Re: [PATCH] gitlab-ci.yml: Avoid recompiling the sources in the test jobs

[Philippe Mathieu-Daudé]

On 1/26/21 7:57 AM, Thomas Huth wrote:
> Currently, our check-system-* jobs are recompiling the whole sources
> again. This happens due to the fact that the jobs are checking out
> the whole source tree and required submodules again, and only try
> to use the "build" directory with the binaries and object files as an
> artifact from the previous stage - which simply does not work right
> anymore (with the current version of meson). Due to some changed
> time stamps, meson/ninja are always trying to rebuild the whole tree.
> 
> In the long run, we could likely use "meson test --no-rebuild", but
> there is still some work going on in that area to improve the user
> experience. So until this has been done, simply avoid recompiling the
> sources with a trick: pass NINJA=":" to the make process in the test
> jobs. Also check out the submodules manually before updating the
> timestamps in the build folder, so that the binaries are definitely
> newer that all the source files.
> This saves ca. 10 - 15 minutes of precious CI cycles in each run.
> 
> Suggested-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
> Signed-off-by: Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com>
> ---
>  .gitlab-ci.yml | 4 +++-
>  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
> index de3a3d25b5..16fea25ba9 100644
> --- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
> +++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
> @@ -38,9 +38,11 @@ include:
>    stage: test
>    image: $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE/qemu/$IMAGE:latest
>    script:
> +    - scripts/git-submodule.sh update
> +        $(grep GIT_SUBMODULES build/config-host.mak | sed 
> 's/GIT_SUBMODULES=//')
>      - cd build
>      - find . -type f -exec touch {} +
> -    - make $MAKE_CHECK_ARGS
> +    - make NINJA=":" $MAKE_CHECK_ARGS

This ninja trick deserves a comment in the YAML file.

Otherwise:
Reviewed-by: Philippe Mathieu-Daudé <philmd@redhat.com>
Tested-by: Philippe Mathieu-Daudé <philmd@redhat.com>

>  
>  .acceptance_template: &acceptance_definition
>    cache:
>