Linux: replace default gcc with newer version

[pauschar]

Hi *,
I'm running Ubu 24.04 LTS which comes with gcc-13 as default. Ceedling's version is this:

❯ ceedling --version
🌱 Welcome to Ceedling!

  Ceedling => 1.0.1-fb1ce6c
  ----------------------
  /var/lib/gems/3.2.0/gems/ceedling-1.0.1/

  Build Frameworks
  ----------------------
       CMock => 2.6.0
       Unity => 2.6.1
  CException => 1.3.4

I would like to use gcc-14 for my unit tests because it is able to generate coverage data for conditionals (ie. the "mc/dc" metric topic).

To start this endavour, I added the following to my project.yml:

... lots of other configs
:flags:
  :test:
    :compile:
      :*:
        - --coverage
        - -fcondition-coverage
... lots of other configs
:tools:
  :test_compiler: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_linker: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_fixture: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_includes_preprocessor: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_preprocessor: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_preprocessor_directives: 
    :executable: gcc-14

Running this yields the following error:

👟 Preprocessing for Mocks
--------------------------
Preprocessing test_ifx_color_mixing_calibration::isr.h...
Loading #include statement listing file for test_ifx_color_mixing_calibration::isr.h...

> Shell executed command:
`gcc --coverage -fcondition-coverage -E -I"build/test/mocks/test_ifx_color_mixing_calibration" -I"helper" -I"ifx-color-mixing/stubs" -I"../../components/ifx-color-mixing/include" -I"../../components/ifx-hal/include" -I"." -I"build/vendor/unity/src" -I"build/vendor/cmock/src" -D"__asm=" -D"UNITY_INCLUDE_PRINT_FORMATTED" -D"CMOCK_MEM_DYNAMIC" -D"__STATIC_INLINE="static"" -D"__STATIC_FORCEINLINE="static"" -D"UNITY_INCLUDE_DOUBLE" -D"UNITY_DOUBLE_PRECISION=1e-12" -DGNU_COMPILER -x c "ifx-color-mixing/stubs/isr.h" -o "build/test/preprocess/files/test_ifx_color_mixing_calibration/full_expansion/isr.h"`
> Produced output:
gcc: error: unrecognized command-line option ‘-fcondition-coverage’; did you mean ‘-fsanitize-coverage=’?
> And terminated with exit code: [1]

🧨 EXCEPTION: 'Default Test File Full Preprocessor' (gcc) terminated with exit code [1] and output >>
gcc: error: unrecognized command-line option ‘-fcondition-coverage’; did you mean ‘-fsanitize-coverage=’?
🌱 Ceedling could not complete operations because of errors

I believe that I have not yet found the config item in my project.yml which tells the "Preprocessing for Mocks" stage not to use gcc but to use gcc-14 . Probably the mock preprocessing does not even need those two add't options, but what I am probably also missing is a hint of how to configure the project in a way that only the compile of the test sources is done with --coverage -fcondition-coverage.

I would appreciate any hints how to configure the project so that it uses a non-default gcc.

thx

[Letme]

Which command do you run?

ceedling test:all ?

You could as well map the gcc-14 as default gcc (https://askubuntu.com/a/26518) to avoid the ceedling configuration (which is for everyone in your development team - and CI -> that is unless you intend to use mixins)

[pauschar]

yes, solving this through Ubuntu/Debian -out-of-the-box means is certainly an option I would need to check, I also stumbled across the article.
I thought that the ceedling-built-in feature :tool is meant exactly for that, so I though I give it a try. And the error message kind of makes me believe that I'm just missing a config item to be set properly.

I'm running ceedling --mixin=./Some_per_subproject_specific_condig.yml gcov:all

[Letme]

if you are running gcov:all, then you need to probably add :gcov_compiler: :gcov_preprocessor: and :gcov_linker: (at least that was in previous versions.

[pauschar]

ok, thx for the hint. I tried a couple of "reasonable" mutations of config items like so:

:tools:
  :test_compiler: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_linker: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_fixture: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_includes_preprocessor: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_preprocessor: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_preprocessor_directives: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :gcov:
    :compiler:
      :executable: gcc-14
    :preprocessor:
      :executable: gcc-14
    :linker:
      :executable: gcc-14

But either ceedling complained about a "missing :executable in its config" or the "preproc for mock" stage still used gcc.
By any chance, do you have a link to an example which worked in "previous versions"?
I also read through the gcov doc but did not find any hint on how to tell gcov to use sth else than the default gcc.

[Letme]

https://github.com/melexis/mlx90632-library/blob/master/targets/clang.yml

I am thinking that you might have a problem with passing of mixin from your command. Does test:all work fine with gcc-14 (use --verbosity=4 to see the commands)?

[pauschar]

test:all with :tools: :test_xxx: :executable: gcc-14 runs just fine. I have verified that all stages starting with "Building Objects" use gcc-14 instead of gcc. All stages prior to that (incl e.g "preprocessing for mocks" use gcc.

Thank you for the link to theclang.yml, I'll take a deep look and let you/us know. :-)

[mvandervoord]

I could be mistaken, as I'm just recovering form a cold and am not at full brainpower... but I believe the preprocessor tools you want to update are as follows:

:tools:
  :test_shallow_includes_preprocessor: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_nested_includes_preprocessor:
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_full_preprocessor:
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_directives_only_preprocessor:
    :executable: gcc-14

Yes, it's an embarrassingly long list of tools that needs to get cleaned up. :/

[pauschar]

Also using what Letme provided above, this :tools:config

:tools:
  :test_compiler: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_linker: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_fixture: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_includes_preprocessor: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_preprocessor: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_preprocessor_directives: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_shallow_includes_preprocessor: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_nested_includes_preprocessor:
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_full_preprocessor:
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_directives_only_preprocessor:
    :executable: gcc-14

makes sure that test:all uses gcc-14 all over the place - thank you both @Letme and @mvandervoord,

Running gcov:all completes just fine, but shows that "building test executables" goes back to gcc ... with test:all it's gcc-14.

