Bug#869557: apt: please make the output of apt-ftparchive reproducible

[Chris Lamb <lamby@debian.org>]

Source: apt
Version: 1.5~beta1
Severity: wishlist
User: reproducible-builds@lists.alioth.debian.org

Hi,

According to Colin Percival, the output of apt-ftparchive is not
reproducible:

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14834520

At least for the "packages" subcommand, it appears we do non-deterministic
directory traversal using ftw(3) and output the results as we go along.


(Sorry for the usual lack of patch (!) but I was wondering if you had any
implementation ideas/pointers before I went down the wrong rabbithole. AIUI
we either need to make the traversal determinstic — is this even possible
with ftw(3)? — or collect all the results, sort, and then output which seems
a little bit more invasive. Thoughts?)


Regards,

-- 
      ,''`.
     : :'  :     Chris Lamb, Debian Project Leader
     `. `'`      lamby@debian.org / chris-lamb.co.uk
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