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Subject: bug#31368: vc-chlog reports "test: Illegal number" errors
Resent-From: Bruno Haible <bruno@HIDDEN>
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From: Bruno Haible <bruno@HIDDEN>
Date: Sat, 05 May 2018 02:50:04 +0200
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How to reproduce:

$ wget -O gettext-clean.tar.xz 'https://www.dropbox.com/s/01pkbqsydi5ix0v/gettext-clean.tar.xz?dl=0'
$ tar xf gettext-clean.tar.xz
$ cd gettext-clean
$ vc-chlog > /tmp/xx
/usr/gnu/bin/vc-chlog: 459: test: Illegal number: +
/usr/gnu/bin/vc-chlog: 458: test: Illegal number: +
/usr/gnu/bin/vc-chlog: 474: test: Illegal number: +
/usr/gnu/bin/vc-chlog: 459: test: Illegal number: gettext-runtime/m4/longlong.m4
/usr/gnu/bin/vc-chlog: 458: test: Illegal number: gettext-runtime/m4/longlong.m4
/usr/gnu/bin/vc-chlog: 474: test: Illegal number: gettext-runtime/m4/longlong.m4
/usr/gnu/bin/vc-chlog: 483: test: Illegal number: /tmp/vccJw9Bn8/oldfile-20-longlong.m4
/usr/gnu/bin/vc-chlog: 482: test: Illegal number: /tmp/vccJw9Bn8/oldfile-20-longlong.m4
/usr/gnu/bin/vc-chlog: 498: test: Illegal number: /tmp/vccJw9Bn8/oldfile-20-longlong.m4
$ vc-chlog --version
vc-chlog version 1.8

This is on Linux (Ubuntu 16.04).

Bruno

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From: help-debbugs@HIDDEN (GNU bug Tracking System)
To: Bruno Haible <bruno@HIDDEN>
Subject: bug#31368: Acknowledgement (vc-chlog reports "test: Illegal
 number" errors)
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Subject: bug#31368: [Bug-vc-dwim] bug#31368: vc-chlog reports "test: Illegal number" errors
Resent-From: Jim Meyering <jim@HIDDEN>
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From: Jim Meyering <jim@HIDDEN>
Date: Sat, 5 May 2018 18:07:42 -0700
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On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 5:50 PM, Bruno Haible <bruno@HIDDEN> wrote:
> How to reproduce:
...
> vc-chlog version 1.8

Hi Bruno,

Thank you for the report.
I can make vc-chlog misbehave that way by configuring and building
vc-dwim tools with an exuberant ctags binary first in search path, but
(say later) running vc-chlog with a different ctags (e.g., from emacs)
earlier in the search path.

You have two solutions:
- rerun vc-dwim's configure+build+install to take into account the new
ctags state of your shell's search path.
- restore the expected ctags binary to the earlier spot in your
shell's search path.

Ideas for how vc-dwim can do better on this front:
- hard-code the path to ctags that it finds during configure, but we
prefer not to hard-code such paths...
- make vc-chlog detect which ctags it is using at run time. Not ideal,
but it would have saved you this trouble. The configure check shows
how simple the test is:

case `$CTAGS -x conftest.c` in
  *function*) rw_cv_ctags_type_column=yes ;;
  *) rw_cv_ctags_type_column=no;;
esac

But I suspect we could get away with an even less expensive check:
inspect the output of ctags --version. If it matches something like
/^Exuberant Ctags/, assume we have the more desirable type column.

I'm leaning towards the latter. What do you think?

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Subject: bug#31368: [Bug-vc-dwim] bug#31368: vc-chlog reports "test: Illegal number" errors
Resent-From: Bruno Haible <bruno@HIDDEN>
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From: Bruno Haible <bruno@HIDDEN>
Date: Sun, 06 May 2018 11:29:08 +0200
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Hi Jim,

> I can make vc-chlog misbehave that way by configuring and building
> vc-dwim tools with an exuberant ctags binary first in search path, but
> (say later) running vc-chlog with a different ctags (e.g., from emacs)
> earlier in the search path.
> 
> You have two solutions:
> - rerun vc-dwim's configure+build+install to take into account the new
> ctags state of your shell's search path.
> - restore the expected ctags binary to the earlier spot in your
> shell's search path.

