Re: RPM's -fsigned-char (Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql/src/backend/utils/adt (cash.c))

Tom Lane wrote:
> Thomas Lockhart <lockhart(at)alumni(dot)caltech(dot)edu> writes:
> >> as for the behavior of Linux distribution vendors who set RPM_OPT_FLAGS
> >> differently from the way they built libc, well, words fail me...

> > Which distros would these be? I know that Mandrake chooses some mutually
> > exclusive flags (-On and -fast-math) but am not sure which other ones
> > are inconsistant...

> The particular problem I was having was with LinuxPPC 2000. gcc's
> default behavior on PPC is -funsigned-char, and that seems to be the
> way that libc was built in that distro. But /usr/lib/rpm/rpmrc sets
> RPM_OPT_FLAGS to "-fsigned-char -O2". (The -O2 wreaks havoc with
> Postgres too, pre-fmgr-rewrite, but at least we knew about that effect.)

> On closer examination, I think the blame lies with the RPM people and
> not with LinuxPPC per se, because /usr/lib/rpm/rpmrc comes straight
> from the RPM distro. Seems to me that libc *should* be built with

It's more of a combination -- if the LinuxPPC people are overriding the
default RPM_OPT_FLAGS with their own stuff for libc, that's not an RPM
problem.

OTOH, RPM_OPT_FLAGS for that compiler on PPC should not have -O2, if -O2
causes other packages on that platform to barf. Of course, IIRC, we
have historically had problems with -O2 on some architectures pre-fmgr
rewrite. So the problem lies with all three: it's our problem -O2
causes problems; it's LinuxPPC's problem that libc is compiled with the
non-RPM_OPT_FLAGS char signage; and it's RPM's problem that
RPM_OPT_FLAGS has a non-default char signage for PPC. So, the short
term fix is to patch our spec file (which we've done for PPC).

The person to inform of generic RPM issues is Jeff Johnson
(jbj(at)redhat(dot)com), aka Mr. Rpm.
--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11