rust-lang / rust-lang/cargo

Cargo shouldn't set `/WX` (`-Werror` for MSVC linker) outside of CI

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A-building-cargo-itself A-reproducibility C-bug O-windows S-blocked-external
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Rust
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Description

https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/blob/8bcecfeed464c990733ff680e0b4546a73fbed44/build.rs#L99-L100

Setting /WX might make versions of Cargo harder to build in the future. If a new version of MSVC gets released that throws a warning here, users wanting to build an old version of Cargo will need to patch it to even make them build. See https://embeddedartistry.com/blog/2017/05/22/werror-is-not-your-friend/ ("-Werror Introduces a Toolchain Version Dependency"). It's better to only enable /WX in CI, this way you can always change it, but don't leave users who want to compile Cargo with errors.

(from https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/pull/13131#discussion_r1534936304).

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First steps

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Research direction

Inspect build.rs at lines 99-100 and the linked Cargo pull-request discussion to understand how /WX is currently enabled. Change the configuration so /WX is used only in CI; done means normal user builds no longer require the MSVC linker warning flag while CI still enables it.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
build-system
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
55/100

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