CCache not found warning persists even when GGML_CCACHE is set to off

[exprez135]

When configuring with cmake -DGGML_CCACHE=OFF -B build, I still receive a warning Warning: ccache not found - consider installing it for faster compilation or disable this warning with GGML_CCACHE=OFF, which seems to come from ggml/src/CMakeLists.txt.

I'm not sure why this might be happening, as I'd expect that status message to not be printed since it's within an IF(GGML_CCACHE… statement. Do I need to be setting GGML_CCACHE elsewhere as well?

[danbev]

Can you try using -DWHISPER_CCACHE=OFF instead which should not show the status message.

[exprez135]

Yes that works, thanks. Should GGML_CCACHE be reset to ON if someone hasn't set WHISPER_CCACHE, or should the make files be changed to respect the flag?

[danbev]

Should GGML_CCACHE be reset to ON if someone hasn't set WHISPER_CCACHE, or should the make files be changed to respect the flag?

I think that WHISPER_CCACHE should be used to control this and not GGML_CCACHE in this case, similar to how other options like WHISPER_FATAL_WARNINGS are handled.

[exprez135]

So we would not want to use something like set(GGML_CCACHE ${WHISPER_CCACHE} CACHE BOOL "Enable ccache for GGML compilation")?

If I'm thinking properly, this would set GGML_CCACHE to the value of WHISPER_CCACHE, except in those cases in which the user manually passed the flag GGML_CCACHE.

Does Whisper itself use CCache at all outside of the GGML usage? While ggml/src/CMakeLists.txt has this whole warning section if it's not found, I don't see anything similar for Whisper?

[danbev]

If I'm thinking properly, this would set GGML_CCACHE to the value of WHISPER_CCACHE, except in those cases in which the user manually passed the flag GGML_CCACHE.

I think the idea is that WHISPER_CCACHE be the single "source of truth" for this setting and it sets GGML_CCACHE. I think it is better to only have one way of doing this as it might lead to confusion about which one to use otherwise.

[exprez135]

I agree that it's better to have the one source of truth. Maybe in retrospect what I'm after is really just clarity in the logs/warnings/errors, since a first-level step with the warning message would be to set GGML_CCACHE to OFF, only for it to not work. Could the warning message be changed to something that points someone to WHISPER_CCACHE directly or hints at checking for a different flag that overrides that setting? (I don't actually know what the relationship between GGML in this repository and the GGML-dedicated repo is, so maybe this is inappropriate to change here.)

[danbev]

Could the warning message be changed to something that points someone to WHISPER_CCACHE directly or hints at checking for a different flag that overrides that setting?

Ah yes, I see your point now. Let me think about this and take a look at what could be done.