Allow output of clang-tidy fixes file

[EzraBrooks]

I'd like to be able to keep the clang-tidy fixes file generated during an industrial_ci run, so I can load it into other tools that generate reports - or just export it and use it to run fixes.

[rhaschke]

Have a look at this example. Here, the applied changes are provided as a build artifact in GHA.

[EzraBrooks]

That link doesn't work for me for some reason, but I was able to see the same thing on the main branch. Is that uploading a file called clang-tidy? Is that formatted the same way as a fixes file, or is it a different format of report generated by ICI?

[rhaschke]

No, the provided file is directly a git patch file.

[EzraBrooks]

Okay, well then my feature request still stands 😄

It would be nice to have the actual content of the fixes file for tools that accept it, for instance this Action that can annotate clang-tidy fixes directly onto PR diffs.

[rhaschke]

I see.
@mathias-luedtke, what do you suggest to transfer a file generated within the ICI docker container to the calling GHA process?

[mathias-luedtke]

It should be possible to to do that with the current set of features.

• set CLANG_TIDY_ARGS to export the fixes file
• expose the result (if not already accessible): use shell isolation, set BASEDIR or DOCKER_RUN_OPTS

We could think of always exporting the file, if the default location is reasonable.

[mathias-luedtke]

@EzraBrooks: Do you know if multiple fixes files can be merged (or at least appended). And we might have a problem with the different paths (inside workspace and repository)..

[EzraBrooks]

I already tried adding a new -export-files argument via that environment variable. Unfortunately it can only be passed once, so the fact that industrial_ci's internals already pass it means adding it to that variable crashes the tests.

[EzraBrooks]

Unsure about merging them. I was able to produce reasonable output in my project's workspace using run-clang-tidy on the workspace root, instead of clang-tidy on each package, though. But since I was doing that outside the context of the industrial_ci container I didn't have any of the dependencies I needed for its analysis, which is why I'd like the feature in ICI.

[rhaschke]

I will have a look. Being able to provide feedback in github would be great!