Re: [edk2-devel] [PATCH 1/1] BaseTools: Remove tool chain in tools_def.template

["Leif Lindholm" <leif.lindholm@linaro.org>]

On Thu, Aug 08, 2019 at 10:51:54AM +0000, Gao, Liming wrote:
> Leif:
> 
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Leif Lindholm [mailto:leif.lindholm@linaro.org]
> >Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2019 5:55 PM
> >To: devel@edk2.groups.io; Zhang, Shenglei <shenglei.zhang@intel.com>
> >Cc: Feng, Bob C <bob.c.feng@intel.com>; Gao, Liming
> ><liming.gao@intel.com>; Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@linaro.org>;
> >Eugene Cohen <eugene@hp.com>
> >Subject: Re: [edk2-devel] [PATCH 1/1] BaseTools: Remove tool chain in
> >tools_def.template
> >
> >Hi Shenglei,
> >
> >On Thu, Aug 08, 2019 at 04:09:18PM +0800, Zhang, Shenglei wrote:
> >> Remove definition of RVCT, RVCTLINUX, RVCTCYGWIN and CLANG35
> >> in tools_def.template. These tool chains are for ARM and AARCH64 only.
> >> There is no change recently and they are not used.
> >> https://bugzilla.tianocore.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1750
> >
> >This still does not address my comment in the BZ that deleting all
> >RVCT profiles before full VS support is enabled for (32-bit) ARM, we
> >orphan an awful lot of .asm files.
> >
> 
> How about submit another BZ for VS tool chain ARM fully support? 
> When there is real request, this support can be added in future. 

Good point. I have raised
https://bugzilla.tianocore.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2065
and assigned it to myself.

> >This may not have much of a practical effect, since I doubt anyone is
> >using these toolchains today - but it does prevent someone from
> >actively going through and testing future updates (where before, they
> >may just have neglected to do so).
> >
> >This point needs discussing rather than ignoring, and I think we're
> >getting too close to the freeze to consider the patch to go in as is
> >at this point.
> >
> 
> Agree for more discussion. 
> 
> >Whenever this patch does go in should be in the week after a stable
> >tag is made, to give plenty of time for anyone affected to shout
> >before the next stable tag is made.
> >
> >After the 2019.08 stable tag has been made, I am happy for a patch
> >going in that deletes CLANG35, RVCTCYGWIN and *one*of* RVCT/RVCTLINUX.
> 
> If no one maintain or use it, this tool chain may not work now. 
> If so, do we still need to keep it?

So there are two questions here, really:
The first - "why can't we delete all of these now?", I think I have
already explained above. (I am not suggesting you did not understand,
but I want to clarify that we also need agreement on the timing of
this patch in general.)

For the second: the Visual Studio assembler (for ARM/AArch64) shares
the .asm syntax (and source file name) with the RVCT assembler.
If we delete the whole RVCT family of profiles, we are left with a
bunch of .asm files that are defined to be assembled by a non-existing
toolchain family. Whilst still being of the name and syntax that we
will need when enabling the MSFT family.
A not exactly precise execution of
find * -name "*.inf" -exec grep -H "RVCT" {} \; | grep "|" | grep "\.asm" | wc -l
suggests 50 source files are affected in edk2. A further 6 in
edk2-platforms.

Hence, my preferred obsoletion path for RVCT would mean the family
(and at least one toolchain profile) remaining in the tree until
the Visual Studio enablement has switched the source files to MSFT.

Best Regards,

Leif