[bug#52109] Mention bsdcat, bsdcpio and bsdtar in description of libarchive

Hi Liliana,

On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 at 17:38, Simon Tournier <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks.  I will update libarchive description, if no one beats me.

Please find attach the patch. :-)  If it appears to you fine, could you
merge it?

Cheers,
simon

Am Samstag, dem 21.01.2023 um 17:09 +0100 schrieb zimoun:
> Hi Liliana,
> 
> On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 at 17:38, Simon Tournier
> <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Thanks.  I will update libarchive description, if no one beats me.
> 
> Please find attach the patch. :-)  If it appears to you fine, could
> you merge it?
Hmm, I fear that this line doesn't do much except helping folk to grep
for "bsdtar" et al.  Should we perhaps explain in a sentence or two
what those commands do?

Hello Simon,

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Liliana,
>
> On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 at 17:38, Simon Tournier <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks.  I will update libarchive description, if no one beats me.
>
> Please find attach the patch. :-)  If it appears to you fine, could you
> merge it?
>
> Cheers,
> simon
>
>
> From 6947165af4e53821662049aac847a50fc470c49e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Simon Tournier <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2023 17:04:56 +0100
> Subject: [PATCH] gnu: libarchive: Mention bsdcat, bsdcpio and bsdtar in
>  description.
>
> * gnu/packages/backup.scm (libarchive)[description]: Mention the utilities
> bsdcat, bsdcpio and bsdtar.
> ---
>  gnu/packages/backup.scm | 4 +++-
>  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/gnu/packages/backup.scm b/gnu/packages/backup.scm
> index 8e629c2592..7e8282da20 100644
> --- a/gnu/packages/backup.scm
> +++ b/gnu/packages/backup.scm
> @@ -333,7 +333,9 @@ (define-public libarchive
>  as gzip and bzip2.  The library is inherently stream-oriented; readers
>  serially iterate through the archive, writers serially add things to the
>  archive.  In particular, note that there is currently no built-in support for
> -random access nor for in-place modification.")
> +random access nor for in-place modification.
> +
> +This package also provides the three utilities bsdcat, bsdcpio and bsdtar.")
>      (license license:bsd-2)))
>  

Nitpick, but I'd use "also provides the @command{bsdcat},
@command{bsdcpio} and @command{bsdtar} commands.", for the extra
eye-pleasing effect.

Hi Liliana,

Liliana Marie Prikler <liliana.prikler@gmail.com> writes:

> Am Samstag, dem 21.01.2023 um 17:09 +0100 schrieb zimoun:
>> Hi Liliana,
>> 
>> On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 at 17:38, Simon Tournier
>> <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> > Thanks.  I will update libarchive description, if no one beats me.
>> 
>> Please find attach the patch. :-)  If it appears to you fine, could
>> you merge it?
> Hmm, I fear that this line doesn't do much except helping folk to grep
> for "bsdtar" et al.  Should we perhaps explain in a sentence or two
> what those commands do?

Either way is fine by me; if we want to summarize what these commands do
we could use a '@table @command' construct, I think.

Hi,

On Sat, 21 Jan 2023 at 18:59, Liliana Marie Prikler <liliana.prikler@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Please find attach the patch. :-)  If it appears to you fine, could
>> you merge it?
>
> Hmm, I fear that this line doesn't do much except helping folk to grep
> for "bsdtar" et al.  Should we perhaps explain in a sentence or two
> what those commands do?

It is not ’grep’ but “guix search” so it is only an internal SEO. ;-)

From my point of view, some explanations about what these commands do
are done by the man pages.

Well, this trivial patch is just a quick workaround at 2 levels.  One,
because Guix File Search [1] is almost done but not very popular yet.

Two, because this libarchive should be split into 2 different packages
or outputs: one for the library itself and another for the commands.

