src/lib/htmshell.c doesn't compile on aarch64 Ubuntu 20.04

[nathanweeks]

Describe the bug src/lib/htmshell.c doesn't compile on an Ubuntu 20.04 aarch64 with the default gcc 9.4.0 installed by apt install gcc. The source file compiles successfully on Ubuntu 20.04 x86_64.

To Reproduce Launch an Ubuntu 20.04 VM (e.g., on AWS, or use an Ubuntu 20.04 container base image in a Docker / Rancher Desktop on an aarch64 macOS host), clone the repository (tested with commit 36ae2af), and attempt to compile:

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

$ git clone https://github.com/ucscGenomeBrowser/kent.git
$ cd kent
make -C src/lib
...
htmshell.c: In function ‘htmlVaBadRequestAbort’:
htmshell.c:714:28: error: invalid operands to binary != (have ‘va_list’ {aka ‘__va_list’} and ‘void *’)
  714 | if (format != NULL && args != NULL)
      |                            ^~
make: *** [../inc/common.mk:533: htmshell.o] Error 1 

[christopherLee1]

Hi Nathan,

This is indeed a valid bug. We are upgrading some of our infrastructure (including upgrading our gcc version) in the coming weeks, and we expect to find a few of these types of bugs very soon, which we will probably fix in a single commit.

We'll update this ticket once that's done but in the meantime feel free to maintain your own copy locally or submit a pull request.

[matthewspeir]

Hello, @z4668640.

One of our engineers fixed this in a recent commit, 8b044625d9cdd9dfaec89ff32d0ecb069b7c0565.

If you find similar bugs in the future, we can accept pull requests through Github.

Matthew Speir UCSC Genome Browser, User Support