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Re: Scalar-List-Utils: blead and upstream out-of-synch
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From:
Sawyer X
Date:
January 24, 2017 15:25
Subject:
Re: Scalar-List-Utils: blead and upstream out-of-synch
Message ID:
46c8133b-86bc-9acf-9cde-5ecdb9d24eee@gmail.com
[Top-posted]
At the hackathon we have discussed moving modules used in core itself to
be upstream blead. I've sent an email previous asking for help
determining this list of modules.
Scalar-List-Util is one known distribution and we've had a discussion in
person in which Paul Evans was happy to move it to upstream blead,
knowing how crucial this distribution is, and knowing it will now
receive more attention and support from p5p when needs be. Unfortunately
we haven't made the change yet.
I think it's time we start.
On 01/23/2017 02:29 PM, James E Keenan wrote:
> We have some problems with the integration of the Scalar-List-Utils
> distribution with the Perl 5 core distribution. Scalar-List-Utils is
> maintained upstream on CPAN, which means that reports of bugs are
> supposed to be reported first on its bug tracker,
> https://rt.cpan.org/Dist/Display.html?Name=Scalar-List-Utils. Once
> corrections are made upstream, we patch the core distribution.
> Changes should not be made first in core unless there is an urgent,
> compelling reason to do so.
>
> In late October and early November a series of corrections were made
> to Scalar-List-Utils in the core distribution with respect to its
> performance on the netbsd-vax platform. In reverse chronological
> order, those commits were:
>
> aa3ecafd01033b5ee5566f754a882d417a39e0ad
> 8e21c40378fa83db73acbf74b1cb99ac60432ee8
> d1deb742f98169ce12c103478382902d83f6717a
> 059d8568a141af07d90f38d161fc6ba4993d4467
> 5bc8afd5b5a672585a115f4556f6b734dae83184
> 1476bbfa98fcd0efc3a4d1ccdd0b021ad7403986
> cdeaf44d582bf74f4c686dc58b288d8d33f25b95
> 3ad3fb7edd9a5db1e0cf38ad50a84824ef641c39
> 5b15f36c4b1c5025dccabeef937495997e37e512
>
> Because this work was committed to blead first, customizations were
> necessary in Porting/Maintainers.pl and other porting-tests-related
> fixes were needed as well. So there is more code in the commits above
> than was, strictly speaking, needed for Scalar-List-Utils. The code
> that was needed for that was subsequently reported upstream at
> https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=118470 but upstream has not
> yet been patched -- which means we have to continue to maintain the
> customizations in Porting/Maintainers.pl and elsewhere.
>
> At the same time, our smoke testers were reporting intermittent
> failures in cpan/Scalar-List-Utils/t/tainted.t. See, e.g.,
> http://perl5.test-smoke.org/report/52519. These test failures were
> first reported to the Scalar-List-Utils bug tracker
> (https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=119169) on Dec 07 2016. A
> correction was discussed there and the upstream maintainer released
> version 1.47 on Dec 22 2016.
>
> That version was not and has not yet been integrated into the core
> distribution. Such integration would be complex given that blead
> contains the previously discussed customizations. As a stopgap
> measure, on Dec 23 2016, the file with the failing tests was patched
> in blead (only) -- but with an expiration date on the corrective
> action of the patch:
>
> #####
> diff --git a/cpan/Scalar-List-Utils/t/tainted.t
> b/cpan/Scalar-List-Utils/t/tainted.t
> index e483dfd..9e0df5e 100644
> --- a/cpan/Scalar-List-Utils/t/tainted.t
> +++ b/cpan/Scalar-List-Utils/t/tainted.t
> @@ -15,10 +15,13 @@ ok( !tainted($var), 'known variable');
>
> my $key = (grep { !/^PERL/ } keys %ENV)[0];
>
> +SKIP: { # Skip these to get blead to pass, but the skip expires soon
> +skip 'is randomly failing', 2 unless $] gt 5.025009;
> ok( tainted($ENV{$key}), 'environment variable');
>
> $var = $ENV{$key};
> ok( tainted($var), 'copy of environment variable');
> +}
> #####
>
> In blead we are now past 5.25.9.
>
> #####
> $ ./perl -v | head -2 | tail -1
> This is perl 5, version 25, subversion 10 (v5.25.10
> (v5.25.9-15-g03fedef)) built for x86_64-linux
>
> $ ./perl -Ilib -E 'say $]'
> 5.025010
> #####
>
> Not surprisingly, we are once again experiencing intermittent test
> failures in cpan/Scalar-List-Utils/t/tainted.t. See, e.g.,
> http://perl.develop-help.com/raw/?id=198039.
>
> So we are now in a situation where blead and upstream are out of synch
> with respect to Scalar-List-Utils in multiple ways. We are not
> getting the benefits of the upstream maintainer's work on
> https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=119169 and, consequently,
> that ticket remains open -- as does the upstream ticket with the
> netbsd-vax corrections.
>
> This is not good.
>
> We have several other, much larger problems in the interaction between
> blead and CPAN that we have to address before the upcoming pre-5.26.0
> code freeze. Having this Scalar-List-Util problem is a distraction.
>
> My recommendation is that we:
>
> 1. Revert the netbsd-vax-related changes out of Perl 5 blead.
>
> 2. Integrate Scalar-List-Utils v1.47 into blead.
>
> 3. Urge the Scalar-List-Utils maintainer to accept the
> netbsd-vax-related changes and release a v1.48 with those changes.
> (We would then integrate 1.48 into blead.)
>
> I recommend this approach because:
>
> 1. Getting S-L-U 1.47 into blead would get us smoke test PASSes across
> all platforms. That's a greater benefit than having the
> netbsd-vax-related changes in blead without also having them upstream.
>
> 2. Getting S-L-U 1.47 into blead would enable us to get rid of the
> customizations in Porting/Maintainers.pl and the no-longer-working
> stopgap in tainted.t.
>
> 3. This would be consistent with our standard procedure for reporting
> problems with libraries maintained upstream but distributed with core.
>
> To this end, I have created the following branch: revert-cpan-118470.
> I am attaching a diff of that branch against blead. You can review
> its smoke test results at
> http://perl.develop-help.com/?b=smoke-me%2Fjkeenan%2Frevert-cpan-118470.
>
> Thank you very much.
> Jim Keenan
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