Reworking .patch and snapshot utils

[thibaultduponchelle]

Description

The purpose of files Porting/make_dot_patch.pl, Porting/make_snapshot.pl and Porting/GitUtils.pm is to generate a .patch file and a snapshot.
It was used at time of APC "All Perl Changes" infra and gitweb (which is now only a mirror of GitHub).
Snapshot and .patch solo consumer is perl5 smokers (Test::Smoke) that I took over.

This pull request intends to modify a little the generation of .patch and snapshot.

Removal of GitUtils.pm

Code moved to Porting/make_dot_patch.pl.

Porting/make_dot_patch.pl

• Now contains GitUtils.pm
• Generate .patch in addition to printing to stdout
• Don't try to match branch or refs from commit, just use current branch
• No longer take commit as an argument (it was optional), just work with current commit
• No code for bare repository. It's actually transparently working with bare repository (if you add Porting/make_dot_patch.pl and Porting/make_snapshot.pl to the bare repository) but I don't see a use case and it's from now on not supported

Porting/make_snapshot.pl

• Reuse Porting/make_dot_patch.pl instead of copying the same (or very similar) code
• Only use git archive with --add-file instead of git archive + tar + gunzip
• Do not put files under a prefix to ease decompressing later on Test::Smoke side
• No longer need to set environment variable PERL_SNAPSHOT_ZIP_ROOT
• Do not put file inside crafted subdirs (e.g. ab/ab77/) but one directory up like some other tools are doing (e.g. makerel)

@demerphq @Tux @jkeenan

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• This set of changes does not require a perldelta entry.

[jkeenan]

Before I comment on this pull request , can you apprise me of the changes in Test-Smoke since Abe's passing? Specifically, where is its repository? Who is its principal maintainer? Where does discussion of its future evolution take place? What are its governance procedures?

I ask because I've had pull requests accepted into Test-Smoke in the past but have others that were unresolved at the time of Abe's death. Also because I was never aware that there were aspects of T::S's functionality that depended upon parts of the core distribution.

[thibaultduponchelle]

Specifically, where is its repository? Who is its principal maintainer? Where does discussion of its future evolution take place? What are its governance procedures?

The new repository is Perl-Toolchain-Gang/Test-Smoke, I'm the principal maintainer (CPAN ID CONTRA). Discussions in GitHub issues or #smoke on IRC. There is a mailing list but it's inactive for >10 years.

Speaking about the change in snapshot generation, Test::Smoke is actually not supporting snapshot sync (code still living in Test::Smoke but not available at config time).
Speaking about .patch generation, we need to maintain some compatibility with Test::Smoke (hence I left the print).
Overall, there are lines of code in both perl5 and Test::Smoke that date from APC/gitweb era, and I'm fixing that.
But I'm probably missing some background, so I'm waiting for some veterans' feedback.

I've had pull requests accepted into Test-Smoke in the past but have others that were unresolved at the time of Abe's death.

I think you have in mind Perl-Toolchain-Gang/Test-Smoke#1?

I recreated issues and pull requests (keeping original commits and committers) to new repository.

I was never aware that there were aspects of T::S's functionality that depended upon parts of the core distribution.

Concerning Porting/make_dot_patch.pl, we need to treat with care because some T::S's syncers depend on it.
Concerning Porting/GitUtils.pm, it is internal, so we can manage as we want.
Concerning Porting/make_snapshot.pl, I don't really see it like a dependency, it's more like an helper for humans now. But yes it is, somehow.

[thibaultduponchelle]

@toddr Are those scripts running one way or another on "dromedary"?

[toddr]

@toddr Are those scripts running one way or another on "dromedary"?

They are not and I really would prefer we find a way to move tools away from depending on https://perl5.git.perl.org/ so we can shut it down.

[demerphq]

On Thu, 6 Feb 2025 at 04:41, Todd Rinaldo ***@***.***> wrote: @toddr <https://github.com/toddr> Are those scripts running one way or another on "dromedary"? They are not and I really would prefer we find a way to move tools off of https://perl5.git.perl.org/

Agreed. I thought we stopped needing them when ActiveState dropped their APC thing. Yves

…

-- perl -Mre=debug -e "/just|another|perl|hacker/"

[thibaultduponchelle]

Great, so we don't have consumers of these scripts, apart Test::Smoke.

I thought we stopped needing them [these scripts] when ActiveState dropped their APC thing.

We need to keep Porting/make_dot_patch.pl for Test::Smoke (e.g. syncer git)
With this PR, I transform Porting/make_snapshot.pl into a simpler and more generic helper for making snapshots for Test::Smoke (syncer snapshot). Also I want to add for clarity that a "snapshot" is not just a tarball (that Test::Smoke can't consume).
In theory, we could remove Porting/make_snapshot.pl if we decide to fully drop snapshot support in Test::Smoke. But even if it's only partially supported currently, I would prefer to fix it instead of dropping support totally. At least for now.

[thibaultduponchelle]

@demerphq @Tux @jkeenan Having now cleared discussions, this change request is ready for content review 😀

[thibaultduponchelle]

Actually, we should go with #22981 along with #22980 😀