[pacman-dev] [PATCH] makepkg: Add '--nocompress' syntactic sugar

[Jouke Witteveen]

On Wed, May 22, 2019 at 12:45 AM Eli Schwartz <eschwartz at archlinux.org> wrote:
>
> On 5/21/19 5:42 PM, Eli Schwartz wrote:
> > On 5/21/19 4:30 AM, Jouke Witteveen wrote:
> >> On Sun, May 19, 2019 at 10:01 PM Eli Schwartz <eschwartz at archlinux.org> wrote:
> >>> On 5/19/19 3:52 PM, Jouke Witteveen wrote:
> >>>> However, I do now think that it would maybe have been good to make
> >>>> PKGEXT=.pkg.tar
> >>>> the default in makepkg.conf, since local installation of AUR packages
> >>>> is probably the most common usecase of makepkg.
> >>>>
> >>>> Changing it now makes no sense as it will probably be too disruptive.
> >>>> The comment ("Do not modify unless [etc.]") could be improved to
> >>>> something more helpful, though.
> >>>
> >>> That is a very interesting point. Would you like to submit a patch
> >>> modifying the manpage to suggest using .pkg.tar "if you want to disable
> >>> compression"?
> >>
> >> Sure, but it is not clear to me what it should say exactly.
> >>
> >> Currently it says:
> >>
> >> ----
> >>        PKGEXT=".pkg.tar.gz", SRCEXT=".src.tar.gz"
> >>            Sets the compression used when making compiled or source packages.
> >>            Valid suffixes are .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.xz, .tar.lzo,
> >>            .tar.lrz, and .tar.Z. Do not touch these unless you know what you
> >>            are doing.
> >> ----
> >>
> >> The first line is likely wrong, since it suggests .gz may be the
> >> default compression. This was not even the case when the line was
> >> added, nine years ago [1]!
> >> Then there is the last sentence. It is a bit weird to end this
> >> paragraph with "Use .tar to disable compression. Do not touch these
> >> unless you know what you are doing." Perhaps something like "Use .tar
> >> if you want to disable compression. Do not set these to a compression
> >> method other than the default unless you know what you are doing." is
> >> better. On the other hand, maybe the whole "...unless you know what
> >> you are doing." is a bit too strong anyway, and can simply be dropped.
> >>
> >> I think it is best to mirror whatever the manpage is going to say in
> >> /etc/makepkg.conf.
> >>
> >> Sorry to make this a bigger fuzz than it deserves. Feel free to simply
> >> change the text as you see fit if you think that is easier than
> >> waiting for a patch from me.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> - Jouke
> >>
> >> [1] https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/21302
> >
> > Actually, the default pacman/makepkg configuration is indeed gz, at
> > least in the sense that that is what etc/makepkg.conf.in will be
> > configured with unless you define your own:
> > ./configure --with-pkg-ext --with-src-ext
> >
> > Arch Linux does not ship with the stock pacman.conf and makepkg.conf,
> > though. We set distribution defaults independent of the distro-agnostic
> > pacman.git sources; these distribution defaults include the use of xz
> > over gzip for compression.
> >
> > I'm not sure what would make an appropriate default, since unlike many
> > other makepkg.conf settings the fallback when unspecified is to carry on
> > as if '' is a plausible answer when it isn't, and it *should* raise a
> > fatal error I guess. I'll write a lint check for that...
>
> https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/pacman-dev/2019-May/023404.html
> for the lint check

Thanks! Pretty funny how quickly this escalated :-).

> > Perhaps it would make sense to have the manpage depend on how
> > --with-pkg-ext --with-src-ext were used. Although Arch Linux would still
> > then be calling out gz.
>
> Done and with a transition from scariness to "this is how you disable
> compression":
> https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/pacman-dev/2019-May/023405.html

Shouldn't the WARNING in etc/makepkg.conf.in be updated too?

Thanks again,
- Jouke