[csw-maintainers] Fwd: complicated build, subversion client

[rupert THURNER]

maciej suggested to cross post the answer from stefan, dev at svn, to the
question where our problem to compile the recent subversion might come from.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Stefan Sperling <stsp at elego.de>
Date: Mon, May 30, 2011 at 00:37
Subject: Re: complicated build, subversion client
To: rupert THURNER <rupert.thurner at gmail.com>
Cc: dev at subversion.apache.org


On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 11:19:05PM +0200, rupert THURNER wrote:
> and we separate out the apache module, but imo a client should not contain
> svnserve, svnsync, svndumpfilter, etc., see
> http://www.opencsw.org/search/subversion/ for list of files we have
> currently in subversion. currently we have sasl, ldap and berkely db
> dependencies in this package

You could separate out svnserve and other repository administration
*binaries* (svnadmin, svnlook, svndumpfilter) into a separate package.

With the svn libraries it's a different story. You will want all
of them on both the client and server. This means you'll need most
(and probably all) dependencies on both sides.

SASL is a dependency of svnserve (server-side implementation of
the svn:// protocol) and of libsvn_ra_svn (client-side implementation
of same). You'll need it on both servers and client if you want
to support SASL authentication.

You'll need berkeley DB on the server, and on the client for the
libsvn_ra_local (file:// repository access protocol) to support
Subversion repositories using BDB accessed via file://.

I suppose the LDAP dependecy comes from berkeley DB?
Subversion has no direct dependency on LDAP.

> ... which seems bloat.

Well, Subversion has a large set of features, some of which are optional.
And with all those features come a lot of external dependencies.

You could choose not to compile some optional features in to keep
package dependencies down but I think that would be to the detriment
of your users more than it helps them. You usually won't know in advance
which features users of your packages will need.

You could also take a look at how the Debian packages for Subversion
split things up. They probably have things split up as much as
reasonably possible.

> > > 2. comlicated build
> > > the build itself is so complicated that, since i can remember, we
> > > continually fail to package a current version of subversion.
> >
> > Can you point out more specifically what problems you are running into?
> >
> > If there is something concrete we could do in to improve the build
system
> > we will consider it. Suggestions (and of course patches) are always
> > welcome.
> >
> >
> some files compile with the standard sun compiler, some don't, see:
>
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/gar/browser/csw/mgar/pkg/subversion/trunk/Makefile
>

The files that don't compile with SUN's cc are generated by SWIG.
Can you figure out if it's possible to make SWIG generate code that
compiles with gcc as well as Sun's cc? If so we might be able to
fix your problem by changing the way we generate these files.

> we patch certain files, see:
> *
>
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/gar/browser/csw/mgar/pkg/subversion/trunk/files/0001-make-subversion-sysconfigdir-as-it-should-be-for-csw.patch

That patch looks fine. If there is a pre-processor macro that identifies
a CWS build we could also include this change upstream wrapped in the
right #ifdef.

It's a very small patch though and doesn't really cause maintenance
effort at your end, does it?

> *
>
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/gar/browser/csw/mgar/pkg/subversion/trunk/files/fixme.sh

This I don't really understand.

Editing Makefiles and libtool scripts like that is going to get you into
trouble sooner or later, no doubt. This seems very hackish and hard to
maintain. You are fixing up *generated* files. They going to change more
often than not from release to release. It's probably easier to fix up
the source files these were generated from, and regenerate.
Preferably in a way that we can integrate upstream.

Does CSW have a generic libtool replacement to deal with special
requirements that you impose on shared libraries?
OpenBSD does have one:
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/ports/infrastructure/bin/libtool
(It's only used for package builds -- my dev builds don't use this but
they work fine on OpenBSD regardless.)

> * (not sure if this is still active:
>
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/gar/browser/csw/mgar/pkg/subversion/trunk/files/javahl_headers_for_nested_classes.diff
> )

Note sure what the above is doing.

> *
>
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/gar/browser/csw/mgar/pkg/subversion/trunk/files/subversion161.diff

This is OK. We do similar things in OpenBSD. Unfortunately everyone has
their own ideas about where stuff like python libraries should go.

SVN should probably add a new configure script parameter to take away the
need to patch this.

> > > what would be a good way to address this in your opinion? would it be
> > > possible to switch the build system to something easier to handle and
> > > introduce proper dependencies?
> >
> > I don't think that smart handling of dependencies belongs into the
> > Subversion core build system because there are so many different ways
> > people manage dependencies on different systems.
> > It would be very hard to come up with something that works for everyone.
> >
>
> autotools / libtool seems to be responsible for 80% of the problems.
beside
> making the build very slow we always need to tinker (see above), and still

I know that libtool is hard to deal with sometimes (I pulled some of
my own hair out over it as well). But it serves a great purpose for
Subversion because it is the most widespread way of dealing with
shared libraries on many UNIX-like platforms. I don't think we can
afford not to use it. If libtool is broken for you please try to
get libtool fixed instead. This would also help you port other software
that uses libtool more easily.

Note that as of Subversion 1.7 the build system will always use the libtool
program that was used to compile APR. This was done so we could remove
the configure script code for finding the right libtool and let APR sort
this out for us instead.

> get errors like just now when trying to build 1.6.16:
>
> cd subversion/bindings/swig/python ; /bin/bash
>
/home/rupert/mgar/pkg/subversion/trunk/work/solaris9-sparc/build-isa-sparcv8/subversion-1.6.16/libtool
> --mode=install /opt/csw/bin/ginstall -c
> _
core.la/home/rupert/mgar/pkg/subversion/trunk/work/solaris9-sparc/install-isa-sparcv8/opt/csw/lion2.3/libsvn/_
> core.la
> libtool: install: error: cannot install `_core.la' to a directory not
ending
> in /opt/csw/lib/python/site-packages/libsvn
> gmake[2]: *** [install-swig-py] Error 1
> gmake[2]: Leaving directory
>
`/home/rupert/mgar/pkg/subversion/trunk/work/solaris9-sparc/build-isa-sparcv8/subversion-1.6.16'
> gmake[1]: *** [svn-python] Error 2
> gmake[1]: Leaving directory `/home/rupert/mgar/pkg/subversion/trunk'
> gmake: *** [merge-isa-sparcv8] Error 2

I suppose the above is something with the fixme.sh gone wrong?
I've never seen an error like this.

> but the subversion community is very nice and helpful which makes it still
a
> pleasure :)

Well, I hope my hints and suggestions will help. I'm sorry I don't have
any conclusive answers to your problems.
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