mesonbuild / mesonbuild/meson-python
Improve logging on build failure by displaying file contents of `meson-log.txt`
- Dominant language
- Python
- Stars
- 180
- Forks
- 93
- Avg merge
- 2d 7h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 18
Description
The current output from `pip` when encountering a build error is very poor. gh-231 will fix one part of that, by reducing the traceback of irrelevant pip/meson-python internals. There is a second part however which we need to improve on, which is showing the actual root cause of a build failure when possible. Now what happens is the user sees something like:
```
../../scipy/meson.build:40:0: ERROR: Command "/usr/bin/python3 -c import os; os.chdir(".."); import numpy; print(numpy.get_include())" failed with status 1.
A full log can be found at /tmp/pip-install-3okqoo15/scipy_a5afe2fae16c4250875f20d9db43706f/.mesonpy-u88p7q3f/build/meson-logs/meson-log.txt
```
and is then left wondering "_why does `import numpy` fail, given `numpy` is a build dependency?"_. The answer is in `meson-log.txt`, which `pip` has unhelpfully already cleaned up. So it's impossible to diagnose the issue (latest example for scipy [here](https://github.com/scipy/scipy/issues/16784#issuecomment-1352898268)).
Two options to improve here that I can think of:
1. Don't clean up the log file
2. Print to log file contents to stdout (possibly followed by repeating the root cause from the original stdout content)
(2) is probably better than (1).
Contributor guide
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Research direction
Start by tracing how pip build failures from Meson are reported and cleaned up, using the meson-log.txt path shown in the issue. Compare preserving the log with displaying its contents on stdout, and reproduce a failing build to inspect the available output. Done means users can diagnose the root cause even after the temporary build directory is cleaned up.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- build-system
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Active
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100