diff mbox series

[wwwdocs] Add Ada's GCC 14 changelog entry

Message ID 0fa6637b-1b62-4f3c-8a7b-55f05c8a6df5@irvise.xyz
State New
Headers show
Series [wwwdocs] Add Ada's GCC 14 changelog entry | expand

Commit Message

Fernando Oleo Blanco Feb. 25, 2024, 8:48 p.m. UTC
Dear all,

just like last year, I would like to commit the changes that took place 
over at GNAT for GCC v14. The patch is attached to the email. Hopefully 
it is good enough to just be added to master. If you see something wrong 
or if you would like to add anything to it, feel free :) Feedback is 
always welcomed.

Best regards,
Fer

Comments

Marc Poulhiès Feb. 26, 2024, 9:17 a.m. UTC | #1
Fernando Oleo Blanco <irvise_ml@irvise.xyz> writes:

> Dear all,
>
> just like last year, I would like to commit the changes that took place
> over at GNAT for GCC v14. The patch is attached to the email. Hopefully
> it is good enough to just be added to master. If you see something wrong
> or if you would like to add anything to it, feel free :) Feedback is
> always welcomed.

Fernando,

Thank you for this work! I have a few comments, see below.

diff --git a/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html b/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html
index 85ccc54d..e6c96c9f 100644
--- a/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html
+++ b/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html
@@ -171,7 +171,49 @@ a work-in-progress.</p>
 <!-- .................................................................. -->
 <h2 id="languages">New Languages and Language specific improvements</h2>

-<!-- <h3 id="ada">Ada</h3> -->
+<h3 id="ada">Ada</h3>
+
+<ul>
+  <li>Several new aspects and contracts have been implemented:

Maybe worth noting that these are implementation defined aspects.

+    <ul>
+      <li><code>Exceptional_Cases</code> may be specified for procedures and
+      functions with side effects; it can be used to list exceptions that might
+      be propagated by the subprogram with side effects in the context of its
+      precondition, and associate them with a specific postcondition. For more
+      information, refer to SPARK 2014 Reference Manual, section 6.1.9.</li>
+      <li><code>User_Aspect</code> takes an argument that is the name of an
+      aspect defined by a User_Aspect_Definition configuration pragma.</li>
+      <li><code>Local_Restrictions</code> is used to specify that a particular
+      subprogram does not violate one or more local restrictions, nor can it
+      call a subprogram that is not subject to the same requirements.</li>
+      <li><code>Side_Effects</code> is equivalent to <code>pragma
+      Side_Effecs</code>.</li>
+      <li><code>Always_Terminates</code> is a boolean equivalent to <code>pragma
+      Always_Terminates</code></li>
+      <li><code>Ghost_Predicate</code></li>

It looks like Ghost_Predicate is missing some text here.

It may be a good thing to link to the actual documentation for these
options. Thanks to some documention changes, we can now link to
an option directly. For example:

https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gnat_rm/Implementation-Defined-Pragmas.html

You would need to point to the correct version (this one points to
current devel version).

+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li>The new attributes and contracts have been applied to the relevant parts
+    of the Ada library and more code has been proven to be correct.</li>
+  <li>Initial support for the
+  <a href="https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/cheri/"><code>CHERI</code></a>
+  architecture.</li>
+  <li>Support for the <code>LoongArch</code> architecture.</li>
+  <li>Hardening improvements:
+    <ul>
+      <li>Use of the new <code>-fharden*</code> options. Most
+      notably <code>-fharden-compares</code>,
+      <code>-fharden-conditional-branches</code> and
+      <code>-fharden-control-flow-redundancy</code>.</li>
+      <li>Custom bools with higher Hamming distance.</li>
+      <li>The <code>strub</code> attribute has been added for functions and

Same as above for doc links:

https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Instrumentation-Options.html#index-fharden-compares

+      variables in order to automatically zero-out their stack upon use or
+      return.</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li>Further clean up and improvements to the GNAT code.</li>
+  <li>Support for vxWorks 7 Cert RTP has been removed.</li>
+</ul>

