[ccache] basename of source file in hashed name in ccache

[Joel Rosdahl]

On 5 November 2011 01:26, Frank Klotz <frank.klotz at alcatel-lucent.com> wrote:
> [...] I remember quite clearly (and I just confirmed with a colleague who is
> still there) that the file names in the cache contained BOTH the hash AND the
> basename of the object file.

As far as I know, the object files have always been stored using only the hash.
However, temporary files (stored in $CCACHE_DIR in ccache <=2.4 and
$CCACHE_DIR/tmp in ccache >=3.0) include (a prefix of) the basename.

> [...] (and another string that the ccache code refers to as "size", although
> I can't quite figure out what it's the size OF)

It's the size of the hashed text, i.e. output from the preprocessor. This is
just a way of making filename collisions somewhat less likely.

> One place we found the basenames invaluable was tracking down a corrupted
> object file in the cache. Once we confirmed that we had a corrupt object file
> foo.o, we simple searched for all "*foo.o" files in the cache, compared those
> in size and content to an actual corrupted object file in the user directory,
> and easily removed the corrupted file from the cache. Much harder (not
> impossible, but harder) to do this without the basenames.

An easy way to do that is:

1. Remove foo.o from the build tree.
2. Build with CCACHE_LOGFILE set to a log file.
3. Look for "Created foo.o from X" (where X is a file in the cache) in the log
   file.
4. Remove X.

Or even easier:

1. Remove foo.o from the build tree.
2. Build with CCACHE_RECACHE set.

> [...] Anyway, is there a general consensus on whether this would be valuable?

It doesn't sound like a good idea to me, at least, since you would need to
store duplicate copies of the object file for two compilations where the source
content is the same but the file names differ.

-- Joel