ppc64 clang LNT buildbot / reference_output / test failures

[Hal Finkel]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Renato Golin" <renato.golin at linaro.org>
> To: "Daniel Dunbar" <daniel at zuster.org>
> Cc: "Hal Finkel" <hfinkel at anl.gov>, "Commit Messages and Patches for LLVM" <llvm-commits at cs.uiuc.edu>
> Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 8:21:39 AM
> Subject: Re: ppc64 clang LNT buildbot / reference_output / test failures
> 
> 
> On 25 April 2013 20:33, Daniel Dunbar < daniel at zuster.org > wrote:
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> I believe that almost all of the work to make reference outputs
> portable is done. I believe the current status is that the reference
> outputs largely work across Darwin x {x86, ARM, PPC} and Linux x {
> x86?, ARM }, which makes it increasingly unlikely that the reference
> outputs are incorrect for your platform.
> 
> 
> Linux ARM is good, Linux x86 still has one issue (Olden/voroni) left.
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> There isn't currently a way from the LNT command line to disable the
> use of reference outputs, and I personally would prefer this serve
> as a forcing function to fix them in the few remaining places they
> don't work.
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> 
> I agree with Daniel here.
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> The main idea is to create a reference output that doesn't depend on
> which platform, OS or library version the tests are running, and
> this is achieved by implementing the library routines that are not
> portable (RNGs, Sorts, etc) locally, so that the output is stable
> and consistent.
> 
> 
> While making the ARM test-suite green I haven't come across a single
> example where this was impossible or undesirable, and the remaining
> x86 case is also simple, so I believe the same is true for PPC.

I completely agree, and we should make the reference outputs work on PPC as well. My point is that, in the mean time, we should also have a ppc64 buildbot that gives accurate feedback to the rest of the LLVM community. Fixing endianess problems in large applications can take quite a bit of time.

Do these reference outputs work on any other LP64 big-endian systems?

Thanks again,
Hal

> 
> 
> cheers,
> --renato