Re: EPICS base mods

[Andrew Johnson <anj@aps.anl.gov>]

Hi Freddie,

On 12/07/2016 05:22 PM, freddie.akeroyd@stfc.ac.uk wrote:
> I've added a couple of local mods we have to a PR against my GitHub
> fork of epics base which I wonder if you might consider for the
> official epics base release
> 
> https://github.com/FreddieAkeroyd/epics-base/pull/1
> 
> * one is just a simple buffer too small fix (which did actually cause
> me a crash when I mistyped something in a gateway access security
> file)

Fixed — I actually bumped it to 40 characters. That change will be in
the final Base-3.14.12.6 and Base-3.15.5 releases next week.

> * I find it very useful to always build and install pdb files on
> windows, and include rules for this. At the moment the install
> decision is based on an INSTALL_PDB macro
> * (I've also generated some additional /NODEFAULTLIB flags that I
> found useful, but they may a bit risky to deploy without more
> widespread testing)

We support cross-building Windows applications on Linux using MinGW, and
I'm not sure how some of your changes might affect that build
configuration, since GCC doesn't generate .pdb files. I think we're a
bit too close to the release to merge these more intrusive changes,
although I'm not rejecting them out-right. As I don't often develop on
Windows I don't know much about pdb files; if they're useful I don't
object to building and installing them, but would it make sense to have
them be optional?

I do have a few specific questions/comments:

1. What are the build-time implications of creating pdb files? I'm fine
with creating them when HOST_OPT=NO, which is meant to be the debug
configuration, but I'm not quite so convinced about doing that when
HOST_OPT=YES if they're going to slow down the compile/link steps.

2. Your STATIC_LDFLAGS_EXTRA_YES/NO variables can be named just
STATIC_LDFLAGS_YES/NO instead; the win32 config file is overriding a
setting in CONFIG_COMMON that already chooses between those two based on
the value of HOST_OPT.

3. I need to think a bit about your RULES_BUILD changes. I would prefer
to keep the install rules generic if possible, so I'll see if I can work
out an alternative approach which doesn't require adding .exe rules.

4. The name of your switch INSTALL_PDB is perilously close to the usage
in RULES_FILE_TYPE so I'll probably want to modify that name to call it
something else (it might make sense to use it to enable the -Zi flags
too, so something like ENABLE_PDB may be a better choice).

Thanks,

- Andrew

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