But I did not fiddle with PATH. I can reproduce the issue with
  $ cd vc-dwim-1.8
  $ ./configure --prefix=PREFIX    [the PREFIX/bin dir is in my $PATH]
  ...
  checking for ctags-exuberant... no
  checking for ctags... ctags
  checking whether ctags prints an extra column... no
  ...
  $ make
  $ make install
  $ cd ..
  $ wget -O gettext-clean.tar.xz 'https://www.dropbox.com/s/01pkbqsydi5ix0v/gettext-clean.tar.xz?dl=0'
  $ tar xf gettext-clean.tar.xz
  $ cd gettext-clean
  $ vc-chlog > /tmp/xx
  PREFIX/bin/vc-chlog: 459: test: Illegal number: +
  PREFIX/bin/vc-chlog: 458: test: Illegal number: +
  PREFIX/bin/vc-chlog: 474: test: Illegal number: +
  PREFIX/bin/vc-chlog: 459: test: Illegal number: gettext-runtime/m4/longlong.m4
  PREFIX/bin/vc-chlog: 458: test: Illegal number: gettext-runtime/m4/longlong.m4
  PREFIX/bin/vc-chlog: 474: test: Illegal number: gettext-runtime/m4/longlong.m4
  PREFIX/bin/vc-chlog: 483: test: Illegal number: /tmp/vcczGSIVa/oldfile-20-longlong.m4
  PREFIX/bin/vc-chlog: 482: test: Illegal number: /tmp/vcczGSIVa/oldfile-20-longlong.m4
  PREFIX/bin/vc-chlog: 498: test: Illegal number: /tmp/vcczGSIVa/oldfile-20-longlong.m4

The version of ctags that I have in $PATH is

  $ ctags --version
  ctags (GNU Emacs 23.1)
  Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  This program is distributed under the terms in ETAGS.README

and I don't use ctags at all (there is no 'tags' or 'TAGS' file in the said
tarball).

> Ideas for how vc-dwim can do better on this front:
> - hard-code the path to ctags that it finds during configure, but we
> prefer not to hard-code such paths...
> - make vc-chlog detect which ctags it is using at run time. Not ideal,
> but it would have saved you this trouble. The configure check shows
> how simple the test is:
> 
> case `$CTAGS -x conftest.c` in
>   *function*) rw_cv_ctags_type_column=yes ;;
>   *) rw_cv_ctags_type_column=no;;
> esac

Hard-coding a path is not a good idea, I agree. As an administrator of my
machine, I hate it when GCC uses a hardwired 'as' or when autoconf uses a
hardwired 'm4' location.

This invocation is not very costly (4 ms in my case):
$ time ctags -x conftest.c
f                  2 conftest.c       f 

real    0m0.004s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.000s

Therefore I would vote for moving this configure test to the run time.

Bruno

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Subject: bug#31368: [Bug-vc-dwim] bug#31368: vc-chlog reports "test: Illegal number" errors
References: <1763108.JQDEx9xaCp@omega>
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Back on this mail from 2018, let me just mention that I ran into a
stream of errors similar to Bruno's ("test: Illegal number ..."). Which
shouldn't say "illegal", but that's a different matter :).

    jm> I can make vc-chlog misbehave that way by configuring and
    building vc-dwim tools with an exuberant ctags binary first in
    search path, but (say later) running vc-chlog with a different ctags
    (e.g., from emacs) earlier in the search path.

In my case it was the other way around, but whatever.

    I suspect we could get away with an even less expensive check:
    inspect the output of ctags --version. 

I fully agree. I see no overriding reason why vc-chlog cannot check what
it needs to check at runtime, and do nothing at configure time. Which
would be way more flexible and reliable.

However, I didn't go so far as to write that patch :(. --thanks, karl.

Last modified: Mon, 25 Nov 2019 12:00:02 UTC

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