Rescript fails to build with glibc-2.34

[jyssh]

The prebuilt binary in my system (NixOS) is (probably) incompatible, forcing a build. However, the process fails with the error:

$ npm install rescript --save-dev

...
No prebuilt Ninja, building Ninja now
bootstrapping ninja...
...
bootstrap complete.  rebuilding...
ninja binary is ready:  <dir>/node_modules/rescript/linux/ninja.exe
No working prebuilt buckleScript compiler
...
Configuring OCaml version 4.06.1+BS
...
signals_asm.c:185:13: error: variably modified ‘sig_alt_stack’ at file scope
  185 | static char sig_alt_stack[SIGSTKSZ];
      |             ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
make[3]: *** [Makefile:150: signals_asm.o] Error 1
make[3]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
make[3]: Leaving directory '/home/jayesh/projects/hillridge/simulated-yield/node_modules/rescript/ocaml/asmrun'
make[2]: *** [Makefile:1007: makeruntimeopt] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/jayesh/projects/hillridge/simulated-yield/node_modules/rescript/ocaml'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:484: opt.opt] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/jayesh/projects/hillridge/simulated-yield/node_modules/rescript/ocaml'
make: *** [Makefile:556: world.opt] Error 2
child_process.js:866
    throw err;
    ^

Error: Command failed: make -j9 world.opt && make install 
    at checkExecSyncError (child_process.js:790:11)
    at Object.execSync (child_process.js:863:15)
    at Object.build (/home/jayesh/projects/hillridge/simulated-yield/node_modules/rescript/scripts/buildocaml.js:70:6)
    at provideCompiler (/home/jayesh/projects/hillridge/simulated-yield/node_modules/rescript/scripts/install.js:190:34)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/jayesh/projects/hillridge/simulated-yield/node_modules/rescript/scripts/install.js:219:1)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1085:14)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1114:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:950:32)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:790:12)
    at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (internal/modules/run_main.js:75:12) {
  status: 2,
  signal: null,
  output: [ null, null, null ],
  pid: 51891,
  stdout: null,
  stderr: null
}

You can find the full log here: https://pastebin.com/Y2NyLvfH

I found an issue on ocaml repo (https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/10250 3) which talks about this issue. The root cause was determined to be a change in glibc 2.34.

glibc on my system is indeed 2.34.

$  ldd --version
ldd (GNU libc) 2.34

The problem has been fixed in the stock OCaml compiler, but in the more recent (and stock) versions of the compiler. However, because rescript maintains a customized 4.06 version, the fix needs to be backported. As per my understanding, even the pre-built binaries won't build once everything in the world upgrades to glibc 2.34.

[cknitt]

For platforms without prebuilt binaries, ReScript is built from source in the npm postinstall script. If no usable OCaml compiler is found on the path, OCaml itself is built from source first. The OCaml sources are vendored inside the ReScript package as vendor/ocaml.tar.gz.

This used to be a customized 4.06 version, but the current master can be compiled with a stock OCaml 4.10+ compiler (CI is using 4.14.0).

I just checked the current contents of vendor/ocaml.tar.gz. The VERSION file says

4.10.3+dev0-2020-12-08

Looking at runtime/signals_nat.c, this still has static char sig_alt_stack[SIGSTKSZ]; and is therefore affected by the problem.

I guess we should replace this version with the OCaml 4.14.0 sources. This would resolve the problem for the upcoming ReScript 10 release, and it might be a good idea in any case to have npm postinstall builds use the same OCaml version as CI builds.

[jyssh]

Thank you for the quick resolution.

Can I use this without having to wait for v10 release?

I tried npm install --save-dev "https://github.com/rescript-lang/rescript-compiler.git#master" but that failed with:

npm ERR! ninja not compatible? Error: Command failed: "/home/jayesh/.npm/_cacache/tmp/git-cloneUEZ9rD/linux/ninja.exe" --version
npm ERR! building ninja
npm ERR! ninja.tar.gz not availble in CI mode

[jyssh]

Never mind. v10 alpha release is out! Works well. Thank you.

[PlabanJr]

I am facing the same issue with "rescript": "^9.1.4",.

Node version -> v16.19.0
Log -> https://pastebin.com/w9LzugHp

Dependencies:

 "dependencies": {
    "@apollo/client": "^3.6.6",
    "@datadog/browser-rum": "^4.19.1",
    "@date-io/core": "^1.3.6",
    "@date-io/moment": "1.x",
    "@react-google-maps/api": "^2.2.0",
    "@reasonml-community/graphql-ppx": "^1.2.3",
    "@rescript/std": "^9.1.3",
    "animate.css": "^4.1.0",
    "bs-let": "em/bs-let-m1-compat#master",
    "bs-webapi": "^0.17.1",
    "cors": "^2.8.4",
    "dd-trace": "^4.2.0",
    "decco": "^1.1.1",
    "express": "^4.16.3",
    "express-static-gzip": "^2.0.6",
    "re-formality": "^4.0.0-beta.16",
    "react": "^16.8.1",
    "react-app-polyfill": "^1.0.1",
    "react-autocomplete": "^1.8.1",
    "react-datepicker": "^2.9.6",
    "react-detect-offline": "^2.4.0",
    "react-dom": "^16.8.1",
    "react-ga4": "^2.1.0",
    "rescript-apollo-client": "^3.1.0"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@glennsl/bs-jest": "^0.4.4",
    "@sentry/webpack-plugin": "^1.17.1",
    "chunks-2-json-webpack-plugin": "^1.0.2",
    "clean-webpack-plugin": "^3.0.0",
    "compression-webpack-plugin": "^4.0.0",
    "css-loader": "^3.5.3",
    "dotenv-webpack": "^1.7.0",
    "enzyme-adapter-react-16": "^1.6.0",
    "file-loader": "^6.0.0",
    "html-webpack-plugin": "^4.3.0",
    "moment-locales-webpack-plugin": "^1.0.7",
    "rescript": "^9.1.4",
    "sass": "^1.58.3",
    "sass-loader": "^8.0.2",
    "source-map-loader": "^0.2.4",
    "style-loader": "^1.2.1",
    "url-loader": "^4.1.0",
    "webpack": "^4.20.2",
    "webpack-cli": "^3.1.2",
    "webpack-dev-server": "^3.1.9",
    "webpack-merge": "^4.2.1"
  }