#3517 SDCC does not build from source on ARM Macs

[Free-PDK]

SDCC does not build on ARM MACs anymore since the "support/gcc" complains about a missing target config: "*** Configuration aarch64-apple-darwin21.6.0 not supported".

Unfortunately disabling sdcpp seems to not work either since sdcc nowadays just calls sdcpp to compile everything. Is this intentional? Otherwise this project could be renamed to "sdcpp-gcc" then when in fact there is not sdcc compiler anymore which does not work without gcc?

[Benedikt Freisen]

SDCC has been using the GNU preprocessor for a very long time, but the version was updated from 4.6.3 to 12.1.0 recently.
The lack of support for ARM Macs is definitely not intentional, but rather the result of a lack of suitable test systems.
Can you provide the entire console output for analysis?

[Free-PDK]

Ok, I understand that gcc is used for the preprocessor, but there is a "configure" option for SDCC which let's one disable sdcpp: "--disable-sdcpp". If you try to do this then compilation will not work and the resulting sdcc is broken since it relies on "sdcpp" which is called for various reasons. The "support/cpp/gcc" directory in sdcc source looks like the gcc is for "C++" support... but it seems it is mandatory for normal sdcc as well (the preprocess step?).

The actual problem: The "configure" step in "support/cpp/gcc" fails (last line of output shows problem):

