R devel - Aug 1998 - Problem in "configure" for Solaris (cc) -- solved (partly) --

> From: Peter Dalgaard BSA <p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk>
> 
> Martin Maechler <maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch> writes:
> 
> > Reading the long output of  ``cc -flags'',
> > I see that more than average optimization is done using
> > 	cc -xO[1-4]
> > 	    #
And -O is -xO2. If you do want higher speed, you need to use
other flags too, and -fast is a good start.
> > Still very funny that "-O2" leads to such bad results with
./configure.
> > Maybe configure could become smarter here...
> 
> This is a generic problem with autoconf: It goes looking for X, the
> compile doesn't work because of Y, and it reports that X is missing.
> Of course, one should always check config.log when something goes
> wrong, it contains the details of the compiler failure and the failed
> programs. 
Not this time. See below.
> Our configure starts off with a compiler sanity check, but apparently
> it isn't enough?
No, as it is not invoked if the compiler is specified via CC. In
Martin's configuration, config.log gives

$ CC=cc CFLAGS=-O2 ./configure
$ cat config.log
This file contains any messages produced by compilers while
running configure, to aid debugging if configure makes a mistake.

configure:708: checking for a BSD compatible install
configure:758: checking whether ln -s works
configure:781: checking for ranlib
configure:812: checking for bison
configure:845: checking for ar
configure:873: checking for ratfor
configure:902: checking for latex
configure:934: checking for dvips
configure:974: checking for perl
configure:1004: checking whether perl is perl 5
configure:1200: checking for cc
configure:1261: checking for ranlib
configure:1325: checking for f77
configure:1402: checking for underscore after Fortran symbols

Note, no details of the compiler failure appear ....


As for speed comparisons:

A piece of the ch14 script from V&R2 (highly C-dependent), Solaris 2.6, 
Sparc 20 (about 4 years old)

library(MASS)
library(tree)
data(fgl)
unix.time({
fgl.tr <- tree(type ~ ., fgl)
fgl.cv <- cv.tree(fgl.tr,, prune.misclass)
for(i in 2:5)  fgl.cv$dev <- fgl.cv$dev + 
     cv.tree(fgl.tr,, prune.misclass)$dev
fgl.cv$dev <- fgl.cv$dev/5})

gcc2.8.1 60.26secs
cc SC4.0 60.35secs

(the close agreement is fortuitous: I had to tune each to get about
10% improvement in speed).

Brian

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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Prof Brian Ripley <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk> writes:
> $ CC=cc CFLAGS=-O2 ./configure
> $ cat config.log
> This file contains any messages produced by compilers while
> running configure, to aid debugging if configure makes a mistake.
> 
> configure:708: checking for a BSD compatible install
...
> 
> Note, no details of the compiler failure appear ....
Hmmm. Yes. Easily reproduced on other systems by using:

CC=/bin/false ./configure

The basic problem here is that this part of configure.in is handwritten,
and doesn't use the "autoconf conventions" (which are probably as
well-documented as certain aspects of R...) of sending the compile
commands and in the case of failure also the program contents to file
descriptor 5.  I.e. what yields all the constructions of the type

if { (eval echo configure:1475: \"$ac_link\") 1>&5; (eval
$ac_link)
2>&5; } && test -s conftest; then
  rm -rf conftest*
  eval "ac_cv_lib_$ac_lib_var=yes"
else
  echo "configure: failed program was:" >&5
  cat conftest.$ac_ext >&5
  rm -rf conftest*
  eval "ac_cv_lib_$ac_lib_var=no"
fi

There must be a relevant macro for this somewhere?

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907
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