Control: tags -1 + upstream
This message is to Tim Rühsen, upstream developer of Wget,
and Noël Köthe, maintainer of Wget's Debian package.
Summary: Tim recommends that I convert my code for wget2.
Meanwhile, I can locally work around this bug. Only the
arrival of wget2 is likely to close the bug.
Details follow.
Tim writes:
> We, the maintainers, are currently pretty busy with preparing
> a release for wget2. Also, we do all new stuff just for
> wget2, but wget1.x will receive bug fixes of course.
>
> Thus, it is appreciated if you convert your code for wget2.
Received and understood. I would like to do that as soon as
possible -- though "as soon as possible" is not very precise,
is it? As always, time is limited. We shall see.
I think that Tim is right: wget2 will help. One would rather
not retire a working program like wget1, but now I understand
why my bug has never been fixed. The relevant code is just not
straightforward. One could hack an inelegant solution into
wget1, but the edge-case logic of src/convert.c
register_download() is hard to understand. That function
seems to pretend to enforce an invariant but, as far as I can
tell, does not actually enforce one. In short, the function is
confusing, it's brittle, the comments in it may be incorrect,
and one fears to touch it lest it break. (Amusingly, the
function has a goto in it. I am not one to deprecate goto
generally -- occasionally, I even like goto -- but this
particular goto may be a symptom of trouble.)
For reference (Noël, you need not follow the link; it's just
for reference), my post to bug-wget is linked [1].
1: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-wget/2016-12/msg00011.html
At any rate, with the benefit of your kind advice, I believe
that I can now probably hack my own, local copy of wget2 well
enough to work around Debian bugs #836943 [2] and #842472 [3]
until wget2 arrives.
2: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=836943
3: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=842472
For additional reference (Tim, you need not follow any of these
links; they're just for reference), the bug log against
Debian's wget package is also linked [4].
4: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=847216
And here is Peng Yu's original bug report in the year 2010 [5]
with Giuseppe Scrivano's reply [6].
5: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-wget/2010-05/msg00051.html
6: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-wget/2010-05/msg00052.html
Tim's email address is obscured (Bcc) in the header
because Tim didn't ask me to publish the address, but I
suppose that Noël probably has it. Replies sent
to <847216@bugs.debian.org> will reach both Noël and me,
at any rate.
Thanks for the help. Noël, you can decide whether to leave
this Debian bug report #847216 open or to close it. I would
probably leave it open but, basically, this bug awaits wget2.
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