Git clone with --depth=1 loses the tags

[Mark Shuttleworth]

I have a part which is failing because the upstream uses tags in the git tree explicitly as part of the build process. THe snapcraft clone however uses --depth=1 which means those tags are lost.

We should by default clone the entire git repository. A snapcraft part should be able to specify a shallow clone by providing an explicit depth.

Can we make it so you can specify 'source-depth: n' in the part specification if you want a shallow clone (typically n would be 1) but that otherwise snapcraft will by default omit the depth and make a full clone of the repository?

[Leo Arias (elopio)]

Can you please share your yaml or repo?

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Here is a tgz of my snapcraft.yaml and a new plugin that I would ask you to land in snapcraft on my behalf :P

[Leo Arias (elopio)]

The problem is easy to reproduce with the attached project. And removing the --depth argument results in a usable snap. Thanks.

For the record, about the plugin to run a shell command we are having a discussion in https://github.com/snapcore/snapcraft/pull/727.

And a note for Sergio: there is a common pattern for go projects: set the GOPATH, and then run a command, usually Make. If the part could set somehow the environment variable, many many projects would be dead-simple to snap.

[Sergio Schvezov (sergiusens)]

El 02/09/16 a las 14:54, Leo Arias escribió:
> The problem is easy to reproduce with the attached project. And removing
> the --depth argument results in a usable snap. Thanks.
>
> For the record, about the plugin to run a shell command we are having a
> discussion in https://github.com/snapcore/snapcraft/pull/727.
>
> And a note for Sergio: there is a common pattern for go projects: set
> the GOPATH, and then run a command, usually Make. If the part could set
> somehow the environment variable, many many projects would be dead-
> simple to snap.

This is in the roadmap
https://trello.com/c/0HceL08Y/168-snapcraft-third-party-java-with-parts-14-30-15-30
and
https://trello.com/c/0vnzNOtK/160-build-environment-and-environment-from-parts

[Sergio Schvezov (sergiusens)]

@sabdfl I strongly believe we should shallow clone by default and allow full clones as an opt-in. The only reason a clone from a part you depend on (which is not the project you are working on but a piece of the integration puzzle to build your product) is because the build system is tied into a VCS. Can we go with the simple route of not even exposing depth but a knob such as

    source-attributes: [shallow]

or

    source-shallow: <on|off>

The former allows for easier expansion and sort of keeps things declarative.
I call it `shallow` so we can have a common language for all VCS's

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Most docs say "git clone" not "git clone depth=...." and I think
snapcraft should follow that unless the snapcraft.yaml author
consciously CHOOSES otherwise. Let the person who knows the git repo
decide this, not us by guesstimate.

I got bit by this on snap #3, I imagine others will too, 'git describe'
seems like common practice (I have another snap which builds but then
its internal version is 'unknown on unknown commit" so I suspect this
issue is more widespread than you think.

Thank,
Mark

[Sergio Schvezov (sergiusens)]

https://github.com/snapcore/snapcraft/pull/814

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Thank you :)