Re: Stable ABI checking (take 2)

[Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 22/02/2021 14:37, Jan Beulich wrote:
> On 22.02.2021 15:03, Andrew Cooper wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Staging is now capable of writing out an ABI description when the
>> appropriate tool (abi-dumper) is available.
>>
>> We now have to possible courses of action for ABI checking in builds.
>>
>> 1) Publish the ABI descriptions on xenbits, update all downstream test
>> systems to invoke abi-compliance-checker manually.
>>
>> 2) Commit/update the ABI descriptions when RELEASE-$X.$Y.0 is tagged,
>> update the main build to use abi-compliance-checker when available.
>>
>>
>> Pros/Cons:
>>
>> The ABI descriptions claim to be sensitive to toolchain in use.  I don't
>> know how true this is in practice.
>>
>> Publishing on xenbits involves obtaining even more misc artefacts during
>> the build, which is going to be firm -2 from downstreams.
>>
>> Committing the ABI descriptions lets abi checking work in developer
>> builds (with suitable tools installed).  It also means we get checking
>> "for free" in Gitlab CI and OSSTest without custom logic.
>>
>>
>> Thoughts on which approach is better?  I'm leaning in favour of option 2
>> because it allows for consumption by developers and test systems.
> +1 for option 2, fwiw.
>
>> If we do go with route 2, I was thinking of adding a `make check`
>> hierarchy.  Longer term, this can be used to queue up other unit tests
>> which can be run from within the build tree.
> Is there a reason the normal build process can't be made fail in
> case verification fails? Besides "make check" typically meaning to
> invoke a functional testsuite rather than (just) some compatibility
> checking, I'd also be worried of no-one (likely including me) to
> remember to separately run "make check" at appropriate times.

As far as RPM is concerned, splitting the two is important, as %build
and %check are explicitly separate steps.  I have no idea what the deb
policy/organisation is here.

Merging some of check into build would be a layering violation, and even
if we did so, where do you draw the line?

~Andrew