3:10 a.m.
The embedded gdb module dominates a crash build. Until now it was built with
everything its own configure enables by default, and with debug information
for crash and gdb alike, even though crash uses neither gdb's full-screen TUI
nor the libctf and libbacktrace libraries. At the same time crash's own
configure rewrote the tracked top-level Makefile in place: the tree was dirty
after every build, and it was easy to end up with objects built with stale
flags, since make cannot see that a flag changed.
This series builds only what crash needs, and tidies the interface around the
build and the release targets. Patches 1-4 trim the build, 5-8 rework the
configure and release machinery, and 9-11 document and harden the result.
Trimming the build:
build: make debug information optional, off by default
build: don't build the embedded gdb TUI
build: don't build the unused libctf and libbacktrace libraries
build: remove the unused gdb_files, glink, name and ref targets
-g is now opt-in with "make DEBUG=1", for crash and the embedded gdb both.
The gdb build no longer compiles its TUI (crash has its own CLI), nor
libctf and libbacktrace: 68 source files in all. A full native build now
compiles 599 objects and produces a ~14 MB crash binary.
Reworking configure and the release targets:
build: write the configure variables to Makefile.inc
build: add a separate srpm target, release only builds the tarball
build: remove the redundant tar target
build: make README a static source file
configure no longer edits the Makefile. It writes the variables it manages
to a generated Makefile.inc, which the Makefile includes after its own
defaults, so the tracked file is never modified and unconfiguring is just
removing that file: "make unconfig", or "make distclean", which also
removes
the extracted gdb tree, the generated configure files and any release
tarball/spec/source RPM. The release step is split so that "make release"
only produces the source tarball and "make srpm" builds the source RPM from
it, the redundant "make tar" is gone, and README is a normal source file
rather than something a release regenerates from the built binary.
Documenting and hardening:
build: add a "make help" target
README: document the new cleanup and packaging targets
build: recover from an interrupted embedded-gdb configure
"make help" lists the targets and options, including which target= values a
given host accepts. gdb's configure creates config.status early but
gdb/Makefile late, so an interrupted configure used to look like a complete
one; a .configured marker written when configure finishes makes the next
build reconfigure instead, and the remaining failure paths now point at
"make distclean". README describes the new targets and the cleanup rules.
Testing:
- fresh native (x86_64) build: 599 objects, ~14 MB crash binary, runs and
reports crash 9.0.3++;
- fresh "make target=ARM64" build: links and runs;
- configure leaves the tracked Makefile untouched, and "make files" no
longer rewrites README;
- "make clean", "make unconfig" and "make distclean"
verified, including
that distclean keeps CFLAGS.extra/LDFLAGS.extra and the downloaded gdb
tarball;
- the series applies in order to the current master.
Notes:
- "make tar" produced an unversioned, gdb-less crash.tar.gz next to the
versioned, gdb-bundled crash-<version>.tar.gz from "make release". If
the
gdb-less variant is still wanted, it belongs as an option of release
rather than as a second target.
- README no longer mirrors help.c's built-in README text; "crash -h
README"
still substitutes the crash and gdb versions and the date at run time.
- "make srpm" still triggers rpmbuild's
"%source_date_epoch_from_changelog is
set, but %changelog has no entries" warning on Fedora/RHEL, because the
generated spec carries no %changelog. It is cosmetic and left as is.
- These series were assited by LLM. I have a plan to continue to improve
the code later, for example remove dead code, maintain the documents
including the white paper within the git tree. I'd like to convert the
static html into .rst files, and generate html/pdf dynamically.
- I'd appreciate for inputs and comments.
Dave Young (11):
build: remove the unused gdb_files, glink, name and ref targets
build: make debug information optional, off by default
build: don't build the embedded gdb TUI
build: don't build the unused libctf and libbacktrace libraries
build: write the configure variables to Makefile.inc
build: add a separate srpm target, release only builds the tarball
build: remove the redundant tar target
build: make README a static source file
build: add a "make help" target
README: document the new cleanup and packaging targets
build: recover from an interrupted embedded-gdb configure
.gitignore | 2 +
Makefile | 174 ++++++++++++++++-----
README | 32 +++-
configure.c | 412 +++++++++++++++++++++++++------------------------
gdb-16.2.patch | 22 ++-
5 files changed, 398 insertions(+), 244 deletions(-)
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2.51.1