[PATCH] build/x86: fix support for older compilers

[PATCH] build/x86: fix support for older compilers

[Bruce Richardson]

Some older compilers e.g. gcc 8.5, do not support overriding
-march=native with another architecture, leading to build warnings such
as reported in Bugzilla (link below). Add a check for that case, and
explicitly add the avx512 flags if necessary.

Note: it appears that it is only the "native" flag that isn't
overridden, which makes the issue hard to reproduce e.g. using
godbolt.org, or on a modern machine. For example, testing with gcc 8.5
on a haswell machine, using 'native' vs explicit 'haswell':

gcc -march=native -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX

gcc -march=haswell -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX
...

Bugzilla ID: 1736
Fixes: e361ae3f59d3 ("build: reduce use of AVX compiler flags")

Signed-off-by: Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>
---
 config/x86/meson.build | 7 ++++++-
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/config/x86/meson.build b/config/x86/meson.build
index e2ccfb6d12..0dcc5ddee4 100644
--- a/config/x86/meson.build
+++ b/config/x86/meson.build
@@ -71,8 +71,13 @@ avx512_march_flag = '-march=x86-64-v4'
 if not cc.has_argument(avx512_march_flag)
     avx512_march_flag = '-march=skylake-avx512'
 endif
+# workaround for older compilers, e.g. gcc 8.5 on RHEL 8.
+# if march flag overriding doesn't work, explicitly add flags for AVX512.
+if cc.get_define('__AVX512F__', args: [machine_args, avx512_march_flag]) == ''
+    avx512_march_flag = ['-mavx512f', '-mavx512bw', '-mavx512cd', '-mavx512dq', '-mavx512vl']
+endif
 cc_avx512_flags = []
-if (binutils_ok and cc.has_argument(avx512_march_flag)
+if (binutils_ok and cc.has_multi_arguments(avx512_march_flag)
         and '-mno-avx512f' not in get_option('c_args'))
     # check if compiler is working with _mm512_extracti64x4_epi64
     # Ref: https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=82887
-- 
2.48.1

Re: [PATCH] build/x86: fix support for older compilers

[Bruce Richardson]

On Wed, Jul 02, 2025 at 04:51:29PM +0100, Bruce Richardson wrote:
> Some older compilers e.g. gcc 8.5, do not support overriding
> -march=native with another architecture, leading to build warnings such
> as reported in Bugzilla (link below). Add a check for that case, and
> explicitly add the avx512 flags if necessary.
> 
> Note: it appears that it is only the "native" flag that isn't
> overridden, which makes the issue hard to reproduce e.g. using
> godbolt.org, or on a modern machine. For example, testing with gcc 8.5
> on a haswell machine, using 'native' vs explicit 'haswell':
> 
> gcc -march=native -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX
> 
> gcc -march=haswell -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX
> ...
> 

... and of course the output lines get stripped since they start with '#'
for '#define' :-(

> Bugzilla ID: 1736
> Fixes: e361ae3f59d3 ("build: reduce use of AVX compiler flags")
> 
> Signed-off-by: Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>
> ---
>  config/x86/meson.build | 7 ++++++-
>  1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/config/x86/meson.build b/config/x86/meson.build
> index e2ccfb6d12..0dcc5ddee4 100644
> --- a/config/x86/meson.build
> +++ b/config/x86/meson.build
> @@ -71,8 +71,13 @@ avx512_march_flag = '-march=x86-64-v4'
>  if not cc.has_argument(avx512_march_flag)
>      avx512_march_flag = '-march=skylake-avx512'
>  endif
> +# workaround for older compilers, e.g. gcc 8.5 on RHEL 8.
> +# if march flag overriding doesn't work, explicitly add flags for AVX512.
> +if cc.get_define('__AVX512F__', args: [machine_args, avx512_march_flag]) == ''
> +    avx512_march_flag = ['-mavx512f', '-mavx512bw', '-mavx512cd', '-mavx512dq', '-mavx512vl']
> +endif
>  cc_avx512_flags = []
> -if (binutils_ok and cc.has_argument(avx512_march_flag)
> +if (binutils_ok and cc.has_multi_arguments(avx512_march_flag)
>          and '-mno-avx512f' not in get_option('c_args'))
>      # check if compiler is working with _mm512_extracti64x4_epi64
>      # Ref: https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=82887
> -- 
> 2.48.1
> 

[PATCH v2] build/x86: fix support for older compilers

[Bruce Richardson]

Some older compilers e.g. gcc 8.5, do not support overriding
-march=native with another architecture, leading to build warnings such
as reported in Bugzilla (link below). Add a check for that case, and
explicitly add the avx512 flags if necessary.

