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Failure to assemble ARM64 code with MSVC's ARMASM64

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
cmake
Domain
build-system

Research direction

Start with the generated build.ninja rules for the three ARMASM64 targets and trace them back to the CMake configuration that creates those assembler commands. Reproduce with the listed Boost, CMake, Visual Studio, and Ninja versions; done means ARMASM64 builds successfully without receiving unsupported -D definitions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Boost 1.84
CMake 3.28.3
Visual Studio 2022 17.9.2
Ninja 1.11.1

This is building Boost Context on a ARM64 machine. Not x-compiling.

Description

Failure to assemble ARM64 code:

[0/2] Re-checking globbed directories...
[1/2] Building ASM_ARMASM object libs\context\CMakeFiles\boost_context.dir\src\asm\ontop_arm64_aapcs_pe_armasm.asm.obj
FAILED: libs/context/CMakeFiles/boost_context.dir/src/asm/ontop_arm64_aapcs_pe_armasm.asm.obj
C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~1\2022\PROFES~1\VC\Tools\MSVC\1439~1.335\bin\HOSTAR~1\arm64\armasm64.exe -DBOOST_CONTEXT_EXPORT="" -DBOOST_CONTEXT_NO_LIB="" -DBOOST_CONTEXT_SOURCE="" -DBOOST_CONTEXT_STATIC_LINK="" -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\context\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\assert\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\config\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\core\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\static_assert\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\throw_exception\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\mp11\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\pool\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\integer\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\type_traits\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\winapi\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\predef\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\smart_ptr\include -IC:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\move\include  -o libs\context\CMakeFiles\boost_context.dir\src\asm\ontop_arm64_aapcs_pe_armasm.asm.obj C:\Dev\Github\PrusaSlicer\deps\build\dep_Boost-prefix\src\dep_Boost\libs\context\src\asm\ontop_arm64_aapcs_pe_armasm.asm
Microsoft (R) ARM Macro Assembler Version 14.39.33521.0 for 64 bits
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

error A2029: unknown command-line argument or argument value -DBOOST_CONTEXT_EXPORT=

 Usage:      armasm [<options>] sourcefile objectfile
             armasm [<options>] -o objectfile sourcefile
             armasm -h              for help

ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.
Possible explanation

It seems that the Microsoft ARM Assembler is very poor of command line options:

Microsoft (R) ARM Macro Assembler Version 14.39.33521.0 for 64 bits
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

 Usage:      armasm [<options>] sourcefile objectfile
             armasm [<options>] -o objectfile sourcefile
             armasm -h              for help

<options>:            (Upper case shows allowable abbreviation)
  -Errors     errorsfile       redirect stderr diagnostics to errorsfile
  -I          dir[;dir]        add dirs to include search path
  -PreDefine  directive        pre-execute a SET{L,A,S} directive
  -NOWarn                      turn off warning messages
  -ignore <warning-num>        don't report warning-num
  -help                        help (this information)
  -via <file>                  read further arguments from <file>
  -machine <machine>           set the PE machine type field
  -g                           generate debugging info
  -gh:SHA1                     use SHA1 for file checksum in debug info
  -gh:SHA_256                  use SHA256 for file checksum in debug info (default)
  -funcOverride:<func>         emit function overriding support for <func>
  -errorReport:<option>        deprecated. Report internal assembler errors to Microsoft
      none - do not send report
      prompt - prompt to immediately send report
      queue - at next admin logon, prompt to send report (default)
      send - send report automatically

<machine>:  ARM64 | ARM64EC

I manually edited the build.ninja file to remove all the DEFINES section for the three targets that run ARMASM64 and that got me to the finish line.

I unfortunately don't know CMake enough to be able to tell the build to not emit any DEFINE for the assembler calls :(

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