Re: [PATCH 0/4] Add a CI for unsigned char system

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Mar 9, 2023, 10:57 UTC
Message-ID: <ZAm7mpf36IOCqgN4@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <CAPx1GveS2=8-rh6PVFsOXLvJ4iZGzeo9uUdG=wcbophxiDam0g@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 09, 2023 at 02:26:34AM -0800, Chris Torek wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> On Thu, Mar 9, 2023 at 1:54 AM Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
> > I like the overall goal, but I'm not wild about having another CI
> > provider.
> 
> So, why not do an x86 build with `-funsigned-char`? Seems to work with
> both gcc and clang.

Yeah, that would be even simpler. Though IMHO "unsigned char" is only one interesting difference to be checking. Another would be having a platform where unaligned access isn't tolerated. It would be nice to have a big-endian platform, too, but I'm not sure if arm is a good fit there (my impression is that it can be run in either mode?).

On the other hand, I think Ævar does periodically run on the gcc build machines, which includes examples of each (including aarch64). And this particular bug was found pretty quickly (within a week of it hitting next, and only a day after hitting master). So while it might be nice to have more immediate CI feedback, it does seem like the old "if the platform matters, somebody will try it and report the problem" strategy still works, too.

-Peff