Note: it appears that it is only the "native" flag that isn't
overridden, which makes the issue hard to reproduce e.g. using
godbolt.org, or on a modern machine. For example, testing with gcc 8.5
on a haswell machine, using 'native' vs explicit 'haswell':

gcc -march=native -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX512 | wc -l
0

gcc -march=haswell -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX512 | wc -l
5

Bugzilla ID: 1736
Fixes: e361ae3f59d3 ("build: reduce use of AVX compiler flags")

Signed-off-by: Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>
---
 config/x86/meson.build | 7 ++++++-
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/config/x86/meson.build b/config/x86/meson.build
index e2ccfb6d12..0dcc5ddee4 100644
--- a/config/x86/meson.build
+++ b/config/x86/meson.build
@@ -71,8 +71,13 @@ avx512_march_flag = '-march=x86-64-v4'
 if not cc.has_argument(avx512_march_flag)
     avx512_march_flag = '-march=skylake-avx512'
 endif
+# workaround for older compilers, e.g. gcc 8.5 on RHEL 8.
+# if march flag overriding doesn't work, explicitly add flags for AVX512.
+if cc.get_define('__AVX512F__', args: [machine_args, avx512_march_flag]) == ''
+    avx512_march_flag = ['-mavx512f', '-mavx512bw', '-mavx512cd', '-mavx512dq', '-mavx512vl']
+endif
 cc_avx512_flags = []
-if (binutils_ok and cc.has_argument(avx512_march_flag)
+if (binutils_ok and cc.has_multi_arguments(avx512_march_flag)
         and '-mno-avx512f' not in get_option('c_args'))
     # check if compiler is working with _mm512_extracti64x4_epi64
     # Ref: https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=82887
-- 
2.48.1

Re: [PATCH v2] build/x86: fix support for older compilers

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Wed,  2 Jul 2025 17:00:45 +0100
Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com> wrote:

> Some older compilers e.g. gcc 8.5, do not support overriding
> -march=native with another architecture, leading to build warnings such
> as reported in Bugzilla (link below). Add a check for that case, and
> explicitly add the avx512 flags if necessary.
> 
> Note: it appears that it is only the "native" flag that isn't
> overridden, which makes the issue hard to reproduce e.g. using
> godbolt.org, or on a modern machine. For example, testing with gcc 8.5
> on a haswell machine, using 'native' vs explicit 'haswell':
> 
> gcc -march=native -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX512 | wc -l
> 0
> 
> gcc -march=haswell -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX512 | wc -l
> 5
> 
> Bugzilla ID: 1736
> Fixes: e361ae3f59d3 ("build: reduce use of AVX compiler flags")
> 
> Signed-off-by: Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>
> ---
>  config/x86/meson.build | 7 ++++++-
>  1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/config/x86/meson.build b/config/x86/meson.build
> index e2ccfb6d12..0dcc5ddee4 100644
> --- a/config/x86/meson.build
> +++ b/config/x86/meson.build
> @@ -71,8 +71,13 @@ avx512_march_flag = '-march=x86-64-v4'
>  if not cc.has_argument(avx512_march_flag)
>      avx512_march_flag = '-march=skylake-avx512'
>  endif
> +# workaround for older compilers, e.g. gcc 8.5 on RHEL 8.
> +# if march flag overriding doesn't work, explicitly add flags for AVX512.
> +if cc.get_define('__AVX512F__', args: [machine_args, avx512_march_flag]) == ''
> +    avx512_march_flag = ['-mavx512f', '-mavx512bw', '-mavx512cd', '-mavx512dq', '-mavx512vl']
> +endif

RHEL 8.5 reached end of extended support cycle (EOL).
Why are we still supporting it?