% ./configure 
checking build system type... aarch64-apple-darwin21.6.0
checking host system type... aarch64-apple-darwin21.6.0
checking target system type... aarch64-apple-darwin21.6.0
checking LIBRARY_PATH variable... ok
checking GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable... ok
checking whether to place generated files in the source directory... no
checking whether a default linker was specified... no
checking whether a default dsymutil was specified... no
checking whether a default assembler was specified... no
checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking for suffix of executables... 
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed
checking for g++... g++
checking whether we are using the GNU C++ compiler... yes
checking whether g++ accepts -g... yes
checking how to run the C++ preprocessor... g++ -E
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /usr/bin/grep
checking for egrep... /usr/bin/grep -E
checking for ANSI C header files... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for memory.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking minix/config.h usability... no
checking minix/config.h presence... no
checking for minix/config.h... no
checking whether it is safe to define __EXTENSIONS__... yes
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking for inline... inline
checking for special C compiler options needed for large files... no
checking for _FILE_OFFSET_BITS value needed for large files... no
checking size of ino_t... 8
checking size of dev_t... 4
checking size of void *... 8
checking size of short... 2
checking size of int... 4
checking size of long... 8
checking for long long... yes
checking size of long long... 8
checking for int8_t... yes
checking for int16_t... yes
checking for int32_t... yes
checking for int64_t... yes
checking for unsigned long long int... yes
checking for long long int... yes
checking for intmax_t... yes
checking for intptr_t... yes
checking for uint8_t... yes
checking for uint16_t... yes
checking for uint32_t... yes
checking for uint64_t... yes
checking for uintmax_t... yes
checking for uintptr_t... yes
checking for int64_t underlying type... long long
checking for std::swap in <utility>... yes
checking whether g++ is affected by placement new aliasing bug... yes
checking whether g++ supports -W... yes
checking whether g++ supports -Wall... yes
checking whether g++ supports -Wnarrowing... yes
checking whether g++ supports -Wwrite-strings... yes
checking whether g++ supports -Wcast-qual... yes
checking whether gcc supports -Wstrict-prototypes... yes
checking whether gcc supports -Wmissing-prototypes... yes
checking whether g++ supports -Wmissing-format-attribute... yes
checking whether g++ supports -Woverloaded-virtual... yes
checking whether gcc supports -Wold-style-definition... yes
checking whether gcc supports -Wc++-compat... yes
checking whether g++ supports -pedantic -Wlong-long -Wvariadic-macros -Woverlength-strings... yes
checking whether gcc supports -fno-exceptions... yes
checking whether gcc supports -fno-rtti... yes
checking whether gcc supports -fasynchronous-unwind-tables... yes
checking valgrind.h usability... no
checking valgrind.h presence... no
checking for valgrind.h... no
checking for VALGRIND_DISCARD in <valgrind/memcheck.h>... no
checking for VALGRIND_DISCARD in <memcheck.h>... no
checking for multiarch configuration... auto
configure: WARNING: decimal float is not supported for this target, ignored
configure: WARNING: fixed-point is not supported for this target, ignored
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for gawk... no
checking for mawk... no
checking for nawk... no
checking for awk... awk
checking whether ln -s works... yes
checking whether ln works... yes
checking for ranlib... ranlib
checking for a BSD compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking for cmp's capabilities... gnucompare
checking for mktemp... yes
checking for makeinfo... makeinfo
checking for modern makeinfo... yes
checking for recent Pod::Man... yes
checking for flex... flex
checking for bison... bison
checking for nm... nm
checking for ar... ar
checking for sphinx-build... texinfo
checking for ANSI C header files... (cached) yes
checking whether time.h and sys/time.h may both be included... yes
checking whether string.h and strings.h may both be included... yes
checking for sys/wait.h that is POSIX.1 compatible... yes
checking whether termios.h defines TIOCGWINSZ... yes
checking for limits.h... yes
checking for stddef.h... yes
checking for string.h... (cached) yes
checking for strings.h... (cached) yes
checking for stdlib.h... (cached) yes
checking for time.h... yes
checking for iconv.h... yes
checking for fcntl.h... yes
checking for ftw.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... (cached) yes
checking for sys/file.h... yes
checking for sys/time.h... yes
checking for sys/mman.h... yes
checking for sys/resource.h... yes
checking for sys/param.h... yes
checking for sys/times.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... (cached) yes
checking for sys/locking.h... no
checking for direct.h... no
checking for malloc.h... no
checking for langinfo.h... yes
checking for ldfcn.h... no
checking for locale.h... yes
checking for wchar.h... yes
checking for thread.h... no
checking for pthread.h... yes
checking for CHAR_BIT... yes
checking whether byte ordering is bigendian... no
checking how to run the C++ preprocessor... g++ -E
checking for unordered_map... yes
checking for tr1/unordered_map... no
checking for ext/hash_map... yes
checking dependency style of g++... gcc3
checking for collect2 libraries... none required
checking for library containing exc_resume... no
checking for library containing kstat_open... no
checking for library containing gethostbyname... none required
checking for library containing socket... none required
checking for library containing ldexp... none required
checking for library containing dlopen... none required
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for zstd.h... no
checking for library containing ZSTD_compress... no
checking for times... yes
checking for clock... yes
checking for kill... yes
checking for getrlimit... yes
checking for setrlimit... yes
checking for atoq... no
checking for popen... yes
checking for sysconf... yes
checking for strsignal... yes
checking for getrusage... yes
checking for nl_langinfo... yes
checking for gettimeofday... yes
checking for mbstowcs... yes
checking for wcswidth... yes
checking for mmap... yes
checking for posix_fallocate... no
checking for setlocale... yes
checking for clearerr_unlocked... yes
checking for feof_unlocked... yes
checking for ferror_unlocked... yes
checking for fflush_unlocked... no
checking for fgetc_unlocked... no
checking for fgets_unlocked... no
checking for fileno_unlocked... yes
checking for fprintf_unlocked... no
checking for fputc_unlocked... no
checking for fputs_unlocked... no
checking for fread_unlocked... no
checking for fwrite_unlocked... no
checking for getchar_unlocked... yes
checking for getc_unlocked... yes
checking for putchar_unlocked... yes
checking for putc_unlocked... yes
checking for madvise... yes
checking for mallinfo... no
checking for mallinfo2... no
checking for fstatat... yes
checking whether mbstowcs works... yes
checking for ssize_t... yes
checking for caddr_t... yes
checking for sighander_t... no
checking for sys/mman.h... (cached) yes
checking for mmap... (cached) yes
checking whether read-only mmap of a plain file works... yes
checking whether mmap from /dev/zero works... no
checking for MAP_ANON(YMOUS)... yes
checking whether mmap with MAP_ANON(YMOUS) works... yes
checking for pid_t... yes
checking for vfork.h... no
checking for fork... yes
checking for vfork... yes
checking for working fork... yes
checking for working vfork... (cached) yes
checking for ld used by GCC... /Applications/Xcode_14.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ld
checking if the linker (/Applications/Xcode_14.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ld) is GNU ld... no
checking for shared library run path origin... done
checking for iconv... yes
checking how to link with libiconv... -liconv
checking for iconv declaration... 
         extern size_t iconv (iconv_t cd, char * *inbuf, size_t *inbytesleft, char * *outbuf, size_t *outbytesleft);
checking for LC_MESSAGES... yes
checking for nl_langinfo and CODESET... yes
checking whether basename is declared... no
checking whether strstr is declared... yes
checking whether getenv is declared... yes
checking whether atol is declared... yes
checking whether atoll is declared... yes
checking whether asprintf is declared... yes
checking whether sbrk is declared... yes
checking whether abort is declared... yes
checking whether atof is declared... yes
checking whether getcwd is declared... yes
checking whether getwd is declared... yes
checking whether madvise is declared... yes
checking whether stpcpy is declared... yes
checking whether strnlen is declared... yes
checking whether strsignal is declared... yes
checking whether strverscmp is declared... no
checking whether strtol is declared... yes
checking whether strtoul is declared... yes
checking whether strtoll is declared... yes
checking whether strtoull is declared... yes
checking whether setenv is declared... yes
checking whether unsetenv is declared... yes
checking whether errno is declared... yes
checking whether snprintf is declared... yes
checking whether vsnprintf is declared... yes
checking whether vasprintf is declared... yes
checking whether malloc is declared... yes
checking whether realloc is declared... yes
checking whether calloc is declared... yes
checking whether free is declared... yes
checking whether getopt is declared... yes
checking whether clock is declared... yes
checking whether getpagesize is declared... yes
checking whether ffs is declared... yes
checking whether clearerr_unlocked is declared... yes
checking whether feof_unlocked is declared... yes
checking whether ferror_unlocked is declared... yes
checking whether fflush_unlocked is declared... no
checking whether fgetc_unlocked is declared... no
checking whether fgets_unlocked is declared... no
checking whether fileno_unlocked is declared... yes
checking whether fprintf_unlocked is declared... no
checking whether fputc_unlocked is declared... no
checking whether fputs_unlocked is declared... no
checking whether fread_unlocked is declared... no
checking whether fwrite_unlocked is declared... no
checking whether getchar_unlocked is declared... yes
checking whether getc_unlocked is declared... yes
checking whether putchar_unlocked is declared... yes
checking whether putc_unlocked is declared... yes
checking whether getrlimit is declared... yes
checking whether setrlimit is declared... yes
checking whether getrusage is declared... yes
checking whether mallinfo is declared... no
checking whether mallinfo2 is declared... no
checking whether ldgetname is declared... no
checking whether times is declared... yes
checking whether sigaltstack is declared... yes
checking for struct tms... yes
checking for clock_t... yes
checking for F_SETLKW... yes
checking for O_CLOEXEC... yes
checking for AF_UNIX... yes
checking for AF_INET6... yes
checking for _LK_LOCK... no
checking if mkdir takes one argument... no
*** Configuration aarch64-apple-darwin21.6.0 not supported

