Fix compile-database target

[fingolfin]

Also fix race conditions caused by targets producing files being incorrectly marked as phony.

Follow up to #59476 (guess there is a price to pay for using Claude)

@lgoettgens that might help with the issues you are seeing in JuliaPackaging/Yggdrasil#12406

[lgoettgens]

Thanks for looking into this! I'll try this with the Yggdrasil script in the morning.

Could you please also add a backport-1.13 label?

[vtjnash]

The .PHONY is correct. Even though (or especially because) it does produce a file, it needs to be forced to re-generate it to be updated

[vtjnash]

Can you change the [email protected] files to use mktemp -p . [email protected] instead? (here and in other places where we generate files in common to release and debug, such as base/Makefile and julia_flisp.boot)

[lgoettgens]

@lgoettgens that might help with the issues you are seeing in JuliaPackaging/Yggdrasil#12406

with this patch added, the issue happens a lot less often, but I still experience it.

[fingolfin]

@vtjnash ah, I see. OK, calling a target $(BUILDDIR)/compile_commands.json that produces a file $(BUILDDIR)/compile_commands.json but is actually meant to be phony is an antipattern. But OK, we can just merge them into their compile-database "parent" targets. And add a comment as to why they are

I note that on my MacBook Pro M1 Max, the build system takes a full 2 seconds to rebuild these compile databases which I don't even use :-/.

A better fix would be to make it non-PHONY by properly tracking the dependencies; as far as as I can tell, that means tracking the content of CLANG_TOOLING_C_FLAGS, CLANG_TOOLING_CXX_FLAGS, SRCS and a couple other Make variables. But that'll take longer so I'll try a simpler solution.

@lgoettgens for you the much simpler fix should be to apply this patch:

diff --git a/src/Makefile b/src/Makefile
index 18e9a4a639..f92cd73a10 100644
--- a/src/Makefile
+++ b/src/Makefile
@@ -259,7 +259,7 @@ endif
 default: $(JULIA_BUILD_MODE) # contains either "debug" or "release"
 all: debug release
 
-release debug: %: libjulia-internal-% libjulia-codegen-% $(BUILDDIR)/compile_commands.json
+release debug: %: libjulia-internal-% libjulia-codegen-%
 
 $(BUILDDIR):
 	mkdir -p $(BUILDDIR)
diff --git a/src/flisp/Makefile b/src/flisp/Makefile
index 135859eacb..98b336fb14 100644
--- a/src/flisp/Makefile
+++ b/src/flisp/Makefile
@@ -61,9 +61,9 @@ DEBUGFLAGS_COMMON += $(FLAGS_COMMON)
 
 default: release
 
-release: $(BUILDDIR)/$(EXENAME)$(EXE) $(BUILDDIR)/compile_commands.json
+release: $(BUILDDIR)/$(EXENAME)$(EXE)
 
-debug: $(BUILDDIR)/$(EXENAME)-debug$(EXE) $(BUILDDIR)/compile_commands.json
+debug: $(BUILDDIR)/$(EXENAME)-debug$(EXE)
 
 $(BUILDDIR):
 	mkdir -p $(BUILDDIR)
diff --git a/src/support/Makefile b/src/support/Makefile
index 2b48a20bbc..3c1dba17f8 100644
--- a/src/support/Makefile
+++ b/src/support/Makefile
@@ -53,8 +53,8 @@ $(BUILDDIR)/host/Makefile:
 	@printf "%s\n" 'BUILDING_HOST_TOOLS=1' >> $@
 	@printf "%s\n" 'include $(SRCDIR)/Makefile' >> $@
 
-release: $(BUILDDIR)/libsupport.a $(BUILDDIR)/compile_commands.json
-debug: $(BUILDDIR)/libsupport-debug.a $(BUILDDIR)/compile_commands.json
+release: $(BUILDDIR)/libsupport.a
+debug: $(BUILDDIR)/libsupport-debug.a
 
 $(BUILDDIR)/libsupport.a: $(OBJS) | $(BUILDIR)
 	rm -rf $@

[fingolfin]

updated

[lgoettgens]

Could someone please add a backport 1.13 label?

[vtjnash]

It looks like this caused a subset of our CI workers to break:

mktemp: illegal option -- p
2025-11-03 13:51:53 EST
usage: mktemp [-d] [-q] [-t prefix] [-u] template ...
2025-11-03 13:51:53 EST
       mktemp [-d] [-q] [-u] -t prefix
2025-11-03 13:51:53 EST
/bin/sh: $TMPFILE: ambiguous redirect
2025-11-03 13:51:53 EST
usage: cmp [-l | -s | -x] [-bhz] [-i num1[:num2] | --ignore-initial=num1[:num2]] [-n num | --bytes=num] file1 file2 [skip1 [skip2]]
2025-11-03 13:51:53 EST
usage: mv [-f | -i | -n] [-hv] source target
2025-11-03 13:51:53 EST
       mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source ... directory
2025-11-03 13:51:53 EST
make[2]: *** [regenerate-compile_commands] Error 64

https://buildkite.com/julialang/julia-master/builds/51883#019a4b0f-2de2-40f8-9622-bf5187edcfb6

It appears you need to use mktemp $(BUILDDIR)/template.XXXX as the -p option was only added this year

[fingolfin]

I've been using -p because you suggested it...

Anyway, not sure what you mean by "the -p option was only added this year" ? Added where?

The mktemp command in OpenBSD had -p since 2001, and the other BSDs followed (e.g. FreeBSD had it since at least 2005, see here). I think macOS got it not so long after, but it's a bit difficult for me to find this online; but here is at least evidence it was in macOS 12.

Not sure when GNU added it, but this man page from 2010 shows it was around then, too

So perhaps it is missing somewhere, but I am not sure what the "added last year" amounts to.

Interestingly, in the buildkite log you linked, searching for mktemp, the first hit is actually in line 14 where it does

$ mktemp -dp /private/var/tmp/agent-tempdirs/default-honeycrisp-P2C257CXGN.0/home/.buildkite-agent/plugins

without any error. (Note that -d takes no argument so -dp should be shorthand for -d -p -- but perhaps it also just ignores the p ?!)

Unfortunately I have no idea how the Buildkite build environments look like. E.h. is this build aarch64-apple-darwin builder running on macOS (which version) or is it cross compiling from Linux? Which version of tools are installed?

[vtjnash]

It was not in 12, added in 14 (late 2023): https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mktemp&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=macOS+14.8&arch=default&format=html