Re: [PATCH v2] build/x86: fix support for older compilers

[Bruce Richardson]

On Wed, Jul 02, 2025 at 11:22:42AM -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Wed,  2 Jul 2025 17:00:45 +0100
> Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com> wrote:
> 
> > Some older compilers e.g. gcc 8.5, do not support overriding
> > -march=native with another architecture, leading to build warnings such
> > as reported in Bugzilla (link below). Add a check for that case, and
> > explicitly add the avx512 flags if necessary.
> > 
> > Note: it appears that it is only the "native" flag that isn't
> > overridden, which makes the issue hard to reproduce e.g. using
> > godbolt.org, or on a modern machine. For example, testing with gcc 8.5
> > on a haswell machine, using 'native' vs explicit 'haswell':
> > 
> > gcc -march=native -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX512 | wc -l
> > 0
> > 
> > gcc -march=haswell -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX512 | wc -l
> > 5
> > 
> > Bugzilla ID: 1736
> > Fixes: e361ae3f59d3 ("build: reduce use of AVX compiler flags")
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>
> > ---
> >  config/x86/meson.build | 7 ++++++-
> >  1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/config/x86/meson.build b/config/x86/meson.build
> > index e2ccfb6d12..0dcc5ddee4 100644
> > --- a/config/x86/meson.build
> > +++ b/config/x86/meson.build
> > @@ -71,8 +71,13 @@ avx512_march_flag = '-march=x86-64-v4'
> >  if not cc.has_argument(avx512_march_flag)
> >      avx512_march_flag = '-march=skylake-avx512'
> >  endif
> > +# workaround for older compilers, e.g. gcc 8.5 on RHEL 8.
> > +# if march flag overriding doesn't work, explicitly add flags for AVX512.
> > +if cc.get_define('__AVX512F__', args: [machine_args, avx512_march_flag]) == ''
> > +    avx512_march_flag = ['-mavx512f', '-mavx512bw', '-mavx512cd', '-mavx512dq', '-mavx512vl']
> > +endif
> 
> RHEL 8.5 reached end of extended support cycle (EOL).
> Why are we still supporting it?

Folks working for Redhat can answer better than me, but according to [1]
it's not EOL yet. Also, we support it in DPDK because users are still using
it - we had two separate people report seeing the issue on RHEL 8 on RC2,
so likely a reasonable number will be using it with the actual release.

/Bruce

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux#Version_history_and_timeline

Re: [PATCH v2] build/x86: fix support for older compilers

[David Marchand]

On Thu, Jul 3, 2025 at 10:01 AM Bruce Richardson
<bruce.richardson@intel.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jul 02, 2025 at 11:22:42AM -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> > On Wed,  2 Jul 2025 17:00:45 +0100
> > Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Some older compilers e.g. gcc 8.5, do not support overriding
> > > -march=native with another architecture, leading to build warnings such
> > > as reported in Bugzilla (link below). Add a check for that case, and
> > > explicitly add the avx512 flags if necessary.
> > >
> > > Note: it appears that it is only the "native" flag that isn't
> > > overridden, which makes the issue hard to reproduce e.g. using
> > > godbolt.org, or on a modern machine. For example, testing with gcc 8.5
> > > on a haswell machine, using 'native' vs explicit 'haswell':
> > >
> > > gcc -march=native -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX512 | wc -l
> > > 0
> > >
> > > gcc -march=haswell -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX512 | wc -l
> > > 5
> > >
> > > Bugzilla ID: 1736
> > > Fixes: e361ae3f59d3 ("build: reduce use of AVX compiler flags")
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>
> > > ---
> > >  config/x86/meson.build | 7 ++++++-
> > >  1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> > >
> > > diff --git a/config/x86/meson.build b/config/x86/meson.build
> > > index e2ccfb6d12..0dcc5ddee4 100644
> > > --- a/config/x86/meson.build
> > > +++ b/config/x86/meson.build
> > > @@ -71,8 +71,13 @@ avx512_march_flag = '-march=x86-64-v4'
> > >  if not cc.has_argument(avx512_march_flag)
> > >      avx512_march_flag = '-march=skylake-avx512'
> > >  endif
> > > +# workaround for older compilers, e.g. gcc 8.5 on RHEL 8.
> > > +# if march flag overriding doesn't work, explicitly add flags for AVX512.
> > > +if cc.get_define('__AVX512F__', args: [machine_args, avx512_march_flag]) == ''
> > > +    avx512_march_flag = ['-mavx512f', '-mavx512bw', '-mavx512cd', '-mavx512dq', '-mavx512vl']
> > > +endif
> >
> > RHEL 8.5 reached end of extended support cycle (EOL).
> > Why are we still supporting it?
>
> Folks working for Redhat can answer better than me, but according to [1]
> it's not EOL yet. Also, we support it in DPDK because users are still using

