Build failing in OSX 10.10.3 due to issue with thread_local declaration

[sreejithr]

I did the usual ./configure --mode=debug --compiler=clang and make where it crashes while building thread_id.cpp.

OSX version: 10.10.3
Xcode version: 6.3
Clang version:

Apple LLVM version 6.1.0 (clang-602.0.49) (based on LLVM 3.6.0svn)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin14.3.0
Thread model: posix

Here's the error from make:

[ 31%] Building CXX object cpp/CMakeFiles/openage.dir/unit/unit.cpp.o
[ 32%] Building CXX object cpp/CMakeFiles/openage.dir/unit/unit_container.cpp.o
[ 33%] Building CXX object cpp/CMakeFiles/openage.dir/unit/unit_texture.cpp.o
[ 34%] Building CXX object cpp/CMakeFiles/openage.dir/unit/unit_type.cpp.o
[ 34%] Building CXX object cpp/CMakeFiles/openage.dir/util/thread_id.cpp.o
/Users/sreejith/Code/openage/cpp/util/thread_id.cpp:16:37: error: initializer for
      thread-local variable must be a constant expression
thread_local ThreadIdSupplier const current_thread_id
                                    ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/Users/sreejith/Code/openage/cpp/util/thread_id.cpp:16:37: note: use 'thread_local' to
      allow this
/Users/sreejith/Code/openage/cpp/util/thread_id.cpp:16:54: error: expected ';' after top
      level declarator
thread_local ThreadIdSupplier const current_thread_id
                                                     ^
                                                     ;
2 errors generated.
make[3]: *** [cpp/CMakeFiles/openage.dir/util/thread_id.cpp.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** [cpp/CMakeFiles/openage.dir/all] Error 2
make[1]: *** [all] Error 2
make: *** [openage] Error 2

I read that this is a Mac bug with the new Xcode 6.3 update. Folks over at ROOT were having similar issue. Seems they've fixed it (commit).

[sreejithr]

I found this from Clang's implementation status page:

thread_local support currently requires the C++ runtime library from g++-4.8 or later.

Do you guys think it's related to this issue? If yes, would it make sense to use Boost's thread_specific_ptr?

[sreejithr]

GCC is not working btw. Crashes with gcc: error: unrecognized command line option '-Qunused-arguments'. But that's a different issue, I know. I haven't looked into it though. Just brought it up to prove that I'm out options :)

[mic-e]

We have already had issues with thread_local on OSX; cpp/util/compiler.h contains an #ifdef statement that re-defines the thread_local keyword there.

Maybe in the most recent version of XCode, this has become unnecessary/counter-productive? Maybe the preprocessor define didn't trigger for some reason?

[sreejithr]

I don't think the preprocessor is at fault since when I replace thread_local with __thread, I get error: thread-local storage is not supported for the current target. Seems Mac doesn't support TLS.

I found an article about this - Mac OSX Thread Local Storage.

[sreejithr]

For now, I removed thread_local from thread_id.cpp:16 and build was successful. I'm not aware of the consequences.

[mic-e]

The consequence is that thread ids are completely broken, which should mess up thread identification in the logger, and thread handling in the job manager. Your article is from 2010 - that was before even C++11 was released. The addition of thread-local storage to the actual C and C++ standard forced apple to go on and support it. The question is, why has it suddenly stopped working?

[sreejithr]

If it's a problem with the newer Xcode 6.3, I'd have to downgrade it and try out. In the meantime, I installed GNU GCC (since default gcc & g++ in mac is just a symlink to clang) and tried ./configure --mode=debug --compiler=gcc. Doesn't work.

-- The C compiler identification is unknown
-- The CXX compiler identification is unknown
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/local/bin/gcc
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/local/bin/gcc -- broken
CMake Error at /usr/local/Cellar/cmake/3.0.2/share/cmake/Modules/CMakeTestCCompiler.cmake:61 (message):
  The C compiler "/usr/local/bin/gcc" is not able to compile a simple test
  program.

[mic-e]

You can always manually specify the full compiler path like so: ./configure --c-compiler /usr/bin/gcc --cpp-compiler /usr/bin/g++

[sreejithr]

The problem with gcc is this gcc: error: unrecognized command line option ‘-Qunused-arguments’.

[TheJJ]

This -Qunused-arguments option is not set by our buildsystem. Do you have any global CXXFLAGS configured somewhere in your work environment?

[sreejithr]

@TheJJ Thanks. You're right. It was set in the environment. The ./configure --mode=debug --compiler=gcc worked. But, on make, it crashed again. I think it tried to compile a C++ file with gcc which is weird.

[  1%] building python modules (via setup.py)
running build_ext
building 'openage.convert.cabextract.lzxd' extension
/usr/local/bin/gcc -Wno-unused-result -Werror=declaration-after-statement -fno-common -dynamic -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/opt/sqlite/include -I/usr/local/Cellar/python3/3.4.1_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.4/include/python3.4m -c /Users/sreejith/Code/openage/py/openage/convert/cabextract/lzxd/lzxd.cpp -o build/temp.macosx-10.10-x86_64-3.4/Users/sreejith/Code/openage/py/openage/convert/cabextract/lzxd/lzxd.o -O1 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic -std=c++14 -fdiagnostics-color=auto
cc1plus: warning: command line option ‘-Wstrict-prototypes’ is valid for C/ObjC but not for C++
In file included from /Users/sreejith/Code/openage/py/openage/convert/cabextract/lzxd/lzxd.cpp:21:0:
/Users/sreejith/Code/openage/py/openage/convert/cabextract/lzxd/lzxd.h:6:18: fatal error: cstdio: No such file or directory
 #include <cstdio>
                  ^
compilation terminated.
error: command '/usr/local/bin/gcc' failed with exit status 1
make[3]: *** [py/timefile] Error 1
make[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/pymodules.dir/all] Error 2
make[1]: *** [all] Error 2
make: *** [openage] Error 2

Now, I've no idea where all this -Wno-unused-result -Werror=declaration-after-statement -fno-common -dynamic -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes came from. I didn't see it in the buildsystem. I looked up my env variables, made cmake print out the arguments etc. No clue. You have any idea?

[TheJJ]

These flags come from distutils, the python module we're currently using for building the python extensions. In near future, this will be done differently (see #217).

The problem now is that your compiler doesn't find the c++ headers (namely cstdio, the probably most basic one..). This file is shipped with your C++ standard library, provided by gcc or clang. I fear you have to fix your system once again, this has nothing to do with our project.

[sreejithr]

@TheJJ You were right. I did a fresh reinstall of gcc 5.1.0 and configured the search paths correctly and that problem was solved.

But then, I got error: 'ssize_t' has not been declared. Seems adding a #include <unistd.h> fixed it. Strangely though, clang didn't have a problem with this. Any ideas why?

All in all, I got gcc to compile everything fine :)

[TheJJ]

Nice! What file caused the ssize_t error?

[sreejithr]

@TheJJ It was cpp/console/buf.h.

[mic-e]

As with all standard C++/C symbol names, the standard guarantees that ssize_t is defined in some headers, but it may be available in other, implementation-defined headers.

Thus, if you didn't explicitly include one of the headers that guarantee to provide ssize_t, you might get compiler errors on some combinations of compiler, platform, stdlib and CXXFLAGS.

The proper fix would thus be #include <cstddef>, not #include <unistd.h> (though POSIX may guarantee that unistd.h provides ssize_t as well).

[rkreis]

C++ doesn't know of ssize_t, it's only defined as a part of Posix, which is why <unistd.h> is needed. We should probably use ptrdiff_t instead so we don't require Posix (or: so stuff doesn't break on Windows).