[Bug 2002043] Re: Python extension modules get built using wrong compiler flags with python2

[Ghadi Rahme]

Won't fix Lunar nor Mantic since package is not available for these
releases

** Changed in: python2.7 (Ubuntu Lunar)
       Status: In Progress => Won't Fix

** Also affects: python2.7 (Ubuntu Mantic)
   Importance: Undecided
     Assignee: Ghadi Rahme (ghadi-rahme)
       Status: In Progress

** Changed in: python2.7 (Ubuntu Mantic)
       Status: In Progress => Won't Fix

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Title:
  Python extension modules get built using wrong compiler flags with
  python2

Status in python2.7 package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress
Status in python2.7 source package in Bionic:
  In Progress
Status in python2.7 source package in Focal:
  In Progress
Status in python2.7 source package in Jammy:
  In Progress
Status in python2.7 source package in Kinetic:
  In Progress
Status in python2.7 source package in Lunar:
  Won't Fix
Status in python2.7 source package in Mantic:
  Won't Fix

Bug description:
  Compiling a Python extension using Python2 (Python 2.7.18) is making
  use of wrong compiler flags, hence dropping required optimizations
  when required. This is happening only when python2 is installed from
  Ubuntu's repositories. By default, Python's distutils module uses
  compiler and linker flags used to compile Python itself to be used to
  compile extensions.

  Steps to reproduce:
  1) On Ubuntu 20.04, install python2 using apt package manager.
  2) After successful installation, verify the CFLAGS variable from sysconfig module. On my machine, the output is 

  Python 2.7.18 (default, Jul  1 2022, 12:27:04)
  [GCC 9.4.0] on linux2
  Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
  >>> import sysconfig
  >>> sysconfig.get_config_var('CFLAGS')
  '-fno-strict-aliasing -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O2 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -g -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/python2.7-vvQ8AI/python2.7-2.7.18=. -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Werror=format-security  '

  3) Build a test extension module using python2 and verify the compilation flags. 
  python2 setup.py build_ext --inplace

  Output from below command is not matching with our expected above CFLAGS. 
  aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc -pthread -fno-strict-aliasing -Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -g -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/python2.7-vvQ8AI/python2.7-2.7.18=. -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Werror=format-security -fPIC -I/usr/include/python2.7 -c testmodule.c -o build/temp.linux-aarch64-2.7/testmodule.o

  
  On further investigation, it looks like Ubuntu's specific patch applied on libpython2.7-stdlib package is altering the original upstream implementation of distutils/sysconfig.py code.

  Package - https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/libpython2.7-stdlib
  Patch - http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/python2.7/python2.7_2.7.18-1~20.04.3.diff.gz

  Below is the code block which is causing the issue, where the presence of configure_cflags is modifying cflags. This code is result of ubuntu's patch and doesn't come directly from upstream python implementation.
  File - /usr/lib/python2.7/distutils/sysconfig.py
  Part of code block:
          elif configure_cflags:
              cflags = ' '.join(str(x) for x in (basecflags, configure_cflags, extra_cflags) if x)
              ldshared = ldshared + ' ' + configure_cflags

  
  I don't see problem on Python3 though we have extra code added from patch there as well. Patch used on python3, is not modifying the cflags completely and instead appending new flags to cflags.
  On python3 (tested on Ubuntu 20.04)
  File - /usr/lib/python3.8/distutils/sysconfig.py
  Part of code block which doesn't alter cflags completely
          elif configure_cflags:
              cflags = cflags + ' ' + configure_cflags
              ldshared = ldshared + ' ' + configure_cflags

  
  Request to update the python2 patch to behave similar to what is been done on python3.

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