary:   Bug 615532: separate preprocessor and compile notifications.

http://hg.mozilla.org/tamarin-redux/rev/c7c184b8a8f6

Comment 6

[Felix S. Klock II [:pnkfelix, :fklock]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Before Steven's patch, I habitually ran "make -sj8".  -s has roughly the same
> effect as Steven's patch.  It doesn't print filenames, but in "silent" mode,
> who cares.  (make -s would be quieter, actually).

Wacky idea: replace the makefile command invocation lines like

  @echo "Bazzling $$*"

with

  true Bazzling $$*

This would cause the output to be prefixed by the word true, but "-s" would make things really quiet...

Comment 7

[Felix S. Klock II [:pnkfelix, :fklock]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > Before Steven's patch, I habitually ran "make -sj8".  -s has roughly the same
> > effect as Steven's patch.  It doesn't print filenames, but in "silent" mode,
> > who cares.  (make -s would be quieter, actually).
> 
> Wacky idea: replace the makefile command invocation lines like
> 
>   @echo "Bazzling $$*"
> 
> with
> 
>   true Bazzling $$*
> 
> This would cause the output to be prefixed by the word true, but "-s" would
> make things really quiet...

Filed as Bug 665942

Comment 8

[Felix S. Klock II [:pnkfelix, :fklock]]

Attachment: patch V: verbose mode via (parameterized) "@"/"" prefix

Each prefix (MSG/MXG/CMD/NIT) is meant to expand into either "" or "@", so that you get the effect of either a verbose or a hidden command.

The default setting of VERBOSE=1 is meant to keep the amount of verbiage largely unchanged from the current setting: you still get the same amount of status messages, except in a few cases (like asm) where I've replaced a loud command invocation with a message.  (In particular, the cases where I've added truely new status messages that might be annoying, I've used a "$(MXG)" prefix that only starts emitting messages when VERBOSE > 1.)

If you can think of a better three character prefix than MXG to represent "an extra message like MSG", feel free to suggest it; I admit its currently an ugly pun.

(I played with other potential uses of these prefixes, e.g. throwing on a "time " command, but that doesn't really work in general.  Stick with expanding to either "" or "@"; if you want to time things, do it by overriding the choice of CC/CXX/PYTHON/etc.)

Also, contains driveby addition of a '-q'/'--quiet' flag (defaults to false) to calcdepends.py to allow make VERBOSE=0 to tell it to be quiet.

Comment 9

[Brent Baker]

Comment on attachment 604872 [details] [diff] [review]
patch V: verbose mode via (parameterized) "@"/"" prefix

Review of attachment 604872 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Nice!

Comment 10

[Tamarin Bot]

changeset: 7274:3463eb335090
user:      Felix Klock II <[e-mail]>
summary:   Bug 615532: parameterized verbosity on xplat commands (r=brbaker).

http://hg.mozilla.org/tamarin-redux/rev/3463eb335090