Re: [Autoconf] help configure project for HPC - non-standard ways to run the executable

[Christian Feld]

On 2017-09-21 03:40, suzuki toshiya wrote:
> Dear Anton,
>
> I'm afraid there is no standard mechanism to control the
> execution of cross compiled binary. Yet I've not detected
> which autoconf macro defines it, but I can find many
> attempts trying to execute "./conftest" directly, in
> generated configure script - no variable to insert the
> intermediate executor.
>
> # my experience with HPC related field is very legacy,
> # but I think it was very popular situation that the
> # accessible UNIX frontend provides the cross compilers
> # and cannot execute the compiled binary, and the system
> # executing the compiled binary do not have Unix like
> # frontend.
>
> autotools supports the situation that the cross compiler makes
> a binary executable but the system cannot execute it directly.
> (e.g. ./configure --host=m68k-coff --build=i386-pc-linux-gnu)
>
> if you do not expect any results from the execution of the
> compiled binary, the nearest way might be using autotools as
> if you work for cross build.
>
> However, in my impression, current autotools are optimized for
> GNU-based cross development toolchain which has well-structured
> prefix for each tools (cc, as, ar, ld, etc). The proprietary
> toolchain for HPC systems might be something what the original
> designers of autotool expected.

I agree that there is and IMO there will be no standard way to control 
the execution of cross compiled binaries. In our project, we therefore 
explicitly switch to autoconf's cross-compile mode when we are on a 
(HPC) system that is known to be a cross-compile system (Blue Gene, 
Fujitsu, Cray). I.e., we don't 'run' conftests during configure, we just 
compile and link. Also, we don't specify --host and --build for these 
systems but provide the native (MPI) compilers to CC, CXX, F77. FC.

This is how to switch to cross-compile mode:

# in configure.ac
cross_compiling=yes

In cross-compile mode the macros
AC_CHECK_FILE
AC_CHECK_FILES
AC_RUN_IFELSE
will die. For the latter one you can define an 
'action-if-cross-compiling' though.


> What kind of the automation you want to realize by autotool?
>
> Regards,
> mpsuzuki
>
> On 9/21/2017 12:43 AM, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> > Hi, I'm new to this list.
> >
> > I develop a Fortran 2008 coarrays project
> > targeting HPC systems.
> > I'd like to simplify my build process with autotools.

My Fortran experience is limited. But I seem to remember that automatic 
dependency generation and Fortran modules don't play well together. This 
is an automake issue though.

Christian

> > The immediate problem is that the executable is
> > run in different ways on different platforms.
> >
> > For example, OpenCoarrays compiler is "caf", but
> > the executable is run with "cafrun -np .. ./a.out".
> > This is similar to "mpif90" and "mpirun" for MPI
> > programs. On Cray I compile with "ftn" and run with
> > "aprun" (it's also cross-compiled, but I'm not there yet).
> >
> > So I get errors like:
> >
> > configure:2850: caf -o conftest    conftest.f  >&5
> > configure:2854: $? = 0
> > configure:2861: ./conftest
> > address@hidden match_arg (utils/args/args.c:159): unrecognized argument pmi_
> > args
> > address@hidden HYDU_parse_array (utils/args/args.c:174): argument matching r
> > eturned error
> > address@hidden parse_args (ui/mpich/utils.c:1596): error parsing input array
> > address@hidden HYD_uii_mpx_get_parameters (ui/mpich/utils.c:1648): unable to
> >    parse user arguments
> > address@hidden main (ui/mpich/mpiexec.c:153): error parsing parameters
> >
> > because the invocation should have been
> >    "cafrun -np .. ./conftest"
> > for this compiler.
> >
> > Is there a standard way of implementing this
> > in configure.ac?
> >
> > I looked at ax_prog_fc_mpi:
> >
> > https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf-archive/ax_prog_fc_mpi.html
> >
> > which looks similar but not exactly what I need.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Anton
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Autoconf mailing list
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> > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf
>
>
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