 <!-- <h3 id="c-family">C family</h3> -->
Fernando Oleo Blanco Feb. 26, 2024, 7:36 p.m. UTC | #2
Hi Mark,

On 2/26/24 10:17, Marc Poulhiès wrote:
> 
> Fernando,
> 
> Thank you for this work! I have a few comments, see below.
> 
> diff --git a/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html b/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html
> index 85ccc54d..e6c96c9f 100644
> --- a/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html
> +++ b/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html
> @@ -171,7 +171,49 @@ a work-in-progress.</p>
>   <!-- .................................................................. -->
>   <h2 id="languages">New Languages and Language specific improvements</h2>
> 
> -<!-- <h3 id="ada">Ada</h3> -->
> +<h3 id="ada">Ada</h3>
> +
> +<ul>
> +  <li>Several new aspects and contracts have been implemented:
> 
> Maybe worth noting that these are implementation defined aspects.

Noted

> 
> +    <ul>
> +      <li><code>Exceptional_Cases</code> may be specified for procedures and

[...]
> +      Side_Effecs</code>.</li>
> +      <li><code>Always_Terminates</code> is a boolean equivalent to <code>pragma
> +      Always_Terminates</code></li>
> +      <li><code>Ghost_Predicate</code></li>
> 
> It looks like Ghost_Predicate is missing some text here.
> 
> It may be a good thing to link to the actual documentation for these
> options. Thanks to some documention changes, we can now link to
> an option directly. For example:
> 
> https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gnat_rm/Implementation-Defined-Pragmas.html

Added

> 
> You would need to point to the correct version (this one points to
> current devel version).
> 

Done

> +    </ul>
> +  </li>
> +  <li>The new attributes and contracts have been applied to the relevant parts
[...]
> +      <code>-fharden-control-flow-redundancy</code>.</li>
> +      <li>Custom bools with higher Hamming distance.</li>
> +      <li>The <code>strub</code> attribute has been added for functions and
> 
> Same as above for doc links:
> 
> https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Instrumentation-Options.html#index-fharden-compares

Done

> 
> +      variables in order to automatically zero-out their stack upon use or
> +      return.</li>
> +    </ul>
> +  </li>
> +  <li>Further clean up and improvements to the GNAT code.</li>
> +  <li>Support for vxWorks 7 Cert RTP has been removed.</li>
> +</ul>
> 
>   <!-- <h3 id="c-family">C family</h3> -->

I have applied your recommendations. The documentation links are still 
not up... Nonetheless, I created the URL in such a way that they should 
work once the final documentation is given a release number (which I 
guessed to be 14.1.0). If you think this can be improved just say so. 
Nonetheless, feel free to modify my patch if you see it fit.

Best regards,
Fer
Fernando Oleo Blanco March 10, 2024, 5:30 p.m. UTC | #3
Hi all,

I have a new revision of the patch. Alexandre pointed out a few issues 
with the hardening options and I agreed with the comments. I took a look 
at when the boolean hardening and stack scrubbing options became 
available within Ada. Hardbools were already available in GCC 13.1, 
stack scrubbing was already present in GCC 12.1. Which means that adding 
this changes to the changelog would be incorrect. The additional 
compiler hardening options/flags within GCC are not unique to Ada and 
they are already documented in the general compiler section and they are 
available for the C family of languages as well as Ada. Therefore, it 
made sense not to explicitly have them in the Ada section.

Nonetheless, there have been some (smaller) hardening improvements to 
Ada, so I just wrote a generic note and pointers to the documentation. I 
know this is not the pretties thing to do, but I did something similar 
in the GCC 12 changelog so...