In fact there is a GCC branch (not in main) which adds support for newer hardware / architectures like "aarch64" and "apple-darwin"

[Benedikt Freisen]

Ok, I understand that gcc is used for the preprocessor, but there is a "configure" option for SDCC which let's one disable sdcpp: "--disable-sdcpp". If you try to do this then compilation will not work and the resulting sdcc is broken since it relies on "sdcpp" which is called for various reasons. The "support/cpp/gcc" directory in sdcc source looks like the gcc is for "C++" support... but it seems it is mandatory for normal sdcc as well (the preprocess step?).

The support/cpp/gcc folder contains GCC's (C) (P)re-(P)rocessor. SDCC has no preprocessor without it.

In fact there is a GCC branch (not in main) which adds support for newer hardware / architectures like "aarch64" and "apple-darwin"

Thanks! That means that it can be added to SDCC sooner or later.

[Philipp Klaus Krause]

In fact there is a GCC branch (not in main) which adds support for newer hardware / architectures like "aarch64" and "apple-darwin"

Thanks! That means that it can be added to SDCC sooner or later.

Though it seems quite inelegant that SDCC requires its host architectures to be supported by cpp first. After all, we use cpp to target other architectures only.

[Benedikt Freisen]

Maybe that check is actually for a full GCC build for which the target architecture obviously has to be supported explicitly unless you build a cross-compiler.
If that is the case, simply removing the check could solve the problem.

[Free-PDK]

Great idea...
I disabled the "exit 1" after the error message in file "support/cpp/gcc/config.gcc" line 3592:

*)
        echo "*** Configuration ${target} not supported" 1>&2
#        exit 1
        ;;
esac

Besides a few error messages from gcc's configure the compilation of sdcc worked without a problem:

Error messages (which can be ignored):

*** Configuration aarch64-apple-darwin21.6.0 not supported
grep: ./config/aarch64/aarch64-cores.def: No such file or directory
clang: error: no such file or directory: './config/aarch64/aarch64-option-extensions.def'
clang: error: no input files
grep: ./config/aarch64/aarch64-arches.def: No such file or directory
grep: ./config/aarch64/aarch64-arches.def: No such file or directory
clang: error: no such file or directory: './config/aarch64/aarch64-option-extensions.def'
clang: error: no input files
grep: ./config/aarch64/aarch64-cores.def: No such file or directory
clang: error: no such file or directory: './config/aarch64/aarch64-option-extensions.def'
clang: error: no input files

After having a deeper look at configure.gcc I can see that there is some aarch64 and darwin support inside, but it looks like it is incomplete...

Side note: The resulting SDCC reports itself as a MacOS PPC version (should be AArch64 or ARM):

% sdcc --version
SDCC : pdk13/pdk14/pdk15 4.2.9 #13745 (Mac OS X ppc)
published under GNU General Public License (GPL)

[Erik Petrich]

I see the snapshots for actual MacOS PPC seem to be failing in the same way:

*** Configuration powerpc-apple-macosx not supported

[Philipp Klaus Krause]

What is particularly worrying about this bug is that it likely will make the build fail for future unknown host systems. So if we have this bug in a release that makes it into distros, and a dsitro sticks with the version for a while, we'll see the sdcc packages fail to build for that distro when the distro adds future architectures.
This would also become a big problem without any distro involved: Some users prefer to stick to fixed, known-good-for-their-code SDCC versions, and there is always the risk of us at some point int he future not having the manpower to keep regular releases going (and this bug will be a constant drain on manpower if it requires maintenance for every future architecture).
I'll add this bug to the pre-4.3.0 todo list.

[Felix]

This is fixed in [r13746], ignoring "unsupported target" as discussed above.