bug#72515: 29.4; describe-package-1: Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p

bug#72515: 29.4; describe-package-1: Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p

[Suhail Singh]

Hi Emacs-devel,

Viewing the package description for a package that has two maintainers
fails with the following error:

describe-package-1: Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p

This can be observed with emacs -Q.  Steps to reproduce.
- M-x list-packages
- Navigate to csharp-mode from GNU ELPA
- Press RET to view the package description
- Observe error


In GNU Emacs 29.4 (build 2, x86_64-suse-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.43,
cairo version 1.18.0)
System Description: openSUSE Tumbleweed

Configured using:
 'configure --disable-build-details --without-pop --with-mailutils
 --with-native-compilation --without-hesiod --with-gameuser=:games
 --with-kerberos --with-kerberos5 --with-file-notification=inotify
 --with-modules --enable-autodepend --prefix=/usr
 --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share
 --localstatedir=/var --sharedstatedir=/var/lib
 --libexecdir=/usr/libexec --with-file-notification=yes
 --libdir=/usr/lib64
 --enable-locallisppath=/usr/share/emacs/29.4/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp
 --with-x --with-xim --with-sound --with-xpm --with-jpeg --with-tiff
 --with-gif --with-png --with-rsvg --with-dbus --with-webp --with-xft
 --with-imagemagick --without-gpm --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 --with-pgtk
 --with-toolkit-scroll-bars --x-includes=/usr/include
 --x-libraries=/usr/lib64 --with-libotf --with-m17n-flt --with-cairo
 --with-xwidgets --build=x86_64-suse-linux --with-dumping=pdumper
 'CFLAGS=-O2 -Wall -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=3
 -fstack-protector-strong -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables
 -fstack-clash-protection -Werror=return-type -flto=auto -g
 -D_GNU_SOURCE -DGDK_DISABLE_DEPRECATION_WARNINGS
 -DGLIB_DISABLE_DEPRECATION_WARNINGS -pipe -Wno-pointer-sign
 -Wno-unused-variable -Wno-unused-label -fno-optimize-sibling-calls
 -DPDMP_BASE='\''"emacs-wayland"'\''' LDFLAGS=-Wl,-O2'

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ
IMAGEMAGICK JPEG JSON LCMS2 LIBOTF LIBSELINUX LIBSYSTEMD LIBXML2 MODULES
NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PGTK PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND SQLITE3
THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER WEBP XIM XWIDGETS GTK3 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: POSIX
  value of $LC_TIME: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Package Menu

Minor modes in effect:
  header-line-indent-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  buffer-read-only: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug help-mode thingatpt mm-archive message
sendmail yank-media dired dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec epa derived
gnus-util text-property-search time-date mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader
mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-utils mule-util vc-git diff-mode
package-vc vc vc-dispatcher lisp-mnt cus-edit pp cus-start cus-load
icons wid-edit gnutls network-stream url-cache url-http url-auth
mail-parse rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045 mm-util ietf-drums mail-prsvr url-gw
nsm puny epg rfc6068 epg-config display-line-numbers finder-inf package
browse-url url url-proxy url-privacy url-expand url-methods url-history
url-cookie generate-lisp-file url-domsuf url-util mailcap url-handlers
url-parse auth-source cl-seq eieio eieio-core cl-macs password-cache
json subr-x map byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile url-vars cl-loaddefs
cl-lib rmc delsel lpr easy-mmode pcase iso-transl tooltip cconv eldoc
paren electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode
mwheel term/pgtk-win pgtk-win term/common-win pgtk-dnd tool-bar dnd
fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment
text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow
isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax
font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer nadvice seq simple cl-generic
indonesian philippine cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese
tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek
romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese
composite emoji-zwj charscript charprop case-table epa-hook
jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure cl-preloaded button loaddefs
theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files window text-properties
overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget keymap
hashtable-print-readable backquote threads xwidget-internal dbusbind
inotify dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting cairo
gtk pgtk lcms2 multi-tty make-network-process native-compile emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 153327 117596)
 (symbols 48 11281 0)
 (strings 32 45870 11728)
 (string-bytes 1 1264219)
 (vectors 16 20578)
 (vector-slots 8 425835 30171)
 (floats 8 38 57)
 (intervals 56 403 0)
 (buffers 984 13))

bug#72515: 29.4; describe-package-1: Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Suhail Singh <suhailsingh247@gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2024 15:23:11 -0400
> 
> Viewing the package description for a package that has two maintainers
> fails with the following error:
> 
> describe-package-1: Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p
> 
> This can be observed with emacs -Q.  Steps to reproduce.
> - M-x list-packages
> - Navigate to csharp-mode from GNU ELPA
> - Press RET to view the package description
> - Observe error

