On 2025-07-21 15:27, Matthew Sheets via Cygwin-apps wrote:
In troubleshooting issues using Cygwin within GitHub runners, one specific problem
scenario identified is when the Cygwin "git" package is installed. When that
happens, Cygwin's Git installation ends up being executed instead of GitHub's
installation of Git, which obviously doesn't have the same setup, configuration, etc. as
GitHub's own internal install of Git.
Usually, these issues can be avoided by simply not including the "git" package among the
list of packages to be installed along with Cygwin [1], but it appears there are certain cases
where Cygwin's "git" package is being pulled in as a dependency by other Cygwin packages.
In particular, "gettext-devel" [2] (source package "gettext") is listing an
explicit dependency on Git, and I am unclear why. At least on the surface, GNU Gettext itself does
not appear to have any such dependencies [3], and while the packages don't map one-to-one, Debian
packages don't appear to have such a dependency, either [4].
In reviewing the gettext.cygport file [5], "git" is explicitly listed as a
DEPEND (though I do see that use of DEPEND is deprecated [6]) and then again as a
PKG_REQUIRES [7] of gettext-devel [8]. It seems this listed dependency on git is a
result of this manual specification and not Cygport's auto-detection of package
dependencies.
Is this explicit listing of "git" as a dependency of "gettext-devel" necessary?
Can it be removed?
It appears to be used to access git-archive used by --with-git option to
compress some data formats, but I will have to check further to find out what
that entails exactly.
Thank you,
Matthew
[1] https://github.com/marketplace/actions/install-cygwin-action
[2] https://cygwin.com/packages/summary/gettext-devel.html
[3] https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/
[4]
https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=gettext&searchon=names&suite=stable§ion=all
[5] https://cygwin.com/cgit/cygwin-packages/gettext/tree/gettext.cygport#n88
[6] https://cygwin.github.io/cygport/check_funcs_cygpart.html#BUILD_REQUIRES
[7]
- https://cygwin.github.io/cygport/pkg_pkg_cygpart.html#REQUIRES
- https://cygwin.github.io/cygport/pkg_pkg_cygpart.html#PKG_REQUIRES
[8] https://cygwin.com/cgit/cygwin-packages/gettext/tree/gettext.cygport#n220
--
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
La perfection est atteinte Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retrancher but when there is no more to cut
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
