[Orgmode] ELPA + gnuwin32 tar (Issues, Help with packaging)

[Jambunathan K]

>> Thanks for trying out ELPA.

>> May I ask you what version of Emacs you use and what OS you run on?
> Sorry I shuld have mentioned that. It's GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1
> (i386-mingw-nt6.1.7600) of 2010-10-18 on windows 7 Home Premium
>>
>> There is a comment in the package manager that there is a dependency on
>> GNU tar. May be the tar binary that you are running is not "GNU tar
>> compatible"
> I use the one from gnuwin32. It says tar (GNU tar) 1.22.

On my own machine I have issues while using gnuwin32 tar for
extraction. I encounter *no* errors while using Cygwin tar (See the
enclosed logs down below)

While running the following command:
- tar -xOf org-20101101.tar org-20101101/org-pkg.el

the error reporter in my setup is:
,---- [error with gnuwin32 tar on my machine]
| "tar: Header contains "\200\000\000\000\000'\347\033" where octal uid_t
| value expected"
`----

while the error encountered in your setup is:
,---- [error with gnuwin32 as reported by you]
| "tar: Archive value 297315 is out of gid_t range 0..65535"
`----

The thing that seems common in both these errors is that it relates to
the username and groupnames (uid_t and gid_t). This has something to do
with how tar archives are created on build machine.

I don't have much experience with packaging. I am dumping my analysis
hoping that someone would offer a quick fix for the problem.

For the sake of reference, here is how the elpa archives are built.

,----
| pkg:
|         [...]
|       rm -rf org-$(PKG_TAG) org-$(PKG_TAG).tar
|       $(MKDIR) org-$(PKG_TAG)
|       cp -r $(PKG_FILES) org-$(PKG_TAG)
|       echo "(define-package \"org\" \"$(PKG_TAG)\" \"$(PKG_DOC)\" 
$(PKG_REQ))" > org-$(PKG_TAG)/org-pkg.el
|       tar cf org-$(PKG_TAG).tar org-$(PKG_TAG) --remove-files
`----


,---- [Using GnuWin32 tar is problematic]
| C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin>tar --version
| tar (GNU tar) 1.13
| 
| Copyright (C) 1988, 92,93,94,95,96,97,98, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
| This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
| warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
| 
| Written by John Gilmore and Jay Fenlason.
| 
| C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin>tar -xOf org-20101101.tar
| org-20101101/org-pkg.el 
| 
| tar: Header contains "\200\000\000\000\000'\347\033" where octal uid_t
| value expected (define-package "org" "20101101" "Outline-based notes
| management and organizer" nil) tar: Error exit delayed from previous
| errors
`----

,---- [Using Cygwin tar is smooth]
| 
| bash-3.2$ tar --version
| tar (GNU tar) 1.23
| Packaged by Cygwin (1.23-1)
| Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
| License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
| This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
| There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
| 
| Written by John Gilmore and Jay Fenlason.
| 
| bash-3.2$ tar -xOf org-20101101.tar org-20101101/org-pkg.el
| 
| (define-package "org" "20101101" "Outline-based notes management and
| organizer" nil)
| 
`----


> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Can't read whole string")
>   signal(error ("Can't read whole string"))
>   error("Can't read whole string")
>   package-read-from-string("tar: Archive value 297315 is out of gid_t range 
> 0..65535\n(define-package \"org\" \"20101101\" \"Outline-based notes 
> management and organizer\" nil)\ntar: Exiting with failure status due to 
> previous errors\n")
>   (progn (setq default-directory "~/tmp/") (package-read-from-string 
> (shell-command-to-string (concat "tar -xOf org-20101101.tar 
> org-20101101/org-pkg.el"))))
>   eval((progn (setq default-directory "~/tmp/") (package-read-from-string 
> (shell-command-to-string (concat "tar -xOf org-20101101.tar 
> org-20101101/org-pkg.el")))))
>   eval-last-sexp-1(nil)
>   eval-last-sexp(nil)

Jambunthan K.