Re: grep-2.6 is imminent: pending patches, bug reports?

[Jim Meyering]

Aníbal Monsalve Salazar wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 04, 2010 at 04:25:57PM +0100, Jim Meyering wrote:
>>Hello,
>>
>>It's been over a year since the release of 2.5.4, so I would like to
>>make a new release shortly.  Paolo Bonzini is about to post a patch or
>>two, and after those are resolved, I will pull the lever for 2.6.
>>
>>If anyone has unresolved problems, please let us know here, as soon as
>>possible.
>
> http://patch-tracker.debian.org/package/grep/2.5.4-4
>
> Did you (or someone else) had a look at the patches Debian has been
> carrying for many years? Please web page above.

Thanks for the pointer!

I hadn't looked.

It'd be great if someone would take the time to prepare those for
upstream use.

What would I like in a patch?

  - git format-patch style diffs relative to the upstream git repository
  - NEWS update, if appropriate
  - added test(s); if it's a bug fix, the test must trigger the flaw;
      if it's a feature addition, exercise it
  - update documentation, if appropriate
  - ChangeLog-style log entry, with justification for the change
      and discussion of anything non-obvious.  Of course, the patch
      author is mentioned in the format-patch output, but be careful
      also to attribute whoever reported the problem and any URLs
      for the bug report.

The more of the above items you provide in a message to
address@hidden, the easier/quicker it will be for me
to evaluate and apply each of your patches.

That usually means writing enough of a description
of the problem (with a test to demonstrate, if at all possible)
that it's clear why/how the change is being made.

I've skimmed through them.

This appears interesting:
  grep (2.5.4-4) 03-dlopen-pcre.patch

This one has no explanation whatsoever:
  grep (2.5.4-4) 55-bigfile.patch

That this bug is still present in upstream is serious:
  
http://patch-tracker.debian.org/patch/series/view/grep/2.5.4-4/66-match_icase.patch

  $ echo Y | LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 ./grep -i '[y]'
  $

At least that one will be resolved right away.


Some of the other patches have actual examples and comments (good!)
but not enough detail for my taste.

Even if you don't manage to prepare all of your patches
and get them integrated in time for 2.6, don't despair.
grep-2.7 will probably appear relatively soon after.