bug#39885: Bioconductor URI, fallback and time-machine

[zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com>]

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Dear,

Currently, the URI scheme (see 'bioconductor-uri' in
guix/build-system/r.scm) is:

 https://bioconductor.org/packages/release/data/<type-url-part>/src/contrib/<upstream-name>-<version>.tar.gz

which leads to 2 issues:

 1. when Bioconductor updates their release, some package versions are
updated too, and so, the upstream return 404.
 2. for this reason 1., the "guix time-machine" is broken for all the
Bioconductor packages, at least if Berlin or SWH does not have a
substitute; which is not expected for 'annotation' packages.

However, the Bioconductor archive still serves the old release, i.e.,

https://bioconductor.org/packages/3.x/data/<type-url-part>/src/contrib/<upstream-name>-<version>.tar.gz


The ways to fix the both issues are:

 a) Add the Bioconductor release (known at packaging time) to all the
packages; provide as argument to 'bioconductor-uri'.
 b) Add more URLs to fallback.

As discussed on IRC, Tobias seems more inclined with the option a) and
I am more in favour of option b.

Attached, a quick patch showing the option b).


Please also consider #36805 which was never merged or closed.
 http://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/36805


All the best,
simon

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From 87e73e02202fe5e342d68f1fb17efdd4425737cd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2020 16:53:39 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] build-system: r: Use Bioconductor old releases to fallback.

* guix/build-system/r.scm (bioconductor-uri): Extend the fallback list.
---
 guix/build-system/r.scm | 21 ++++++++++++---------
 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

diff --git a/guix/build-system/r.scm b/guix/build-system/r.scm
index 2d328764b0..8638e1b888 100644
--- a/guix/build-system/r.scm
+++ b/guix/build-system/r.scm
@@ -54,15 +54,18 @@ release corresponding to NAME and VERSION."
                          ('annotation "/data/annotation")
                          ('experiment "/data/experiment")
                          (_ "/bioc"))))
-    (list (string-append "https://bioconductor.org/packages/release"
-                         type-url-part
-                         "/src/contrib/"
-                         name "_" version ".tar.gz")
-          ;; TODO: use %bioconductor-version from (guix import cran)
-          (string-append "https://bioconductor.org/packages/3.10"
-                         type-url-part
-                         "/src/contrib/Archive/"
-                         name "_" version ".tar.gz"))))
+    (append (list (string-append "https://bioconductor.org/packages/release"
+                                 type-url-part
+                                 "/src/contrib/"
+                                 name "_" version ".tar.gz"))
+            (map (lambda (release)
+                   (string-append "https://bioconductor.org/packages/"
+                                  release
+                                  type-url-part
+                                  "/src/contrib/"
+                                  name "_" version ".tar.gz"))
+                 (list (@@ (guix import cran) %bioconductor-version)
+                       "3.9" "3.8" "3.7")))))
 
 (define %r-build-system-modules
   ;; Build-side modules imported by default.
-- 
2.25.0