compile_args in _build.cfg does not seem to work

[ericbmerritt]

What steps will reproduce the problem?

1. Add compile_args to _build.cfg as shown below (or any similar macro).
2. The option does not make it to the compiler command. It is not in the
   beam file either.

task : {
build : {
compile_args : "+debug_info -DDEBUG_LOGGING"
}
}

In fact I added code to sinan (patch forthcoming) to show the compiler args
and the above seems to be ignored.

=INFO REPORT==== 17-Sep-2008::20:49:03 ===
[RUN:"1771b9f2-804f-48ea-aa7a-982435b2288e"] build:compile_options
generated event:Compile Options: [{warn_format,1},
debug_info,

{outdir,"/home/efine/work/blah/otp/_build/development/apps/yaws-1.77/ebin"},
strict_record_tests,return_errors,return_warnings,
{i,"/home/efine/work/blah/otp/lib/yaws/include"},
{i,"/home/efine/.sinan/repo/stdlib-1.15.3/include"},
{i,"/home/efine/.sinan/repo/kernel-2.12.3/include"},
{i,"/home/efine/.sinan/repo/eunit-2.0/include"}]

[ericbmerritt]

I have found the reason for this. It's complicated.

The bottom line is that Sinan is using the flavors.development.build.compile_args
that are defined in Sinan's priv/default_build file, and ignoring the one in the
user's _build.cfg.

sinan:do_task/4 calls sin_build_config:start_config/4. In the init([BuildId,
ProjectDir, Config, Override]), the key "tasks.build.compile_args" is merged from
"flavors.development.build.compile_args", but never overridden by the user's
task.build.compile_args.

Here's an extract from the config dict (converted to_list).

[{"task.build.compile_args","-DFOOBAR +debug_info"},
{"flavors.release.build.compile_args","-DNOTEST=1 -W1"},
{"flavors.development.build.compile_args","+debug_info -W1"},
{"default_flavor","development"}
]

The compile_args I want is the one in task.build.compile_args. But the
flavors.development.build.compile_args is the one that is used. It looks as if the
merging of the dictionaries is not quite right.

A workaround is to edit the priv/default_build file and out in the args you like
(which will apply to all projects, so it's not necessarily a good workaround).

I don't have a patch to correct this at this time. I'm hoping you will know exactly
how to fix this in 10 seconds :)

Also, there is a bug in sin_build_arg_parser.erl. In an attempt to remove spaces,
certain "whitespace" characters are defined, such as $\r, $\n, $\s, $\t and so on.
Unfortunately, in a number of places, one of the characters used to define "space" is
$\l. This is the lowercase "L" character. I think what was meant was $\f for formfeed
or maybe $\v for vertical tab.

The effect of this is that any compile_args identifiers that are parsed will lose all
lowercase "l" characters, so that "feel_the_love" will become "fee_the_ove". This is
easy to reproduce and verify.

Delete comment Comment 2 by emofine, Oct 18, 2008
I sent a patch that fixes this problem, as well as the bug in
sin_build_arg_parser.erl. The patch is based on the head branch, so it might not work
that well with your dev branch.

It must be noted that the _build.cfg file needs to include a section named "tasks"
(NOT "task"). Now I don't know if this was always the intention (to use "tasks"
instead of "task") so please take a look and see if I did this the right way.

Example _build.cfg tasks section:

tasks : {
build : {
compile_args : "+debug_info -Dwhatever"
}
}

I also put back the display of the compile flags, which seemed to have disappeared in
the meanwhile from the head.
Delete comment Comment 3 by emofine, Jan 06, 2009
This bug is still present as of version 0.12.0.6 of sinan. I am therefore unable to
use needed include directories outside of the actual Sinan application. This is a
showstopper that forces me to copy the include files into the application's include
directory to get it to compile.
Delete comment Comment 4 by emofine, Jan 06, 2009
Ok, I found that somehow, when sinan was upgraded from 0.11.0.1 to 0.12.0.6, the
bin/sinan and bin/sinserv scripts were not changed and still referred to the old
0.11.0.1 release. The problem is in fact solved in 0.12.0.6.
There is another issue to do with default_build config compile_args having arguments
in common with build.cfg, but it can be worked around (don't have common args) and
probably won't affect most people.

[ericbmerritt]

This is resolved in the current sinan