Re: git-version-gen not working with Savannah/cgit snapshots

[Bruno Haible]

Hi Branden,

> -elif test "x$fallback" = x || git --version >/dev/null 2>&1; then
> +elif test "x$fallback" = x && ! git --version >/dev/null 2>&1; then
>      v=UNKNOWN
>  else
>      v=$fallback

I don't think that's a bug. The --fallback option is documented like this:

   --fallback VERSION
                      fallback version to use if \"git --version\" fails

And that's what the code does: If the --fallback option was given AND
'git --version' fails, then the line
    v=$fallback
is executed. Otherwise the line
    v=UNKNOWN
is executed. Your proposed patch would have the effect that v gets set to
empty in some case.

> Here is the output of "git submodule" for this groff release.
> 
>  c8b8f3bbcde37a53cd226f4c9cebd0dde6aca37f gnulib (v0.1-5208-gc8b8f3bbcd)
> 
> We therefore do the following.
> 
>   $ hash=c8b8f3bbcde37a53cd226f4c9cebd0dde6aca37f
>   $ wget -O gnulib.tar.gz https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnulib.git/\
> snapshot/gnulib-$hash.tar.gz
>   $ tar xf gnulib.tar.gz
> 
> ...
>
>   $ ./bootstrap --gnulib-srcdir=gnulib-$hash

What you are doing, seems contorted to me:
  - You have submodule information in the parent git repository (groff).
  - Then you download gnulib, explicitly throwing away its git versioning.
  - Then you run bootstrap without '--no-git' option, thereby telling it
    to use to the indicated git commits.

IMO you should either
  - let 'bootstrap' use the indicated git commits; then of course it needs
    the .git directory of the gnulib checkout (and that implies 'git clone'
    or 'git submodule' instead of 'wget'), or
  - let 'bootstrap' abstain from any git operation; that implies passing
    not only --gnulib-srcdir but also --no-git.

By the way, if submodules are not what you want, i.e. if you always want
to use the newest gnulib, I suggest to use the gnulib/top/gitsub.sh script.

Bruno