Bug 872335

Summary:	GLEP 74: Manifest format for DIST entries is not compatible with historical digests
Product:	Documentation	Reporter:	Ulrich Müller <ulm>
Component:	GLEP Changes	Assignee:	GLEP Editors <glep>
Status:	RESOLVED WORKSFORME
Severity:	normal	CC:	history, mgorny
Priority:	Normal
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
See Also:	https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=872332
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description Ulrich Müller gentoo-dev

2022-09-22 09:31:23 UTC

The earliest digest format specified a checksum but not a size. See for example here:
https://gitweb.gentoo.org/archive/repo/gentoo-2.git/tree/sys-apps/portage/files/digest-portage-1.6.2?id=0179f505e19b8ccff82d36f240da78f63c0089b7

The current format as specified in GLEP 74 does not define any way how such entries could be converted to a modern Manifest. I suggest allowing a special tag (like "unknown") for the <size> entry.

Comment 1 Michał Górny archtester

2022-09-22 18:32:22 UTC

While I sympathize with the effort, I'm not convinced that the format should specifically account for something that hasn't been permitted by the original Manifest format (in use since 2003), that's incompatible with all the existing implementations and that is unlikely to be ever exercised in a conforming implementation.

Comment 2 Ulrich Müller gentoo-dev

2022-09-22 21:10:54 UTC

Feel free to close then.

Comment 3 Michał Górny archtester

2022-09-23 06:53:37 UTC

Do you have a specific use case for fetching and verifying these files, or are you just looking for cold storage?  If the latter, then probably "extending" the spec locally would be a reasonable approach.

BTW how are you handling the cases when digest for the same distfile changed over time?