Re: Running bulk builds for finding bugs in packages

[David Holland <dholland-pkgtech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Sat, May 30, 2020 at 09:45:11AM +0000, nia wrote:
 > Do we really want to turn package Makefiles into a document of every
 > upstream code problem?
 > 
 > Werror is only viable if the exact compiler being used is predictable.
 > I don't think Werror is suitable for pkgsrc.

At one time (when I had more time and energy for engaging windmills) I
tried to run some -Werror builds because of the large number of fatal
problems I'd found and fixed by seeing warnings in compilations of
packages that failed for other reasons.

As I recall, at the time, bulk builds with -Werror failed on core
pkgsrc infrastructure without ever getting to any 3rd-party code at
all. That seemed like a problem, but nobody ever agreed on what to do
about it.

(The proximate cause was: you can't/couldn't readily inject -Werror
into only the build phase, and if you inject it into the configure
phase it causes rapidly fatal problems for undefined gibberish spewed
by autoconf.)

I think it would be useful to get this to work, and to run such builds
periodically and post the results, even if we're circumspect about
what we bother to fix, complain upstream about, and/or even try at
all.

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost