git-fetch for emacs-auctex?

git-fetch for emacs-auctex?

[Paul Garlick]

Hi Guix,

I recently attempted to reproduce a profile containing emacs-auctex,
only to find a '404: not found' error.

The reason is that elpa.gnu.org archives previous auctex versions with
a .tar.lz extension.   This throws out the Guix package source
definition, which expects a .tar extension.

I have considered a few ideas to solve this:

i) track the last-but-one auctex version in Gnu Elpa.  This way all
versions would have the same extension.  However, would the url-fetch
method cope with the .tar.lz format?

ii) use the git-fetch method with the upstream repository.  However,
the upstream version tag at http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/auctex.git
 is a smaller number than the Gnu Elpa version tag.  This would result
in an apparent downgrade.  Would that be permissible?

iii) use the git-fetch method to clone the auctex branch of the
elpa.git repository (along the lines of 'git clone --single-branch --
branch externals/auctex .../elpa.git).  As far as I can see this is not
currently possible.

Are there any insights or suggestions?

Best regards,

Paul.

Re: git-fetch for emacs-auctex?

[Leo Prikler]

Am Dienstag, den 25.05.2021, 18:42 +0100 schrieb Paul Garlick:
> Hi Guix,
> 
> I recently attempted to reproduce a profile containing emacs-auctex,
> only to find a '404: not found' error.
> 
> The reason is that elpa.gnu.org archives previous auctex versions
> with a .tar.lz extension.   This throws out the Guix package source
> definition, which expects a .tar extension.
> 
> I have considered a few ideas to solve this:
> 
> i) track the last-but-one auctex version in Gnu Elpa.  This way all
> versions would have the same extension.  However, would the url-fetch
> method cope with the .tar.lz format?
Probably yes, but I don't think that being 1 version late out of
principle is a good idea.  Perhaps we can get ELPA to always serve
everything as .tar.lz?  Otherwise let's consider mirrors or SWH.

> ii) use the git-fetch method with the upstream repository.  However,
> the upstream version tag at
> http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/auctex.git is a smaller number than
> the Gnu Elpa version tag.  This would result in an apparent
> downgrade.  Would that be permissible?
I think we'd have to look at it more closely.  What it this auctex and
how does it differ from the one packaged in ELPA?

> iii) use the git-fetch method to clone the auctex branch of the
> elpa.git repository (along the lines of 'git clone --single-branch --
> branch externals/auctex .../elpa.git).  As far as I can see this is
> not currently possible.
You should be able to point to the commit in question, e.g.
3e163e5d0f2b89a4ad1542b6bd68f8c8fcf3f096.  That said, the ELPA repo
doesn't seem too well annotated :P

Regards,
Leo

Re: git-fetch for emacs-auctex?

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:

> Probably yes, but I don't think that being 1 version late out of
> principle is a good idea.  Perhaps we can get ELPA to always serve
> everything as .tar.lz?  Otherwise let's consider mirrors or SWH.

Also, not all packages have mirrors elsewhere. Of course SWH could work.

> You should be able to point to the commit in question, e.g.
> 3e163e5d0f2b89a4ad1542b6bd68f8c8fcf3f096.  That said, the ELPA repo
> doesn't seem too well annotated :P

There are no tags in the ELPA repository, but new releases are triggered
by a bump of "Version:" keyword. So, it is technically possible to map
a version to a commit hash by looking for such changes. This has been
suggested already in bug#46489.

Regards,
-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Re: git-fetch for emacs-auctex?

[Paul Garlick]

Hi Leo,

On Tue, 2021-05-25 at 22:00 +0200, Leo Prikler wrote:
> 
> What it this auctex and how does it differ from the one packaged in
> ELPA?
> 
This is the repository for the AUCTeX project.  The home page is 
https://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/

The ELPA package is derived from the upstream version.  It has its own
version numbering scheme.  For example, the current version on ELPA is
13.0.11.  The current upstream version is 12.3.

Every so often the upstream development branch is merged into the ELPA
branch and a new ELPA version is released.

One option for the Guix package would be to bypass ELPA and use the
upstream repository directly.  However, the version string would change
from "13.0.11" to something like "12.3-commit", where 'commit'
identifies the git reference of the upstream branch.

This would solve the reproducibility problem.  However, a one-off
update resulting in a smaller version number might cause confusion.

Are there views on this point?

Best regards,

Paul.

Re: git-fetch for emacs-auctex?

[Paul Garlick]

Hi Nicolas,

On Tue, 2021-05-25 at 22:10 +0200, Nicolas Goaziou wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> There are no tags in the ELPA repository, but new releases are
> triggered by a bump of "Version:" keyword. So, it is technically
> possible to map a version to a commit hash by looking for such
> changes. This has been suggested already in bug#46489.
> 

Thank you for pointing to the bug report 
https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/46849

It is the same issue as found in Nix.  This does not seem to be fixed
yet.  

I imagine there is a choice between an auctex-only fix and a general
ELPA fix.

Best regards,

Paul.