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rustbuild: Compile rustc twice, not thrice #38631

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merged 1 commit into from
Dec 30, 2016

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alexcrichton
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@alexcrichton alexcrichton commented Dec 27, 2016

This commit switches the rustbuild build system to compiling the
compiler twice for a normal bootstrap rather than the historical three
times.

Rust is a bootstrapped language which means that a previous version of
the compiler is used to build the next version of the compiler. Over
time, however, we change many parts of compiler artifacts such as the
metadata format, symbol names, etc. These changes make artifacts from
one compiler incompatible from another compiler. Consequently if a
compiler wants to be able to use some artifacts then it itself must have
compiled the artifacts.

Historically the rustc build system has achieved this by compiling the
compiler three times:

  • An older compiler (stage0) is downloaded to kick off the chain.
  • This compiler now compiles a new compiler (stage1)
  • The stage1 compiler then compiles another compiler (stage2)
  • Finally, the stage2 compiler needs libraries to link against, so it
    compiles all the libraries again.

This entire process amounts in compiling the compiler three times.
Additionally, this process always guarantees that the Rust source tree
can compile itself because the stage2 compiler (created by a freshly
created compiler) would successfully compile itself again. This
property, ensuring Rust can compile itself, is quite important!

In general, though, this third compilation is not required for general
purpose development on the compiler. The third compiler (stage2) can
reuse the libraries that were created during the second compile. In
other words, the second compilation can produce both a compiler and the
libraries that compiler will use. These artifacts must be compatible
due to the way plugins work today anyway, and they were created by the
same source code so they should be compatible as well.

So given all that, this commit switches the default build process to
only compile the compiler two times, avoiding this third compilation
by copying artifacts from the previous one. Along the way a new entry in
the Travis matrix was also added to ensure that our full bootstrap can
succeed. This entry does not run tests, though, as it should not be
necessary.

To restore the old behavior of a full bootstrap (three compiles) you can
either pass:

./configure --enable-full-bootstrap

or if you're using config.toml:

[build]
full-bootstrap = true

Overall this will hopefully be an easy 33% win in build times of the
compiler. If we do 33% less work we should be 33% faster! This in turn
should affect cycle times and such on Travis and AppVeyor positively as
well as making it easier to work on the compiler itself.

@rust-highfive
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r? @nikomatsakis

(rust_highfive has picked a reviewer for you, use r? to override)

@alexcrichton
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r? @brson

cc #38531

--enable-full-bootstrap
ENV RUST_CHECK_TARGET ""
RUN mkdir /tmp/obj
RUN chmod 777 /tmp/obj
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Nit: ccache and /tmp/obj are not removed (cc #38632)

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Oops, indeed!

This commit switches the rustbuild build system to compiling the
compiler twice for a normal bootstrap rather than the historical three
times.

Rust is a bootstrapped language which means that a previous version of
the compiler is used to build the next version of the compiler. Over
time, however, we change many parts of compiler artifacts such as the
metadata format, symbol names, etc. These changes make artifacts from
one compiler incompatible from another compiler. Consequently if a
compiler wants to be able to use some artifacts then it itself must have
compiled the artifacts.

Historically the rustc build system has achieved this by compiling the
compiler three times:

* An older compiler (stage0) is downloaded to kick off the chain.
* This compiler now compiles a new compiler (stage1)
* The stage1 compiler then compiles another compiler (stage2)
* Finally, the stage2 compiler needs libraries to link against, so it
  compiles all the libraries again.

This entire process amounts in compiling the compiler three times.
Additionally, this process always guarantees that the Rust source tree
can compile itself because the stage2 compiler (created by a freshly
created compiler) would successfully compile itself again. This
property, ensuring Rust can compile itself, is quite important!

In general, though, this third compilation is not required for general
purpose development on the compiler. The third compiler (stage2) can
reuse the libraries that were created during the second compile. In
other words, the second compilation can produce both a compiler and the
libraries that compiler will use. These artifacts *must* be compatible
due to the way plugins work today anyway, and they were created by the
same source code so they *should* be compatible as well.

So given all that, this commit switches the default build process to
only compile the compiler three times, avoiding this third compilation
by copying artifacts from the previous one. Along the way a new entry in
the Travis matrix was also added to ensure that our full bootstrap can
succeed. This entry does not run tests, though, as it should not be
necessary.

To restore the old behavior of a full bootstrap (three compiles) you can
either pass:

    ./configure --enable-full-bootstrap

or if you're using config.toml:

    [build]
    full-bootstrap = true

Overall this will hopefully be an easy 33% win in build times of the
compiler. If we do 33% less work we should be 33% faster! This in turn
should affect cycle times and such on Travis and AppVeyor positively as
well as making it easier to work on the compiler itself.
@brson
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brson commented Dec 29, 2016

@bors r+

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bors commented Dec 29, 2016

📌 Commit 7046fea has been approved by brson

@xen0n
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xen0n commented Dec 29, 2016

A small PR message nit:

[...] this commit switches the default build process to
only compile the compiler three times, [...]

three -> two

@alexcrichton
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Oops, indeed!

alexcrichton added a commit to alexcrichton/rust that referenced this pull request Dec 30, 2016
rustbuild: Compile rustc twice, not thrice

This commit switches the rustbuild build system to compiling the
compiler twice for a normal bootstrap rather than the historical three
times.

Rust is a bootstrapped language which means that a previous version of
the compiler is used to build the next version of the compiler. Over
time, however, we change many parts of compiler artifacts such as the
metadata format, symbol names, etc. These changes make artifacts from
one compiler incompatible from another compiler. Consequently if a
compiler wants to be able to use some artifacts then it itself must have
compiled the artifacts.

Historically the rustc build system has achieved this by compiling the
compiler three times:

* An older compiler (stage0) is downloaded to kick off the chain.
* This compiler now compiles a new compiler (stage1)
* The stage1 compiler then compiles another compiler (stage2)
* Finally, the stage2 compiler needs libraries to link against, so it
  compiles all the libraries again.

This entire process amounts in compiling the compiler three times.
Additionally, this process always guarantees that the Rust source tree
can compile itself because the stage2 compiler (created by a freshly
created compiler) would successfully compile itself again. This
property, ensuring Rust can compile itself, is quite important!

In general, though, this third compilation is not required for general
purpose development on the compiler. The third compiler (stage2) can
reuse the libraries that were created during the second compile. In
other words, the second compilation can produce both a compiler and the
libraries that compiler will use. These artifacts *must* be compatible
due to the way plugins work today anyway, and they were created by the
same source code so they *should* be compatible as well.

So given all that, this commit switches the default build process to
only compile the compiler two times, avoiding this third compilation
by copying artifacts from the previous one. Along the way a new entry in
the Travis matrix was also added to ensure that our full bootstrap can
succeed. This entry does not run tests, though, as it should not be
necessary.

To restore the old behavior of a full bootstrap (three compiles) you can
either pass:

    ./configure --enable-full-bootstrap

or if you're using config.toml:

    [build]
    full-bootstrap = true

Overall this will hopefully be an easy 33% win in build times of the
compiler. If we do 33% less work we should be 33% faster! This in turn
should affect cycle times and such on Travis and AppVeyor positively as
well as making it easier to work on the compiler itself.
bors added a commit that referenced this pull request Dec 30, 2016
@bors bors merged commit 7046fea into rust-lang:master Dec 30, 2016
@alexcrichton alexcrichton deleted the supafast branch December 30, 2016 18:05
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7 participants