Re: I fixed this once already [Was Re: [PATCH] bootstrap: obey --no-git.]

[Gary V. Vaughan]

Hi Paul,

2 month thread anniversary bump.  Have you had the time to make a start on
anything yet?  Is there anything I can do to help keep things moving?

On 8 Sep 2011, at 01:56, Gary V. Vaughan wrote:
> Bumping this thread back to the top of the pile for it's 1 month 
> anniversary...
> 
> On 24 Aug 2011, at 00:51, Gary V. Vaughan wrote:
> 
>> Hi Paul,
>> 
>> Just want to keep this on your radar...
>> 
>> Also, please note that I've made some small improvements to the script,
>> and pushed to the GNU Zile repository, but not the others listed below.
>> If you'd like me to synchronize before you review, please ask.
>> 
>> On 15 Aug 2011, at 09:29, "Gary V. Vaughan" <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> On 15 Aug 2011, at 04:19, Paul Eggert wrote:
>>>> On 08/14/2011 01:38 PM, Gary V. Vaughan wrote:
>>>>> Please tell me to stop bugging the list if you're tired of my
>>>>> mentioning this from time to time. On the other hand, if you just
>>>>> need more proof that this one is working as well as I say, I'll add
>>>>> it on a topic branch to the gnulib using projects I have commit
>>>>> rights to, and update the bootstrap.confs I wrote for them last
>>>>> year provided someone will take a look afterwards, with the intention
>>>>> of agreeing to supercede the existing bootstrap if everything works
>>>>> as advertised.
>>>> 
>>>> I haven't had time to look at the complete rewrite, but I think
>>>> this is a good way to proceed.  I don't recall which projects
>>>> you were doing.
>>> 
>>> Great! Thank you :)
>>> 
>>> Here's what I have so far:
>>> 
>>> * address@hidden:gvvaughan/GNU-bison.git in gary/bootstrap
>>> https://github.com/gvvaughan/GNU-bison/commits/gary/bootstrap
>>> 
>>> The bison bootstrap is very straight-forward, so I just redid
>>> it with my new bootstrap script in the gary/bootstrap branch. I
>>> don't have a commit bit for bison, so I've put a mirror with
>>> my branch in it up on github, per the header to this bullet.
>>> 
>>> * address@hidden:gvvaughan/GNU-coreutils.git in gary/bootstrap
>>> https://github.com/gvvaughan/GNU-coreutils/commits/gary/bootstrap
>>> 
>>> I can't get the currently checked in bootstrap to finish running
>>> on current master, which makes porting it's contents into the
>>> new bootstrap.conf futile for me. Instead I've updated to the new
>>> bootstrap script on the original branch I made when I was writing
>>> it, and pushed a mirror to github here too. (Note that I was having
>>>  problems compiling sort just after threads had been added around
>>> that time, but a `make -k' completes on my Mac OS 10.7 machine.)
>>> 
>>> This one is interesting because it uses gettext and also has a
>>> fairly torturous bootstrap process.  I wasn't able to eliminate
>>> slurp entirely, but there is only something much much smaller and
>>> possible to understand remaining in bootstrap.conf.
>>> 
>>> * address@hidden:gvvaughan/GNU-libtool.git in topic/use-gnulib
>>> https://github.com/gvvaughan/GNU-libtool/commits/topic/use-gnulib
>>> 
>>> I'm not ready to push my working branches up to savannah yet, since
>>> I might want to rebase them locally first.  So I've put a mirror up
>>> in my github account for you to try out.
>>> 
>>> This one is interesting, because Libtool uses a complicated bootstrap
>>> process, with several subprojects to autoconfiscate, and additional
>>> options to bootstrap itself added using the extension mechanisms alone.
>>> You'll notice in configure.ac that there's a good deal of mucking
>>> about with M4 macros around the values that bootstrap is still
>>> extracting quite successfully.
>>> 
>>> * address@hidden:gvvaughan/GNU-m4.git in gary/bootstrap
>>> https://github.com/gvvaughan/GNU-m4/commits/gary/bootstrap
>>> 
>>> Again, I've mirrored some private branches that are subject to
>>> rebasing before merging and committing back to the savannah repo
>>> so that you can see what is going on here. But, I have rebased this
>>> on onto the HEAD of branch-1.4, with the latest gnulib in a submodule.
>>> I haven't updated the other branches yet (branch-1.6 and master), but
>>> that will happen automatically once gnulib is presenting the new
>>> bootstrap script.
>>> 
>>> M4 is interesting because it uses "the other" methodology of treating
>>> gnulib-cache.m4 as truth and checking it in, with bootstrap managing
>>> it rather than creating it.  And it uses git-version-gen to generate
>>> its version number on the fly, which bootstrap copes with quite easily.
>>> You can also try out the --skip-git and skip-po options here. The new
>>> bootstrap script started life because the current one has (had?) a
>>> few incongruencies that prevented it working in sympathy with how Eric
>>> and I manage M4 development.
>>> 
>>> * git://git.savannah.gnu.org/zile.git in topic/sane-bootstrap
>>> http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/zile.git/log/?h=topic/sane-bootstrap
>>> 
>>> This branch (with my bootstrap script in it) has already been merged
>>> to master and lua branches, both of which demonstrate very different
>>> bootstraps (especially lua, which has no compiled code in it at all!).
>>> 
>>> * It seems I also made a start at converting GNU tar to my new bootstrap,
>>> but I came unstuck when porting the copy_files function out of the
>>> existing bootstrap into a new bootstrap.conf.  I don't really have time
>>> to finish it now, but I hope the other projects above give you enough
>>> confidence to adopt the new script directly into gnulib for propagation
>>> into other projects, without me needing to finish the GNU tar conversion
>>> on my own first?
>>> 
>>>> I could also try it out with a smaller project
>>>> that isn't near a release (diffutils comes to mind ...).
>>> 
>>> Please do, that would be awesome.  The documentation is in the tarball
>>> attached earlier in the thread, I didn't bother to add another copy to
>>> every repo above... although the script is well commented and easy to
>>> understand even without the documentation.
>>> 
>>> Thanks again for taking the time to follow through on this.

Cheers,
-- 
Gary V. Vaughan (gary AT gnu DOT org)