Thanks.  I can reproduce this in Emacs 29, but not on the current
emacs-30 release branch, which will eventually become Emacs 30.1.  So
I guess we fixed this bug already during development of Emacs 30.

bug#72515: 29.4; describe-package-1: Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p

[Visuwesh]

[வியாழன் ஆகஸ்ட் 08, 2024] Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>> From: Suhail Singh <suhailsingh247@gmail.com>
>> Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2024 15:23:11 -0400
>> 
>> Viewing the package description for a package that has two maintainers
>> fails with the following error:
>> 
>> describe-package-1: Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p
>> 
>> This can be observed with emacs -Q.  Steps to reproduce.
>> - M-x list-packages
>> - Navigate to csharp-mode from GNU ELPA
>> - Press RET to view the package description
>> - Observe error
>
> Thanks.  I can reproduce this in Emacs 29, but not on the current
> emacs-30 release branch, which will eventually become Emacs 30.1.  So
> I guess we fixed this bug already during development of Emacs 30.

This is the same as bug#68288 and bug#72250 if I'm not wrong.

bug#72515: 29.4; describe-package-1: Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p

[J.P.]

Visuwesh <visuweshm@gmail.com> writes:

> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>
>>> From: Suhail Singh <suhailsingh247@gmail.com>
>>> Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2024 15:23:11 -0400
>>> 
>>> Viewing the package description for a package that has two maintainers
>>> fails with the following error:
>>> 
>>> describe-package-1: Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p
>>> 
>>> This can be observed with emacs -Q.  Steps to reproduce.
>>> - M-x list-packages
>>> - Navigate to csharp-mode from GNU ELPA
>>> - Press RET to view the package description
>>> - Observe error
>>
>> Thanks.  I can reproduce this in Emacs 29, but not on the current
>> emacs-30 release branch, which will eventually become Emacs 30.1.  So
>> I guess we fixed this bug already during development of Emacs 30.
>
> This is the same as bug#68288 and bug#72250 if I'm not wrong.

I'm not sure there's much meaningful daylight between these three and

  68660 29.2; ELPA: Wrong type argument w. multiple maintainers in package-menu-mode

which addresses ELPA's end of the protocol bargain WRT package-archive
versioning and multiple maintainers. To me, they're really just two
sides of the same coin, so I've gone ahead and merged them (this and
bug#68660).

GNU ELPA should IMO remain backwards compatible with Emacs releases
currently packaged by mainstream GNU/Linux distributions, such as
Debian. Would-be ERC 5.6 users on Emacs versions 29 and below keep
running into this bug in the wild and will continue to do so for a good
while, it seems.

As I've expressed in bug#68660, I think ELPA should either migrate its
current web endpoint to a /v2 for Emacs 30.1's new format, or it should
revert to serving the infamous "concatenated" variant of the
:maintainers data item for everyone. (That's the old format with the
names of all maintainers mashed together along with all but the last
email address, which stands apart [1].)

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-erc/2024-01/msg00051.html

bug#72515: 29.4; describe-package-1: Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Visuwesh <visuweshm@gmail.com>
> Cc: Suhail Singh <suhailsingh247@gmail.com>,  72515@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2024 13:40:26 +0530
> 
> [வியாழன் ஆகஸ்ட் 08, 2024] Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> >> From: Suhail Singh <suhailsingh247@gmail.com>
> >> Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2024 15:23:11 -0400
> >> 
> >> Viewing the package description for a package that has two maintainers
> >> fails with the following error:
> >> 
> >> describe-package-1: Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p
> >> 
> >> This can be observed with emacs -Q.  Steps to reproduce.
> >> - M-x list-packages
> >> - Navigate to csharp-mode from GNU ELPA
> >> - Press RET to view the package description
> >> - Observe error
> >
> > Thanks.  I can reproduce this in Emacs 29, but not on the current
> > emacs-30 release branch, which will eventually become Emacs 30.1.  So
> > I guess we fixed this bug already during development of Emacs 30.
> 
> This is the same as bug#68288 and bug#72250 if I'm not wrong.

Given that this cannot be reproduced with the current code, I'm
closing this bug.