Yarp: Issues with libACE on recent distros with glibc 2.30

[xEnVrE]

Describe the bug
This is not strictly related to YARP, however, since YARP depends on libace, I think it is better to report it.

It seems that some distros, e.g. Fedora >= 9, Ubuntu >= 19.10, Arch Linux (and many others I am not ware of) are removing the file /usr/include/stropts.h that is included within libace. For Linux, the developers of libace are handling this in the configuration file $ACE_SOURCE_ROOT/ACE_WRAPPERS/ace/config-linux.h with something like this

// Starting with FC9 rawhide this file is not available anymore but             
// this define is set
#if defined _XOPEN_STREAMS && _XOPEN_STREAMS == -1                              
# define ACE_LACKS_STROPTS_H                                                    
# define ACE_LACKS_STRRECVFD                                                    
#endif 

as libace can work even without the support to these streams.

However, this works only on Fedora as far as I know. For example, on Arch Linux this does not work, ditto for Ubuntu >= 19.10 as @marcoaccame reported.

Of course, this means that libace does not compile on these systems. Also, it seems that the package libace-dev available on Ubuntu 19.10 is shipped with header files that include stropts.h (probably because the package is built with support to stropts enabled) resulting in a failing build for YARP as soon as /usr/include/ace/os_include/os_stropts.h is included.

cc @traversaro

Configuration:

• OS: any Linux distro missing /usr/include/stropts.h
• libace version: I tested with 6.4.8 while @marcoaccame uses 6.4.5 shipped with Ubuntu 19.10

[Nicogene]

Yet another reason to push https://github.com/robotology/yarp/issues/1637.
Unfortunately the 20.04 release it is too close in order to get rid of ACE

[traversaro]

As a workaround, can't we just add ACE_LACKS_STROPTS_H to the YARP compile definitions? If I understand correctly, this should avoid inclusion of the missing header stropts.h .

By the way, I think this is actually connected to this bug in Gazebo : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ace/+bug/1852425 .

[traversaro]

@xEnVrE @marcoaccame I think a possible workaround for this is to add a
~
if(TARGET ACE::ACE)
target_compile_definitions(ACE::ACE INTERFACE ACE_LACKS_STROPTS_H)
endif()
~
after the find_package(ACE ...) in https://github.com/robotology/yarp/blob/218aff62ea404fdb0001e28dbcdc78cdf456487b/cmake/YarpFindDependencies.cmake#L275 ?

[traversaro]

There was also a ACE upstream related fix : https://github.com/DOCGroup/ACE_TAO/pull/939 .

[traversaro]

I updated the issue title as the issue is related to distro with glibc >= 2.30, see https://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=9515 .

[davidetome]

@xEnVrE @marcoaccame I think a possible workaround for this is to add a

if(TARGET ACE::ACE)
  target_compile_definitions(ACE::ACE INTERFACE ACE_LACKS_STROPTS_H) 
endif()

after the find_package(ACE ...) in

https://github.com/robotology/yarp/blob/218aff62ea404fdb0001e28dbcdc78cdf456487b/cmake/YarpFindDependencies.cmake#L275

?

@traversaro , please see https://github.com/robotology/yarp/issues/2128#issuecomment-559494285

[drdanz]

Can anyone with glib 2.30 try if something like this works?

diff --git a/extern/ycm/ycm-0.10.4/find-modules/FindACE.cmake b/extern/ycm/ycm-0.10.4/find-modules/FindACE.cmake
index 2deda332c..f1d2515fc 100644
--- a/extern/ycm/ycm-0.11.0/find-modules/FindACE.cmake
+++ b/extern/ycm/ycm-0.11.0/find-modules/FindACE.cmake
@@ -94,6 +94,14 @@ if (NOT DEFINED ACE_INLINE OR ACE_INLINE)
   set(ACE_DEFINITIONS "__ACE_INLINE__")
 endif()

+if(UNIX AND NOT APPLE)
+  include(CheckIncludeFileCXX)
+  check_include_file_cxx(stropts.h ACE_HAS_STROPTS_H)
+  if(NOT ACE_HAS_STROPTS_H)
+    list(APPEND ACE_DEFINITIONS ACE_LACKS_STROPTS_H)
+  endif()
+endif()
+
 ########################################################################
 ## OS-specific extra linkage

@@ -172,9 +180,7 @@ add_library(ACE::ACE UNKNOWN IMPORTED)
 set_target_properties(ACE::ACE PROPERTIES INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES "${ACE_INCLUDE_DIRS}")
 set_target_properties(ACE::ACE PROPERTIES INTERFACE_SYSTEM_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES "${ACE_INCLUDE_DIRS}")
 set_target_properties(ACE::ACE PROPERTIES INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES "${ACE_EXTRA_LIBRARIES}")
-if (NOT DEFINED ACE_INLINE OR ACE_INLINE)
-  set_target_properties(ACE::ACE PROPERTIES INTERFACE_COMPILE_DEFINITIONS "__ACE_INLINE__")
-endif()
+set_target_properties(ACE::ACE PROPERTIES INTERFACE_COMPILE_DEFINITIONS "${ACE_DEFINITIONS}")

 if(ACE_ACE_LIBRARY_RELEASE)
   set_property(TARGET ACE::ACE APPEND PROPERTY IMPORTED_CONFIGURATIONS RELEASE)

[traversaro]

@xEnVrE @marcoaccame I think a possible workaround for this is to add a

if(TARGET ACE::ACE)
  target_compile_definitions(ACE::ACE INTERFACE ACE_LACKS_STROPTS_H) 
endif()

after the find_package(ACE ...) in
https://github.com/robotology/yarp/blob/218aff62ea404fdb0001e28dbcdc78cdf456487b/cmake/YarpFindDependencies.cmake#L275

?

@traversaro , please see #2128 (comment)

I did not consider the CMake version in my solution. The one suggested by @drdanz in https://github.com/robotology/yarp/issues/2125#issuecomment-559741190 should work fine instead.

[drdanz]

After some considerations, and some debugging with @xEnVrE, I believe there is nothing that we can do at our side, the bug was fixed upstream in ACE, (see https://github.com/DOCGroup/ACE_TAO/commit/e7e38f991ff56b3c628c1cb0b891be8a4c125b1d) and is available in ACE 6.5.7.

I suggest to report a bug in your distros (arch/ubuntu), and ask them to update the ACE package

[drdanz]

A quick and dirty fix is to change this in /usr/include/ace/config-linux.h installed by the libace-dev package

-#if defined _XOPEN_STREAMS && _XOPEN_STREAMS == -1
+#if !defined(_XOPEN_STREAMS) || (defined _XOPEN_STREAMS && _XOPEN_STREAMS == -1)

[drdanz]

Or perhaps also adding -D_XOPEN_STREAMS=-1 should work

[triccyx]

I can confirm the workaround on ubuntu 19.10 work well

[drdanz]

For reference, glibc 2.30 just entered debian testing.
I just reported a bug: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=954252

[drdanz]

It should now be fixed in debian libace-dev 6.4.5+dfsg-1.1, see

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=946853

[drdanz]

Sync in ubuntu requested: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ace/+bug/1873445