Pulseaudio fails to build on the Alpha architecture due to a failure
in the volume-test of the test suite. I had reported this to the
Debian bug tracker [1] but the maintainer has asked that I forward the
patch to this mail list. The failure in volume-test occurs because it
is compiled with -ffast-math which implies -ffinite-math-only of which
the gcc manual states that it optimizes for floating-point arithmetic
with the assumption that arguments and results are not NaNs or
+/-infinity, and futher notes that it may result in incorrect output.
On the Alpha platform that is somewhat an understatement as the use of
non-finite floating-point arithmetic with -ffinite-math-only results in
a floating-point exception and the termination of the program.
The volume-test converts volumes into decibels (so a zero volume
becomes a negative infinity) and proceeds to add two volumes (in
decibels), thus does arithmetic with non-finite floating point numbers
despite being compiled with -ffast-math!
I attach a patch that protects against the arithmetic with non-finite
numbers for your consideration. With that patch the test-suite passes
on Alpha.
Cheers
Michael.
[1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=798248
FSF addresses used in PA sources are no longer valid and rpmlint
generates numerous warnings during packaging because of this.
This patch changes all FSF addresses to FSF web page according to
the GPL how-to: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.en.html
Done automatically by sed-ing through sources.
All pa_cvolume_snprint(), pa_volume_snprint(),
pa_sw_cvolume_snprint_dB() and pa_sw_volume_snprint_dB() calls have
been replaced with pa_cvolume_snprint_verbose() and
pa_volume_snprint_verbose() calls, making the log output more
informative and the code sometimes simpler.