1: <https://yhetil.org/guix/87pmd1r8kt.fsf@gmail.com>


However, if a table containing what these utilities do seems
appropriated, here the description from the Debian package
’libarchive-tools’:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
The bsdtar program is the default system 'tar' program used on
FreeBSD. bsdtar uses the libarchive library as a backend which does all
of the work for reading and writing archives in various formats.

The bsdcpio program is the default system 'cpio' program used on
FreeBSD. bsdcpio uses the libarchive library as a backend which does all
of the work for reading and writing archives in various formats

The bsdcat program reads archived data from files or from its standard
input and uses the libarchive library to decompresses it to its standard
output. It may be used for viewing the contents of archives or for
passing it to other tools for further processing.
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Cheers,
simon

Am Sonntag, dem 22.01.2023 um 16:09 +0100 schrieb zimoun:
> Hi,
> 
> On Sat, 21 Jan 2023 at 18:59, Liliana Marie Prikler
> <liliana.prikler@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > > Please find attach the patch. :-)  If it appears to you fine,
> > > could you merge it?
> > 
> > Hmm, I fear that this line doesn't do much except helping folk to
> > grep for "bsdtar" et al.  Should we perhaps explain in a sentence
> > or two what those commands do?
> 
> It is not ’grep’ but “guix search” so it is only an internal SEO. ;-)
> 
> From my point of view, some explanations about what these commands do
> are done by the man pages.
> 
> Well, this trivial patch is just a quick workaround at 2 levels. 
> One, because Guix File Search [1] is almost done but not very popular
> yet.
Fair enough.

> Two, because this libarchive should be split into 2 different
> packages or outputs: one for the library itself and another for the
> commands.
> 
> 1: <https://yhetil.org/guix/87pmd1r8kt.fsf@gmail.com>
Splitting libarchive outputs is sadly a core-updates change, but we
could hide the existing one and add a user-facing one with the split if
that's what you desire.  I don't think adding a package for just the
tools has merits.

> However, if a table containing what these utilities do seems
> appropriated, here the description from the Debian package
> ’libarchive-tools’:
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> The bsdtar program is the default system 'tar' program used on
> FreeBSD. bsdtar uses the libarchive library as a backend which does
> all of the work for reading and writing archives in various formats.
> 
> The bsdcpio program is the default system 'cpio' program used on
> FreeBSD. bsdcpio uses the libarchive library as a backend which does
> all of the work for reading and writing archives in various formats
> 
> The bsdcat program reads archived data from files or from its
> standard input and uses the libarchive library to decompresses it to
> its standard output. It may be used for viewing the contents of
> archives or for passing it to other tools for further processing.
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
I think these could be shortened as follows:

This package/the 'bin' output also provides
@itemize
@item @command{bsdtar} and @command{bsdcpio} to pack/unpack archives
like @command{tar} and @command{cpio} respectively, and
@item @command{bsdcat} to concatenate files like @command{cat} does,
while transparently unpacking archives.
@end itemize

WDYT?

Hi Liliana,

Liliana Marie Prikler <liliana.prikler@gmail.com> writes:

