Build problem with VLC 2.2.2 under Mavericks

[majoc-at-astro (majoc-at-astro)]

VLC fails to build for me on 10.10, with a somewhat bizarre failure msg (please see enclosed build log):

:info:build misc/picture.c:43:1: error: expected identifier or '('

This is on a completely clean and fully-patched Mavericks system (10.10.5, 14F1605) with a freshly-installed XCode toolset (7.2.1, 7C1002), as well as on our production MacPorts 10.10 build server.

The break appears to coincide with the transition from VLC v2.1.5 to v2.2.2 (XCode had already been updated to v7.2, and built 2.1.5 successfully). Curiously, our 10.11 server didn't turn a hair, and builds v2.2.2 happily.

Do please let me know if there's any other information you need, or if there's anything spectacularly stupid I'm doing wrong. Apologies if I'm not filling in the boxes correctly here.

[RJVB (René Bertin)]

Could you check if sizeof (uintptr_t) == sizeof (atomic_uintptr_t and alignof (uintptr_t) == alignof (atomic_uintptr_t) using the same compiler and options as used for building picture.c ?

This (almost) looks like a compiler bug to me, as I don't see how there could be a bracket balancing error if the preprocessor does its job correctly. Maybe it gets confused by the brackets in the string (you could try removing those).

Either way that would explain why you don't get issues on 10.11 (newer compiler) and I didn't either on 10.9 (__STDC_VERSION_ < 201112L or older compiler version without the bug).

[majoc-at-astro (majoc-at-astro)]

Replying to rjvbertin@…:

Could you check if sizeof (uintptr_t) == sizeof (atomic_uintptr_t and alignof (uintptr_t) == alignof (atomic_uintptr_t) using the same compiler and options as used for building picture.c ?

I've been too long away from C, but I find so far that the build uses the system clang:

Apple LLVM version 7.0.2 (clang-700.1.81)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin14.5.0
Thread model: posix

Either way that would explain why you don't get issues on 10.11 (newer compiler) and I didn't either on 10.9 (__STDC_VERSION_ < 201112L or older compiler version without the bug).

For comparison, the 10.11 system's clang shows me:

Apple LLVM version 7.0.2 (clang-700.1.81)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin15.3.0
Thread model: posix

I'll dig into this further next week, inc a proper test build on 10.11 for better comparison. I'm short of minutes tonight, I'm afraid.

[RJVB (René Bertin)]

If necessary I can write a simple C test file, but I cannot run it for you. However, it would appear that 10.10 and 10.11 use the exact same compiler version, so my idea of a bug seems unlikely.

The annoying thing here is that this is a test that clearly should be run during the configure step, because the asserts will cause the compilation and thus the build to abort.

Now, if we could be sure that the asserts will never trigger on a system running 10.10 I could simply remove the code through a patch...

[RJVB (René Bertin)]

Something else to try:

(cd `port work vlc`/vlc-2.2.2/src ; /usr/bin/clang -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I..   -I/opt/local/include -DMODULE_STRING=\"core\" -DLOCALEDIR=\"/opt/local/share/locale\" -DPKGDATADIR=\"/opt/local/share/vlc\" -DPKGLIBDIR=\"/opt/local/lib/vlc\" -DHAVE_DYNAMIC_PLUGINS  -I../include -I../include -I/opt/local/include -D__unix__=1 -I/opt/local/lib/live/liveMedia/include -I/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_multimedia_VLC/VLC/work/vlc-2.2.2/contrib/include   -pipe -Os -arch x86_64 -D_INTL_REDIRECT_MACROS -I/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_multimedia_VLC/VLC/work/vlc-2.2.2/contrib/include -Wall -Wextra -Wsign-compare -Wundef -Wpointer-arith -Wbad-function-cast -Wwrite-strings -Wmissing-prototypes -Wvolatile-register-var -Werror-implicit-function-declaration -pipe -fvisibility=hidden -O3 -ffast-math -funroll-loops -fomit-frame-pointer  -CC -dD -E -o ~/Desktop/vlc_misc_picture.i misc/picture.c)

on both systems and compare the resulting vlc_misc_picture.i files?

Another thing to check is whether that compile command (from your attached vlc.main.log) is identical on 10.11 !