RHEL 8 is not EOL.


-- 
David Marchand

[PATCH v3] build/x86: fix support for older compilers

[Bruce Richardson]

Some older compilers e.g. gcc 8.5, do not support overriding
-march=native with another architecture, leading to build warnings such
as reported in Bugzilla (link below). Add a check for that case, and
explicitly add the avx512 flags if necessary.

Note: it appears that it is only the "native" flag that isn't
overridden, which makes the issue hard to reproduce e.g. using
godbolt.org, or on a modern machine. For example, testing with gcc 8.5
on a haswell machine, using 'native' vs explicit 'haswell':

gcc -march=native -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX512 | wc -l
0

gcc -march=haswell -march=skylake-avx512 -dM -E - < /dev/null | grep AVX512 | wc -l
5

Bugzilla ID: 1736
Fixes: e361ae3f59d3 ("build: reduce use of AVX compiler flags")

Signed-off-by: Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>
---
V3: fix build when using meson 0.57 which doesn't flatten the sub-arrays
V2: fix commit log
---
 config/x86/meson.build | 15 ++++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/config/x86/meson.build b/config/x86/meson.build
index e2ccfb6d12..bd135eb02d 100644
--- a/config/x86/meson.build
+++ b/config/x86/meson.build
@@ -67,26 +67,31 @@ if is_linux or cc.get_id() == 'gcc'
     endif
 endif
 
-avx512_march_flag = '-march=x86-64-v4'
+avx512_march_flag = ['-march=x86-64-v4']
 if not cc.has_argument(avx512_march_flag)
-    avx512_march_flag = '-march=skylake-avx512'
+    avx512_march_flag = ['-march=skylake-avx512']
+endif
+# workaround for older compilers, e.g. gcc 8.5 on RHEL 8.
+# if march flag overriding doesn't work, explicitly add flags for AVX512.
+if cc.get_define('__AVX512F__', args: machine_args + avx512_march_flag) == ''
+    avx512_march_flag = ['-mavx512f', '-mavx512bw', '-mavx512cd', '-mavx512dq', '-mavx512vl']
 endif
 cc_avx512_flags = []
-if (binutils_ok and cc.has_argument(avx512_march_flag)
+if (binutils_ok and cc.has_multi_arguments(avx512_march_flag)
         and '-mno-avx512f' not in get_option('c_args'))
     # check if compiler is working with _mm512_extracti64x4_epi64
     # Ref: https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=82887
     code = '''#include <immintrin.h>
     void test(__m512i zmm){
         __m256i ymm = _mm512_extracti64x4_epi64(zmm, 0);}'''
-    result = cc.compiles(code, args : [avx512_march_flag], name : 'AVX512 checking')
+    result = cc.compiles(code, args : avx512_march_flag, name : 'AVX512 checking')
     if result == false
         machine_args += '-mno-avx512f'
         warning('Broken _mm512_extracti64x4_epi64, disabling AVX512 support')
     else
         cc_has_avx512 = true
         if cc.get_define('__AVX512F__', args: machine_args) == ''
-            cc_avx512_flags = [avx512_march_flag]
+            cc_avx512_flags = avx512_march_flag
             if cc.has_argument('-Wno-overriding-option')
                 cc_avx512_flags += '-Wno-overriding-option'
             endif
-- 
2.48.1