So, to make sure that all command lines use gcc-14, I added

  :gcov_preprocessor:
    :executable: gcc-14
  :gcov_compiler:
    :executable: gcc-14
  :gcov_linker:
    :executable: gcc-14

as per @Letme 's example.

This causes "building objects" to fail

👟 Building Objects
-------------------
Plugin | Gcov > :pre_compile_execute...
Compiling test_color_mixing_calibration.c...

> Shell executed command:
`gcc-14 -std=c99 -I"build/test/mocks/test_color_mixing_calibration" -I"helper" -I"color-mixing/stubs" -I"../../components/color-mixing/include" -I"../../components/hal/include" -I"." -I"build/vendor/unity/src" -I"build/vendor/cmock/src" -D"__asm=" -D"UNITY_INCLUDE_PRINT_FORMATTED" -D"CMOCK_MEM_DYNAMIC" -D"__STATIC_INLINE="static"" -D"__STATIC_FORCEINLINE="static"" -D"UNITY_INCLUDE_DOUBLE" -D"UNITY_DOUBLE_PRECISION=1e-12" -D"UNITY_USE_COMMAND_LINE_ARGS" -DGNU_COMPILER -g -c "color-mixing/tests/test_color_mixing_calibration.c" -o "build/gcov/out/test_color_mixing_calibration/test_color_mixing_calibration.o" -MMD -MF "build/test/dependencies/test_color_mixing_calibration.d"`
> And terminated with exit code: [0]

Plugin | CompileCommandsJsonDb > :post_compile_execute...
Plugin | Gcov > :pre_compile_execute...
Compiling color_mixing_calibration.c with coverage...
🧨 EXCEPTION: can't modify frozen String: "-g"
🌱 Ceedling could not complete operations because of errors

My overall goal is to use gcc-14 and latest gcov because this is said to support --coverage -fcondition-coverage.
Adding this to :flags::test::compile: gives another set of issues I plan to resolve once gcov:all runs fine w/o those 2 options,

[mvandervoord]

Can you turn up your verbosity so we can see where that error is getting thrown? I'm not sure why it's attempting to modify that string, but a workaround might be to specify the arguments for gcov_compiler instead of just the executable. That's not the desired behavior, though, so if you're able, more detail would help us sort this out. :)

[Letme]

Mark, this is part of my rant that gcov:all and test:all are not equal in config, while now they should have been because they are equal in functionality after the last update. Hence the gcov_compiler and arguments caused the problems because it removes -g from arguments and stuff like that .

I would just "symlink" gcov:all to test:all and then abandon the gcov configuration completely. For persons still using gcov stuff in their config you could output deprecation warning telling them to use the test_compiler stuff.

And we need to add all those other tools settings in the generated main project.yml file (or at least docs), so that we avoid such discussions.

[mvandervoord]

Yeah. We should probably open a discussion on this topic specifically. I know there are people that strongly want to keep their gcov toolchain separate than their normal test toolchain. That didn't make sense to me until I learned that it was primarily people who aren't using a gcov-compatible compiler for the tests (often because they want to use the same tools as their release build). This seems like a maintenance headache (keeping everything running for two toolchains simultaneously) but I can see how they get there.

It's clear that SOMETHING needs to improve here, though. The current system requires too many workarounds.

[pauschar]

Good morning
I will came back to this hopefull later in the day, need to do some other work. My plan would be that I try to "convince" the examples project to use gcc-14, that could give us a more common ground to iron this out.

[mvandervoord]

@Letme -- I'm forgetting where you've expanded further on this topic. Can you link it for me? I'd appreciate it!

[Letme]

Here (#739 (comment)) you said that you thought gcov:all and test:all are synonyms, but we can still set gcov_compiler and stuff, so that never got into release apparently even today. And that is why people still have some problems where all those tools that need to be defined are just too much - and then gcov as well. It was a discussion from: #739 (comment)

Should I open an issue to make sure that we make sure test_compiler and gcov_compiler are synonyms? Maybe someone has a use case where they would want to have gcov_compiler different than test_compiler, but I doubt. Here is another idea which might work. When test_compiler is defined but others are not (the preprocessor and shallow,etc), the ceedling should take test_compiler as default for all others. Then if others are defined, they just overwrite it.

[pauschar]

A little update: As indicated above, I switched to the example project "temp_sensor" to see where this gets me:
I added this to project.yml to see whether and where the build used gcc and/or gcc-14, then I ran
ceedling clobber --mixin=./mixin/add_gcov.yml gcov:TestAdcHardware

:tools:
  :test_compiler: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_linker: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_fixture: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_includes_preprocessor: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_preprocessor: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_preprocessor_directives: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_shallow_includes_preprocessor: 
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_nested_includes_preprocessor:
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_full_preprocessor:
    :executable: gcc-14
  :test_file_directives_only_preprocessor:
    :executable: gcc-14
  :gcov_preprocessor:
    :executable: gcc-14

ceedling.log

Turns out that gcc-14 is used in a lot of places except for

• building objects -> pre_compile_execute of the unit-under-test (AdcHardware.c)
• building test executables

BTW, running gcov also runs the default, not gcov-14. Where would I configure this?

[pauschar]

ups, while working on this and re-reading my post, I saw that I forgot to add

  :gcov_compiler:
    :executable: gcc-14
  :gcov_linker:
    :executable: gcc-14

Doing so, we get the "frozen String" thing, now also in the temp_sensor example. I hope this allows you figure what could go wrong here.