On 27 December 2014 at 15:29, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote: | | Hi Martin, | | On 27 December 2014 at 22:12, Martin Maechler wrote: | | Dear Dirk, | | | | is this about R itself, or rather (I think) about building "external" | | (e.g. CRAN) R packages? | | Martin | | As I understand (and the full text is still below) Jeremy is concerned about | R packages (ie r-cran-*) created by R showing "who built it when". | | Which would make simple bit by bit comparison / replication impossible.
I got some time to work on this today. Earlier discussion about this is at http://bugs.debian.org/774031 The issue (for Debian) is that bit-by-bit comparison for reproducibility is made impossible by the timestamps added at build-time by R. Jeremy, the bug report submitter, confused Packaged: (created when an R package authors finalizes his tarball before submitting to CRAN) and Built: (added at INSTALL time), but submitted a first simple patch removing these timestamps. I don't like the R in Debian to be different from the general one, so I hoping you can see merit in the two simple patches below. They do the following: - accept a new option to INSTALL in src/library/tools/install.r and passing the value of that option to .install_package_description() in the sibbling file admin.R - also accept a new env var to MAKE at R-base compile time to pass that to the mkdesc target in share/make/basepkg.mk for the base packages. Please let me know if you want me to expand on this, or add more tests. The two patches are attached, and were made against R-devel's SVN revision r67410 from yesterday.
R-set-buildstamp-via-INSTALL.diff
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R-set-buildstamp-via-MAKE_env_var.diff
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Dirk | | Dirk | | | | | On Sat, Dec 27, 2014 at 8:30 PM, Dirk Eddelbuettel <e...@debian.org> wrote: | | > | | > (CCing upstream) | | > | | > Salut Jérémy, | | > | | > On 27 December 2014 at 19:26, Jérémy Bobbio wrote: | | > | Package: r-base-dev | | > | Version: 3.1.2-2 | | > | Severity: wishlist | | > | Tags: patch | | > | User: reproducible-bui...@lists.alioth.debian.org | | > | Usertags: toolchain username timestamps | | > | | | > | Hi! | | > | | | > | While working on the “reproducible builds” effort [1], we have noticed | | > | that R packages could not be built reproducibly. | | > | | | > | The username and build time gets written to the `Packaged` field in | | > | `package.rds`. The build time also gets written to the `Built` field of | | > | the `DESCRIPTION` file. | | > | | > That's standard R behaviour which I'd rather not deviate from (as I don't | | > believe in maintaining local patches for "a long time" -- and I have looked | | > after this for a decade or more). | | > | | > | This data does not look very useful in the context of Debian packages. | | > | The attached patch simply stops writing the `Packaged` field entirely | | > | and remove the build time from the `Built` field. R packages can then be | | > | built reproducibly according to some preliminary tests. | | > | | | > | If this approach is seen as too broad, using the timestamp in the latest | | > | debian/changelog entry through an environment variable would allow to | | > | keep a timestamp. My current R skills are not up to such task, though. | | > | The username should probably be removed or made constant in any cases. | | > | | > I think the idea may have some merit. | | > | | > If someone from R Core has some sympathy for the request, I can probably work | | > up a similarly small patch which suppresses this output if an option or flag | | > has been set. | | > | | > But without cooperation from R Core, I don't think the Debian package should | | > deviate. | | > | | > Cheers, Dirk | | > | | > | | | > | [1]: https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds | | > | | | > | -- | | > | Lunar .''`. | | > | lu...@debian.org : :Ⓐ : # apt-get install anarchism | | > | `. `'` | | > | `- | | > | x[DELETED ATTACHMENT r-base_3.1.2-2_reproducible0.diff, text/x-diff] | | > | x[DELETED ATTACHMENT signature.asc, application/pgp-signature] | | > | | > -- | | > http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | e...@debian.org | | > | | > _______________________________________________ | | > R-core list: https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-core | | -- | http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | e...@debian.org -- http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | e...@debian.org
