Unison 2.40 doc is missing

[Adrien Beau]

Ubuntu release: Kubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Beta i386
Package version: 2.40.63-2ubuntu1

Most likely, this does not depend on the Ubuntu flavor being used or the front-end used to install Unison, but just in case, here is what I did this morning:

* Boot Kubuntu 12.04 Beta 1 i386 install CD
* Enable updates from universe
* Use Muon to Install Unison
* Start Konsole and try unison

What works:

* unison
* unison -help

What does not work:

* unison -doc topics
* unison -doc all
* unison -doc <whatever>

Note that only version 2.40.63-2ubuntu1 is broken (both unison and unison-gtk packages). The two older versions available in 12.04 LTS work fine: 2.32.52-5ubuntu1 and 2.27.57-4ubuntu1 (again, both unison and unison-gtk packages).

In the accompanying screenshot montage, you can see:

* unison 2.40 on the left, with the bottom of the "unison -help" output, the "unison -doc topics" empty output, the "unison -doc all" empty output.
* unison 2.32 on the right, with the bottom of the "unison -doc all" output and the expected "unison -doc topics" output.
* unison 2.27 in the middle, with the bottom of the "unison -doc all" output and the expected "unison -doc topics" output.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Adrien Beau (adrienbeau)]

The bug is still present in Precise beta 2.

I noticed the /usr/share/doc/unison/unison-manual.txt file is empty (one single 0x0a character), while it is rather big in previous versions (/usr/share/doc/unison2.32.52/unison-manual.txt.gz is 66419 bytes, inflating to 216202 bytes uncompressed).

I tried copying the file from unison2.32.52 to unison, this did not solve the issue.

[Adrien Beau (adrienbeau)]

Looking at the build log, I understood why the /usr/share/doc/unison/unison-manual.txt file is empty. It is quite simply generated from the output of "unison -doc all". The core issue is that this command does not output anything.

...

I think I found the root cause of the issue. The Unison documentation is maintained in the file doc/unison-manual.tex, which is apparently converted to src/strings.ml in a separate (manual?) build process. Anyway, the resulting src/strings.ml is then stored in Subversion.

On the 2.40 branch, src/strings.ml contains an empty array (cf. https://webdav.seas.upenn.edu/viewvc/unison/branches/2.40/src/strings.ml?view=markup) In all other branches (2.32, 2.27, trunk), src/strings.ml contains the Unison manual as expected.

So, it seems to me that src/strings.ml needs to be regenerated on the 2.40 branch, and then the build redone.

[Julian Taylor (jtaylor)]

updating the version in precise will require a feature freeze exception at this point:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FreezeExceptionProcess
I'll merge it if someone files it and will test it for regressions

[Adrien Beau (adrienbeau)]

I'm still learning about the Ubuntu processes, so I may be wrong, but it seems to me that this version update falls squarely under the "FeatureFreeze for bugfix-only updates" section of the page you linked to, and therefore does not require an exception request.

I have diffed the Unison source tarballs for 2.40.63 and 2.40.65, and found that only three files are different:

* strings.ml (the root cause of the bug, it contained an empty array in 2.40.63 and now looks properly generated)
* NEWS (it was also incorrectly generated in 2.40.63, and now looks properly generated)
* mkProjectInfo.ml (two line changed: the revisionString variable was updated, and a blank line was added at the end of the file)

I don't have experience in building packages in Debian and Ubuntu, though I can certainly test a few .deb files (both i386 and amd64).

[Julian Taylor (jtaylor)]

indeed it does not need an exception, I misread the NEWS file.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package unison - 2.40.65-1ubuntu1

---------------
unison (2.40.65-1ubuntu1) precise; urgency=low

  * debian/rules: do not compress unison-manual.txt
  * Resynchronise with Debian. Remaining changes:
    - Change default logfile directory to .unison by prepending .unison to
      name of logfile in ubase/trace.ml.

unison (2.40.65-1) unstable; urgency=low

  * New upstream release
    - fix -doc option (Closes: #657496, LP: #949895)

unison (2.40.63-3) unstable; urgency=low

  * Suggest unison-all
  * Use rsvg-convert instead of rsvg (Closes: #666312)
 -- Julian Taylor <email address hidden> Thu, 05 Apr 2012 20:33:03 +0200