[cocci] No longer possible to build with system dependencies?

[cocci] No longer possible to build with system dependencies?

[Jan Tojnar]

Hi,

I tried building Coccinelle from the latest commit from master but it
appears it is no longer possible to do so without relying on bundles.

I like to use libraries from my Linux distribution since then I do not
have to build them over and over again every time I nuke the repo.
Additionally, since distros tend to use sandboxed environment for
building packages, building dependencies independently reduces
excessively long rebuild time when failure occurs higher in the
dependency tree.

Looking at the commit history, the last change to `configure.ac` file
from the following commit is responsible:

https://github.com/coccinelle/coccinelle/commit/1d0733a27006b06eef712f541000a8bf10246804

in addition to:

https://github.com/coccinelle/coccinelle/commit/3f54340c8ac907e528dbe1475a4a7141e77b9cdd

If this was done to prevent people from using old versions of the
libraries, would it be possible to add a minimum version check instead?
Or at least add an option to force the use of system libraries,
so that distros do not have to patch the limitation out to comply with
their policies on packaging vendored dependencies?

Cheers,

Jan

Re: [cocci] No longer possible to build with system dependencies?

[Julia Lawall]

On Sat, 22 Oct 2022, Jan Tojnar wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I tried building Coccinelle from the latest commit from master but it
> appears it is no longer possible to do so without relying on bundles.
>
> I like to use libraries from my Linux distribution since then I do not
> have to build them over and over again every time I nuke the repo.
> Additionally, since distros tend to use sandboxed environment for
> building packages, building dependencies independently reduces
> excessively long rebuild time when failure occurs higher in the
> dependency tree.
>
> Looking at the commit history, the last change to `configure.ac` file
> from the following commit is responsible:
>
> https://github.com/coccinelle/coccinelle/commit/1d0733a27006b06eef712f541000a8bf10246804
>
> in addition to:
>
> https://github.com/coccinelle/coccinelle/commit/3f54340c8ac907e528dbe1475a4a7141e77b9cdd
>
> If this was done to prevent people from using old versions of the
> libraries, would it be possible to add a minimum version check instead?
> Or at least add an option to force the use of system libraries,
> so that distros do not have to patch the limitation out to comply with
> their policies on packaging vendored dependencies?

Thanks for the feedback.  There was definitely no intention to restrict
builds in anyway.

julia

Re: [cocci] No longer possible to build with system dependencies?

[Julia Lawall]

On Sat, 22 Oct 2022, Jan Tojnar wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I tried building Coccinelle from the latest commit from master but it
> appears it is no longer possible to do so without relying on bundles.
>
> I like to use libraries from my Linux distribution since then I do not
> have to build them over and over again every time I nuke the repo.
> Additionally, since distros tend to use sandboxed environment for
> building packages, building dependencies independently reduces
> excessively long rebuild time when failure occurs higher in the
> dependency tree.
>
> Looking at the commit history, the last change to `configure.ac` file
> from the following commit is responsible:
>
> https://github.com/coccinelle/coccinelle/commit/1d0733a27006b06eef712f541000a8bf10246804
>
> in addition to:
>
> https://github.com/coccinelle/coccinelle/commit/3f54340c8ac907e528dbe1475a4a7141e77b9cdd
>
> If this was done to prevent people from using old versions of the
> libraries, would it be possible to add a minimum version check instead?
> Or at least add an option to force the use of system libraries,
> so that distros do not have to patch the limitation out to comply with
> their policies on packaging vendored dependencies?

This problem should be fixed now.

Thanks for the report.

julia

Re: [cocci] No longer possible to build with system dependencies?

[Jan Tojnar]

On Tue, 2022-10-25 at 16:54 +0200, Julia Lawall wrote:
> 
> This problem should be fixed now.

Thanks, d9ce82a556e313684af74912cf204bb902e04436 fixes the issue for
stdcompat but it still does not work for pyml.

If I remove the `/dev/null` redirection from pyml’s configure test, it
reveals the following error:

    File "configure_test.ml", line 2, characters 0-0:
    Error: Syntax error

Looking at the contents of `configure_test.ml`, the square braces do
not appear to have been transferred:

    Py.Class.init ~parents:

Apparently, three braces are sufficient to make it work but why that is
the case eludes me. m4 language is simply beyond my comprehension.

Re: [cocci] No longer possible to build with system dependencies?

