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

[Gary V. Vaughan]

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)