[mpich-discuss] Possible bug: --enable-g=all configure option does not include all other --enable-g options

[William Gropp]

While I agree that "all" should mean "all", this unfortunate use is consistent with gcc, which uses -Wall to mean "most of the warning options, but not the ones that who ever is in charge of this release did not like or forgot about."  

A better name might be --enable-g=most - and for gcc, -Wmost .  Anything else is either too long or misleading.

Bill

William Gropp
Director, Parallel Computing Institute
Deputy Director for Research
Institute for Advanced Computing Applications and Technologies
Thomas M. Siebel Chair in Computer Science
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign




On Mar 11, 2013, at 8:14 PM, Jeff Hammond wrote:

> --enable-g=all should enable all debugging options to satisfy the
> principle of least surprise as well as simple English language meaning
> of the word "all".
> 
> perhaps there should be an option
> --enable-g=important/most/devel/useful/sane that enables all of the
> debug options that are reasonable for the "average hardcore user" /
> developer.
> 
> jeff
> 
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Jeremiah Willcock <jewillco at osl.iu.edu> wrote:
>> On Mon, 11 Mar 2013, Dave Goodell wrote:
>> 
>>> On Mar 11, 2013, at 3:36 PM CDT, Jeremiah Willcock <jewillco at osl.iu.edu>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> In MPICH 3.0.2, the help message for the --enable-g=all configure option
>>>> states that it enables "All of the above choices", but in fact (according to
>>>> configure.ac) it does not enable the "handle" or "memarena" debugging flags.
>>>> Is that the intended behavior?  Thank you for your help.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> The situation is unclear.  I just did a little bit of git archaeology and
>>> it looks like these flags were added prior to MPICH2-1.0.6, which is as far
>>> back as I can look without having to sift through ancient CVS history.  The
>>> pickaxe doesn't show any place where variables corresponding to those flags
>>> might have been removed from the "all|yes)" case.  It looks like just a
>>> mistake or sloppiness on someone's part in the distant past.
>>> 
>>> I'm not sure what the right "fix" is.  The "memarena" option actually
>>> introduces quite a bit of overhead that we may not want enabled casually.
>>> The "handles" option is pretty lightweight, at least in stock MPICH.  I
>>> suppose we could add both to the "all" option and then change the "yes"
>>> option to be a set of reasonable defaults instead.
>>> 
>>> Do you have a preference?  Or are you just observing a discrepancy?
>> 
>> 
>> I was both observing a discrepancy and trying to debug something and was
>> surprised that "all" didn't include "handles".
>> 
>> -- Jeremiah Willcock
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jeff Hammond
> Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
> University of Chicago Computation Institute
> jhammond at alcf.anl.gov / (630) 252-5381
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffhammond
> https://wiki.alcf.anl.gov/parts/index.php/User:Jhammond
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