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precheck: parallelise core_ext_boundary_check (the precheck's critical path, 17–35 s)

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
70/100
Issue type
Refactor
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
bash, c, shell

Research direction

The script tools/core_ext_boundary_check.sh runs gcc -fsyntax-only on each core source file sequentially. Start by examining this script to understand the file list and the gcc command. Then, modify it to use xargs -P or a similar parallel execution method. Verify the change by running time bash tools/precheck.sh and ensuring the total time is under 40 seconds on a 2-core machine and that the precheck's output and self-tests remain unchanged.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

area:gates enhancement found-by:critic help wanted

Found while building make precheck (#1264, PR-B). Out of that PR's scope, so filed here.

tools/core_ext_boundary_check.sh runs gcc -fsyntax-only over every core source file, one at a time. At 17–35 s it is the precheck's critical path: precheck takes about 61 s on a loaded 2-core box, against a target of well under a minute. Parallelising it (for example xargs -P "$(nproc)") or caching per-file results keyed on content would put precheck comfortably under a minute. The contributor-facing loop is precheck → push, so every second here is paid on every contribution.

Bar: time bash tools/precheck.sh is under 40 s on a 2-core box, and the gate's verdict and self-test are unchanged. Self-contained: needs only the repo and gcc.

Dominant language
C
Stars
3
Forks
7
Avg merge
3h 56m
Merged PRs (30d)
102

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