Bug 865891 – x11-misc/compose-tables fails to build with GCC 11 or above

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED INVALID

[Description Yi Yang 2022-08-20 18:12:13 UTC]

GCC 11 and above refuses to build anything if the current directory contains a subdirectory called "specs". Unfortunately x11-misc/compose-tables does so.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Build x11-misc/compose-tables with GCC 11 or above.
Actual Results:  
Fails at configuration, and gcc complains "gcc: fatal error: cannot read spec file ‘./specs’: Is a directory".

Note that the source directory of x11-misc/compose-tables does contain a directory called "specs", but nobody wanted gcc to assume it's a file and read it.


Technically it's a backwards-incompatible behavior of GCC. However, I wonder if there's some flag that disables this behavior, and perhaps we should include those in the ebuild.

[Comment 1 Mike Gilbert 2022-08-20 18:40:14 UTC]

I am able to build x11-misc/compose-tables-1.8.1 with sys-devel/gcc-11.3.0 without any errors.

[Comment 2 Mike Gilbert 2022-08-20 18:41:02 UTC]

Please provide emerge --info and attach a full build log demonstrating the failure.

[Comment 3 Yi Yang 2022-08-22 09:08:47 UTC]

I apologize.

I can post the build log, however, last night the same machine fails to build GCC-12.2.0, and I am suspecting that something else is wrong with the machine (e.g. weird environment variables or unusual system layout).

I'll report back if I resolve other issues and this issue still does not go away. For now I think NEEDINFO/RESOLVED is a good status for this.

[Comment 4 Yi Yang 2022-08-22 14:38:33 UTC]

Confirmed: I set `LIBRARY_PATH="${LIBRARY_PATH}:/some/path/to/a/third/party/library"`, inadvertently adding PWD to LIBRARY_PATH and causing all kinds of build failures.

I feel ashamed that I'm reporting this kind of "bug" after having used Gentoo for 11 years.