bug#47230: Build phase to graft during build for better grafts QA

bug#47230: Build phase to graft during build for better grafts QA

[Léo Le Bouter via Bug reports for GNU Guix]

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Hello!

I am having an hard time testing grafts in GNU Guix while I think we
could have better tooling around this.

For example, we could have a package transformation that can add a
phase before 'check (or others) to graft any intermediate build binary
and all dependencies (if not done already) to run the test suite WITH
the graft. This could be turned on by GNU Guix contributors after
trying to graft some package to ensure it does not break things.

What do you think?

Léo

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bug#47230: Build phase to graft during build for better grafts QA

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> skribis:

> I am having an hard time testing grafts in GNU Guix while I think we
> could have better tooling around this.
>
> For example, we could have a package transformation that can add a
> phase before 'check (or others) to graft any intermediate build binary
> and all dependencies (if not done already) to run the test suite WITH
> the graft. This could be turned on by GNU Guix contributors after
> trying to graft some package to ensure it does not break things.
>
> What do you think?

I think it’s more of a discussion for guix-devel than a bug report.  :-)

What you describe, AIUI, is not possible: there are no phases or
anything like that happening on grafted packages.  Quoth the manual
(info "(guix) Security Updates"):

  Other restrictions may apply: for instance, when adding a graft to a
  package providing a shared library, the original shared library and its
  replacement must have the same ‘SONAME’ and be binary-compatible.

As I wrote earlier today, these things have to be checked by packagers;
they’re not easily automated because that usually involves knowing the
intent of upstream developers, for example whether they intend the new
version to be ABI-compatible with the version we have at hand, etc.

HTH!

Ludo’.

bug#47230: Build phase to graft during build for better grafts QA

[Léo Le Bouter via Bug reports for GNU Guix]

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On Thu, 2021-03-18 at 21:41 +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> I think it’s more of a discussion for guix-devel than a bug
> report.  :-)

Yes but then I was thinking how do we track progress without losing it
in the pile of emails from guix-devel people receive everyday which
made me create a bug in the idea of "feature-request".. don't know.

> What you describe, AIUI, is not possible: there are no phases or
> anything like that happening on grafted packages.  Quoth the manual
> (info "(guix) Security Updates"):
> 
>   Other restrictions may apply: for instance, when adding a graft to
> a
>   package providing a shared library, the original shared library and
> its
>   replacement must have the same ‘SONAME’ and be binary-compatible.

I am not sure we understand each other, I am proposing we could add
tooling to aid that testing.

> As I wrote earlier today, these things have to be checked by
> packagers;
> they’re not easily automated because that usually involves knowing
> the
> intent of upstream developers, for example whether they intend the
> new
> version to be ABI-compatible with the version we have at hand, etc.
> 
> HTH!

Yes of course, but aided by tooling that process can me smoother, e.g.
figuring out the SONAME has changed could at least be checked
automatically and issue a warning/error. Same thing with abidiff etc.
these tools are really great and we could create an easy way to run the
test suite of a package with the graft in also.

> Ludo’.

Thank you

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