[Julia Lawall]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 795 bytes --]



On Tue, 25 Oct 2022, Jan Tojnar wrote:

> On Tue, 2022-10-25 at 16:54 +0200, Julia Lawall wrote:
> >
> > This problem should be fixed now.
>
> Thanks, d9ce82a556e313684af74912cf204bb902e04436 fixes the issue for
> stdcompat but it still does not work for pyml.
>
> If I remove the `/dev/null` redirection from pyml’s configure test, it
> reveals the following error:
>
>     File "configure_test.ml", line 2, characters 0-0:
>     Error: Syntax error
>
> Looking at the contents of `configure_test.ml`, the square braces do
> not appear to have been transferred:
>
>     Py.Class.init ~parents:
>
> Apparently, three braces are sufficient to make it work but why that is
> the case eludes me. m4 language is simply beyond my comprehension.

Thanks for the feedback and the suggestion.

julia

Re: [cocci] No longer possible to build with system dependencies?

[Markus Elfring]

> If I remove the `/dev/null` redirection from pyml’s configure test,
> it reveals the following error:

Please show the exact command call variant which you tried out.


> Apparently, three braces are sufficient to make it work but why that is
> the case eludes me. m4 language is simply beyond my comprehension.

Are you struggling with quoting rules of involved programming languages?

Regards,
Markus

Re: [cocci] No longer possible to build with system dependencies?

[Thierry Martinez]

Jan Tojnar :
> Apparently, three braces are sufficient to make it work but why that is
> the case eludes me. m4 language is simply beyond my comprehension.

Oops, you are correct: [[..]] is the proper way for quoting strings if we
want to preserve inner square brackets
(cf. https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.69/html_node/Quotation-and-Nested-Macros.html).

It will be fixed by the following merge request:
https://gitlab.inria.fr/coccinelle/coccinelle/-/merge_requests/231

Thanks!
-- 
Thierry.

Jan Tojnar :
> On Tue, 2022-10-25 at 16:54 +0200, Julia Lawall wrote:
>> 
>> This problem should be fixed now.
>
> Thanks, d9ce82a556e313684af74912cf204bb902e04436 fixes the issue for
> stdcompat but it still does not work for pyml.
>
> If I remove the `/dev/null` redirection from pyml’s configure test, it
> reveals the following error:
>
>     File "configure_test.ml", line 2, characters 0-0:
>     Error: Syntax error
>
> Looking at the contents of `configure_test.ml`, the square braces do
> not appear to have been transferred:
>
>     Py.Class.init ~parents:
>
> Apparently, three braces are sufficient to make it work but why that is
> the case eludes me. m4 language is simply beyond my comprehension.

Re: [cocci] No longer possible to build with system dependencies?

[Markus Elfring]

> > Apparently, three braces are sufficient to make it work but why that is
> > the case eludes me. m4 language is simply beyond my comprehension.
> 
> Oops, you are correct: [[..]] is the proper way for quoting strings if we
> want to preserve inner square brackets
> (cf. https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.69/html_node/Quotation-and-Nested-Macros.html).
> 
> It will be fixed by the following merge request:
> https://gitlab.inria.fr/coccinelle/coccinelle/-/merge_requests/231

I suggest to fix further details.
https://gitlab.inria.fr/coccinelle/coccinelle/-/commit/0f96f7b8ac3f6a31f571eb845e6c253a34f935b6

1. Improve the proposed commit subject “Fix quoting for configure_test.ml”.

2. Add a helpful commit description.

Regards,
Markus

Re: [cocci] No longer possible to build with system dependencies?

[Markus Elfring]

> It will be fixed by the following merge request:
> https://gitlab.inria.fr/coccinelle/coccinelle/-/merge_requests/231


Why did you not add attribution to Jan Tojnar (as the bug reporter) to the description
of a commit (from 2022-10-26)?
https://gitlab.inria.fr/coccinelle/coccinelle/-/commit/0f96f7b8ac3f6a31f571eb845e6c253a34f935b6

Regards,
Markus

Re: [cocci] Checking quotation variants

[Markus Elfring]

>> Apparently, three braces are sufficient to make it work but why that is
>> the case eludes me. m4 language is simply beyond my comprehension.
> Oops, you are correct: [[..]] is the proper way for quoting strings if we
> want to preserve inner square brackets
> (cf. https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.69/html_node/Quotation-and-Nested-Macros.html).

Would you occasionally like to take the usage of quadrigraphs into account
(according to the application of M4 quotation)?
https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.71/html_node/Quadrigraphs.html


A parameter for the command “echo” is enclosed by double quotes so far.
Variable expansion is not applied in the passed string.
Can it be nicer then to enclose this argument by single quotes?

Regards,
Markus