On 2/26/24 20:36, Fernando Oleo Blanco wrote:
> Hi Mark,
> 
> On 2/26/24 10:17, Marc Poulhiès wrote:
>>
>> Fernando,
>>
>> Thank you for this work! I have a few comments, see below.
>>
>> diff --git a/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html b/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html
>> index 85ccc54d..e6c96c9f 100644
>> --- a/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html
>> +++ b/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html
>> @@ -171,7 +171,49 @@ a work-in-progress.</p>
>>    <!-- .................................................................. -->
>>    <h2 id="languages">New Languages and Language specific improvements</h2>
>>
>> -<!-- <h3 id="ada">Ada</h3> -->
>> +<h3 id="ada">Ada</h3>

[... omitted for brevity ...]
> 
> I have applied your recommendations. The documentation links are still
> not up... Nonetheless, I created the URL in such a way that they should
> work once the final documentation is given a release number (which I
> guessed to be 14.1.0). If you think this can be improved just say so.
> Nonetheless, feel free to modify my patch if you see it fit.

In this newly revised patch I have not modified the URLs to point to the 
future GCC 14 documentation. I saw that the links in the changelog all 
had the unversioned "master" links, so I just followed the same convention.

> 
> Best regards,
> Fer

I squashed the different commits I had submitted and created a 
completely new patch. Hopefully this is acceptable and leads to a 
cleaner, less noisy commit history/patch. It is attached to the email. I 
think the patch should be in an acceptable state to be committed, but 
feel free to give back any feedback!

Best regards,
Fer
diff mbox series

Patch

From 0ae94649be7f638bb4f98ba3e2ba2e1bf9770c09 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Fernando Oleo Blanco <irvise@irvise.xyz>
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2024 21:43:43 +0100
Subject: [PATCH 1/1] Add Ada changes for v14

---
 htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html | 44 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 43 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html b/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html
index 85ccc54d..e6c96c9f 100644
--- a/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html
+++ b/htdocs/gcc-14/changes.html
@@ -171,7 +171,49 @@  a work-in-progress.</p>
 <!-- .................................................................. -->
 <h2 id="languages">New Languages and Language specific improvements</h2>
 
-<!-- <h3 id="ada">Ada</h3> -->
+<h3 id="ada">Ada</h3>
+
+<ul>
+  <li>Several new aspects and contracts have been implemented:
+    <ul>
+      <li><code>Exceptional_Cases</code> may be specified for procedures and
+      functions with side effects; it can be used to list exceptions that might
+      be propagated by the subprogram with side effects in the context of its
+      precondition, and associate them with a specific postcondition. For more
+      information, refer to SPARK 2014 Reference Manual, section 6.1.9.</li>
+      <li><code>User_Aspect</code> takes an argument that is the name of an
+      aspect defined by a User_Aspect_Definition configuration pragma.</li>
+      <li><code>Local_Restrictions</code> is used to specify that a particular
+      subprogram does not violate one or more local restrictions, nor can it
+      call a subprogram that is not subject to the same requirements.</li>
+      <li><code>Side_Effects</code> is equivalent to <code>pragma
+      Side_Effecs</code>.</li>
+      <li><code>Always_Terminates</code> is a boolean equivalent to <code>pragma
+      Always_Terminates</code></li>
+      <li><code>Ghost_Predicate</code></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li>The new attributes and contracts have been applied to the relevant parts
+    of the Ada library and more code has been proven to be correct.</li>
+  <li>Initial support for the
+  <a href="https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/cheri/"><code>CHERI</code></a>
+  architecture.</li>
+  <li>Support for the <code>LoongArch</code> architecture.</li>
+  <li>Hardening improvements:
+    <ul>
+      <li>Use of the new <code>-fharden*</code> options. Most
+      notably <code>-fharden-compares</code>,
+      <code>-fharden-conditional-branches</code> and
+      <code>-fharden-control-flow-redundancy</code>.</li>
+      <li>Custom bools with higher Hamming distance.</li>
+      <li>The <code>strub</code> attribute has been added for functions and
+      variables in order to automatically zero-out their stack upon use or
+      return.</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li>Further clean up and improvements to the GNAT code.</li>
+  <li>Support for vxWorks 7 Cert RTP has been removed.</li>
+</ul>
 
 <!-- <h3 id="c-family">C family</h3> -->
 
-- 
2.43.2