[Pkg-octave-devel] [Reproducible-builds] Trying to fix random_buildpath_by_octave

[Mike Miller]

On Sun, Feb 07, 2016 at 13:46:55 +0100, Oliver Heimlich wrote:
> How about using a workaround and exchange the tempname function with
> something that returns [tempdir]/oct-[counter]?

Just discussed this with oheim on #octave.

We think we may have found the causes of this non-reproducibility
problem.

Way back in Octave 3.4, the exist() function was fixed so that
directories were correctly treated as files. This broke the prior
behavior of "pkg install ." to allow an unpacked directory to be built
in place and installed.

This was fixed in Debian and Fedora packaging two different ways. The
Debian patch enable_dirs_in_pkg restores building from the Debian source
package, but it forces the files to be copied into a temporary path and
built there. This is the source of the random build path.

The Fedora patch instead restores what I think was the original
behavior, allowing an unpacked source package to be compiled in place.
This is also reported upstream as bug #32839, and I think this is the
approach that should be taken.

I have not tested, but perhaps dropping enable_dirs_in_pkg and adopting
the Fedora patch [1] may resolve this problem.

[1]: http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/rpms/octave.git/tree/octave-pkgbuilddir.patch

-- 
mike