> Am Sonntag, dem 22.01.2023 um 16:09 +0100 schrieb zimoun:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> On Sat, 21 Jan 2023 at 18:59, Liliana Marie Prikler
>> <liliana.prikler@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> > > Please find attach the patch. :-)  If it appears to you fine,
>> > > could you merge it?
>> > 
>> > Hmm, I fear that this line doesn't do much except helping folk to
>> > grep for "bsdtar" et al.  Should we perhaps explain in a sentence
>> > or two what those commands do?
>> 
>> It is not ’grep’ but “guix search” so it is only an internal SEO. ;-)
>> 
>> From my point of view, some explanations about what these commands do
>> are done by the man pages.
>> 
>> Well, this trivial patch is just a quick workaround at 2 levels. 
>> One, because Guix File Search [1] is almost done but not very popular
>> yet.
> Fair enough.
>
>> Two, because this libarchive should be split into 2 different
>> packages or outputs: one for the library itself and another for the
>> commands.
>> 
>> 1: <https://yhetil.org/guix/87pmd1r8kt.fsf@gmail.com>
> Splitting libarchive outputs is sadly a core-updates change, but we
> could hide the existing one and add a user-facing one with the split if
> that's what you desire.  I don't think adding a package for just the
> tools has merits.
>
>> However, if a table containing what these utilities do seems
>> appropriated, here the description from the Debian package
>> ’libarchive-tools’:
>> 
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> The bsdtar program is the default system 'tar' program used on
>> FreeBSD. bsdtar uses the libarchive library as a backend which does
>> all of the work for reading and writing archives in various formats.
>> 
>> The bsdcpio program is the default system 'cpio' program used on
>> FreeBSD. bsdcpio uses the libarchive library as a backend which does
>> all of the work for reading and writing archives in various formats
>> 
>> The bsdcat program reads archived data from files or from its
>> standard input and uses the libarchive library to decompresses it to
>> its standard output. It may be used for viewing the contents of
>> archives or for passing it to other tools for further processing.
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> I think these could be shortened as follows:
>
> This package/the 'bin' output also provides
> @itemize
> @item @command{bsdtar} and @command{bsdcpio} to pack/unpack archives
> like @command{tar} and @command{cpio} respectively, and
> @item @command{bsdcat} to concatenate files like @command{cat} does,
> while transparently unpacking archives.
> @end itemize

Like Simon, I think just mentioning the commands solve the lack of
discovery problem that they reported about these commands; the details
themselves can be further looked up by users via the manpages or --help
output, since the above description wouldn't provide much more than what
can be guessed already.  I pushed Simon's suggested change.

Hi Liliana,

On Sun, 22 Jan 2023 at 18:44, Liliana Marie Prikler <liliana.prikler@gmail.com> wrote:

> Splitting libarchive outputs is sadly a core-updates change, but we
> could hide the existing one and add a user-facing one with the split if
> that's what you desire.  I don't think adding a package for just the
> tools has merits.

Well, I think the addition of a ’bin’ outputs would be the most
suitable, even if it is a core-updates change.

> This package/the 'bin' output also provides
> @itemize
> @item @command{bsdtar} and @command{bsdcpio} to pack/unpack archives
> like @command{tar} and @command{cpio} respectively, and
> @item @command{bsdcat} to concatenate files like @command{cat} does,
> while transparently unpacking archives.
> @end itemize

This table looks good to me.  Although Maxim pushed the v2 (which I find
already enough :-)), it could be included for the package containing a
’bin’ outputs directed to core-updates.  WDYT?

Cheers,
simon

Am Montag, dem 23.01.2023 um 08:45 +0100 schrieb zimoun:
> Hi Liliana,
> 
> On Sun, 22 Jan 2023 at 18:44, Liliana Marie Prikler
> <liliana.prikler@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Splitting libarchive outputs is sadly a core-updates change, but we
> > could hide the existing one and add a user-facing one with the
> > split if that's what you desire.  I don't think adding a package
> > for just the tools has merits.
> 
> Well, I think the addition of a ’bin’ outputs would be the most
> suitable, even if it is a core-updates change.
> 
> > This package/the 'bin' output also provides
> > @itemize
> > @item @command{bsdtar} and @command{bsdcpio} to pack/unpack
> > archives
> > like @command{tar} and @command{cpio} respectively, and
> > @item @command{bsdcat} to concatenate files like @command{cat}
> > does,
> > while transparently unpacking archives.
> > @end itemize
> 
> This table looks good to me.  Although Maxim pushed the v2 (which I
> find already enough :-)), it could be included for the package
> containing a ’bin’ outputs directed to core-updates.  WDYT?
I have no strong preference for either solution (with the other
solution being keeping the package as pushed by Maxim).  If you think
we should do a bin output with that description, go for it.

Cheers