Re: Tinyarray packaging
Hi Christoph,
On 21.09.20 18:03, Christoph Groth wrote:
> Hello,
>
> As mentioned [1], Steffen Möller and Andreas Tille helped to finish the
> packaging of Tinyarray [2]. Here, I would like to continue off-list
> discussions we had.
>
> Andreas Tille wrote:
>
>> The cythonized files are not really needed for Debian packaging. Its
>> mandatory to re-build them in the package build process anyway.
>> Otherwise this is considered as the usage of foreign binary code.
>> Thus it makes sense to use a tarball without cython results.
> Actually, tinyarray is a pure C++ Python extension. There’s no Cython
> in there. My remark on upstream tarballs containing cythonized files
> was more general, extending to the other packages that I intent to
> package, like Kwant.
>
> Kwant contains substantial amounts of Cython code, and since the
> beginning we have been following the advice of Cython documentation [3]:
>
> “It is strongly recommended that you distribute the generated .c files
> as well as your Cython sources, so that users can install your module
> without needing to have Cython available.”
>
> But for Debian it is of course possible to re-cythonize. However, this
> does not change the fact that the upstream tarballs contain the
> cythonized files. And I always believed that Debian is very careful
> (not to say pedantic) about upstream tarballs and keeps them as
> immutable artifacts.
Nothing is patched and hidden (all patches go to debian/patches) but it
is ok to just skip a few files that upstream otherwise ships. For
instance, some upstreams have autoconf/-make generated files in their
source tree. Just anything that is machine-generated should go and
cython, i.e. cython3 now, becomes a build-dependency.
Please have a look at d/copyright files that specify "Files-Excluded"
(man uscan) . When d/watch then features a
"repack,repacksuffix=+ds,dversionmangle=auto" you are indicating with
the "+ds" in your version that the source tree is not complete and uscan
prepares the source tree for you as instructed by Files-Excluded.
>> If you are tagging releases properly in your
>>
>> https://gitlab.kwant-project.org/kwant/kwant
>>
>> I would prefer this over PyPI. But using PyPI is fine was well.
> Sure, the tags are correctly signed and we keep them immutable. We’ve
> been using PyPI in debian/watch, since it is likely *even* more
> persistent ;-) than our own gitlab instance.
>
> However, the only officially released tarballs are those to be found on
> PyPI and on https://downloads.kwant-project.org/.
PyPI is fine. You are the maintainer - you decide, really.
> Is it OK use the gitlab-generated tarballs as upstream for Debian?
You specify in d/copyright how to exclude all the Cython-generated files
and then have uscan repack a .xz source tree that you then
gbp import-orig --pristine-tar ...
into your local git repository.
> I guess that’s fine, other than that the upstream tarball for a given
> version will then differ from the one used by everyone else.
Hm. Yes. Let alone because of the cython-removal. The xz format is more
efficient than the gz, you will like it. Otherwise set compression=gz in
d/watch.
>> I just sponsored tinyarray. In principle I would love if Christoph
>> would use
>>
>> https://wiki.debian.org/DebianPureBlends/SoB
>>
>> It perfectly fits since the its scientific software. May be even
>> tinyarray would fit in some of the Debian Science Blend? The final
>> target will fit in any case and I'd strongly recommend to use
>> a repository under science-team for its packaging.
> I’m happy to follow any guidelines, I’m just a bit confused with what
> “DebianPureBlends” has to do with packaging tinyarray for Debian.
> I thought that Debian Pure Blends is an umbrella-term for specialized
> sub-distributions of Debian.
>
> I’m also OK with moving tinyarray to debian-science if this is useful
> and possible.
We just had a series of Python packages moved from med-team to the
Python packaging team - I think it is fine as it is.
We can address bits together via skype or so if I was unclear or you get
stuck for whatever reason.
Best,
Steffen
> [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-science/2020/09/msg00043.html
> [2] https://salsa.debian.org/python-team/modules/python-tinyarray
> [3] https://cython.readthedocs.io/en/latest/src/userguide/source_files_and_compilation.html#distributing-cython-modules
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