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IDProjectCategoryView StatusLast Update
0005899Talerwallet (WebExtension)public2019-12-20 19:11
Reporternikita Assigned Tonikita  
PrioritynormalSeverityminorReproducibilityhave not tried
Status closedResolutionfixed 
Product Versiongit (master) 
Target Version0.6Fixed in Version0.6 
Summary0005899: portable configure
DescriptionThe configure script is rather unportable. This does not only consider my situation with a BSD rooted
implementation of find, xarg, getopt, but also Linux systems with no GNU userland tools (those exist
now).

Is there a specific reason why normal failing when base tools used in the Makefile are not enough?
I could rewrite the Makefile in a way that it considers all possible / for us relevant implementations of those
tools (or use more portable invocations).

All know make implementations in my experience support passing a prefix to it.

We could just get away with an empty ./configure (for those who need it, ie mostly automation being stupid), or none at all.
TagsNo tags attached.

Activities

Florian Dold

2019-09-18 15:27

manager   ~0014914

If portability is desired, we should rewrite ./configure in python3. Or rather, as a *very* simply shell (= /bin/sh) script that checks if python3 is installed and then executes some configure.py.

I don't really see any good reason to avoid the dependency on python3.

The reason I wrote the configure script: To be compatible with the GNU coding standards. There should be a configure script, and it should support --prefix.

We might even go the "Google approach" of having all build-related tooling in some git submodule. The ./configure would then make sure the submodule is initialized and run the python script from there.

nikita

2019-09-18 15:35

reporter   ~0014915

Hm, okay. I don't fully understand the reasoning since it is a should and not a must, but having it in a python3 file sounds better.
Okay if I take on this and test it in Debian and NetBSD for compatibility with userlands? I could then start and export this once
it works into "building.git" or something like that.

nikita

2019-09-18 15:36

reporter   ~0014916

probably configure (shell script, tests for possible python3 executable name) and then calls the python3 script is the better approach.

Florian Dold

2019-09-18 15:37

manager   ~0014917

I agree that having it in Python3 sounds way better, even just because using argparse from the standard library is nicer than the current abomination in the ./configure.

Yes, please just start converting it into Python3 first. Later if we discover there's too much duplication on other repos, we can do some build.git.

Florian Dold

2019-09-18 15:37

manager   ~0014918

> probably configure (shell script, tests for possible python3 executable name) and then calls the python3 script is the better approach.

Yes, that's exactly what I was suggesting :-)

nikita

2019-09-18 15:39

reporter   ~0014919

Okay, thanks for the explanation.

private is probably not necessary for this ticket, okay to make it public (if mantis supports this change)?

Florian Dold

2019-09-18 15:41

manager   ~0014920

Sure, can be public!

nikita

2019-09-20 18:58

reporter   ~0014927

I'm about to push what I have.
This first version took so long because argparse is far from perfect and I needed to run into a couple of walls.
I learned that argparse is implemented in a way that it decides what your error handling should be, and opting out is not nice. In the end I decided to drop the 3rd branch I had and simply make argparse the default if no PREFIX environment variable is exported.
I expect that the prefix directory does exist. otherwise it becomes literally "None", which still has to be worked around.

nikita

2019-10-02 23:39

reporter   ~0014973

closing this, rest is ongoing work (migration, maintenance etc)

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
2019-09-18 15:21 nikita New Issue
2019-09-18 15:21 nikita Status new => assigned
2019-09-18 15:21 nikita Assigned To => Florian Dold
2019-09-18 15:27 Florian Dold Note Added: 0014914
2019-09-18 15:35 nikita Note Added: 0014915
2019-09-18 15:36 nikita Note Added: 0014916
2019-09-18 15:37 Florian Dold Note Added: 0014917
2019-09-18 15:37 Florian Dold Note Added: 0014918
2019-09-18 15:39 nikita Note Added: 0014919
2019-09-18 15:40 nikita Assigned To Florian Dold => nikita
2019-09-18 15:41 Florian Dold Note Added: 0014920
2019-09-18 15:43 nikita View Status private => public
2019-09-20 18:58 nikita Note Added: 0014927
2019-10-02 23:39 nikita Note Added: 0014973
2019-10-02 23:39 nikita Status assigned => resolved
2019-10-02 23:39 nikita Resolution open => fixed
2019-11-14 22:46 Christian Grothoff Product Version => git (master)
2019-11-14 22:46 Christian Grothoff Fixed in Version => 0.6
2019-11-14 22:46 Christian Grothoff Target Version => 0.6
2019-12-20 19:11 Christian Grothoff Status resolved => closed
2023-04-13 20:37 Florian Dold Category wallet (WebExtensions) => wallet (WebExtension)