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lquidfire

Member

From: South Africa

Registered: 2017-07-26

Posts: 53

PKGBUILD libcs50(,-git) Makefile patch help requested

Edit: I apologise, this belongs in "Creating & Modifying Packages" rather... If a mod could please move this I'd be grateful. Sorry for using your time!

Hi all,

I took over the AUR packages libcs50 and libcs50-git, and am here to ask for some assistance to make them better.

Any tips are welcome, of course.

In the upstream Makefile, CFLAGS and LDFLAGS ("LINKER_FLAGS") are set: see lines 12 and 30 and 39-40, if I am not mistaken. This, I gather, bypasses the CFLAGS and LDFLAGS on the machine that you're building the package on. This results in namcap spewing warnings about no RELRO.

I have no background in software or building software. Still, I poked around the Makefile a bit after searching on these forums, and came up with the following patch ("diff -u Makefile Makefile.old > Makefile-FLAGS.patch"):

--- Makefile	2024-01-17 16:45:50.820032476 +0200
+++ Makefile.old	2024-01-17 16:50:35.989535760 +0200
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 INCLUDE := src/cs50.h
 MANS := $(wildcard docs/*.3.gz)
 
-CFLAGS=-Wall -Wextra -Werror -pedantic -std=c11
+CFLAGS+=-Wall -Wextra -Werror -pedantic -std=c11
 BASENAME=libcs50
 LIB_STATIC=$(BASENAME).a
 LIB_OBJ=$(BASENAME).o
@@ -36,8 +36,8 @@
 all: $(LIBS) $(MANS)
 
 $(LIBS): $(SRC) $(INCLUDE) Makefile
-	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -fPIC -shared $(LINKER_FLAGS) -o $(LIB_VERSION) $(SRC)
-	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $(LIB_OBJ) $(SRC)
+	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -fPIC -shared $(LINKER_FLAGS) -o $(LIB_VERSION) $(SRC) ${LDFLAGS}
+	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $(LIB_OBJ) $(SRC) $(LDFLAGS)
 	ar rcs $(LIB_STATIC) $(LIB_OBJ)
 	chmod 644 $(LIB_STATIC)
 	rm -f $(LIB_OBJ)

Is this a correct way to add the build-system's CFLAGS and LDFLAGS for building libcs50(,-git)?

Next question: If so, would this be something to suggest to upstream, or is it good practice to bypass the build system's flags, and to impose your own? I just ran with namcap's warnings and things I read on the forum, which heavily suggest that this should be reported upstream. Still, being a complete noob, I rather check before bother upstream.

Thank you for your time and for teaching me!

Last edited by lquidfire (2024-01-18 07:16:06)

Lone_Wolf

Forum Moderator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,958

Re: PKGBUILD libcs50(,-git) Makefile patch help requested

see lines 12 and 30 and 39-40, if I am not mistaken.

line 30 is used on mac systems, line 24 is what's used on linux.

This, I gather, bypasses the CFLAGS and LDFLAGS on the machine that you're building the package on

yup, those in the makefile override the local settings .

There may be specific reasons why upstream uses their own set flags, and this library appears to have a very specific usecase.

The cnrdrvcups-lb aur package I maintain has a similar issue.
its upstream doesn't accept tickets for unsupported distros and as far as I know the supported distros do not change the upstream flags.
So my package also doesn't change the flags.

I suggest asking upstream about those flags and not changing them unless there's confirmation archlinux distro flags don't impact functionality of the library.

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

lquidfire

Member

From: South Africa

Registered: 2017-07-26

Posts: 53

Re: PKGBUILD libcs50(,-git) Makefile patch help requested

Dank je for your reply, Lone_Wolf.

I have contacted upstream to find out of RELRO would inhibit the software's functionality, and what they think of adding their flags to local flags, instead of replacing local ones.