#1005043 lintian: check that Python version numbers are not 0.0.0

Package:
lintian
Source:
lintian
Submitter:
Julian Gilbey
Date:
2022-02-07 06:30:03 UTC
Severity:
wishlist
#1005043#5
Date:
2022-02-05 20:56:44 UTC
From:
To:
I just ran into several Python packages that install modules with
version number 0.0.0 because of some issue with their setup.py
scripts.  I just did the following on my testing system:

lz4cat /var/lib/apt/lists/deb.debian.org_debian_dists_testing_main_Contents-all.lz4 | grep 'usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/.*-0\.0\.0\..*-info/PKG-INFO' | wc -l
24

lz4cat /var/lib/apt/lists/deb.debian.org_debian_dists_testing_main_Contents-all.lz4 | grep 'usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/.*-0\.0\.0\..*-info ' | wc -l
6

So there are at least about 30 packages with this problem.

The test for this bug (and it should probably be recorded as an error,
not just a warning, as no Python package should have a version number
of 0.0.0) is simple: if the binary package contains has a file or
directory with the name as in the above regex, then the package has
this error.

Best wishes,

   Julian
#1005043#10
Date:
2022-02-05 21:42:57 UTC
From:
To:
what exactly is the problem that would make it an 'error'?
#1005043#15
Date:
2022-02-06 12:19:54 UTC
From:
To:
When a package uses pkg_resources to determine the version number of
some package, it is returned the wrong information.  This is certainly
a packaging error: the upstream package, as installed by pip,
announces "this is version 1.2.3" but the Debian package announces
"this is version 0.0.0".

In the couple of cases I've looked at so far, it is due to the
upstream version using use_scm_version in setup.py.  This works fine
for a version that is in a Git repository, but it doesn't work for
Debian packages, as the Git version lookup fails.  So this needs to be
patched.

Perhaps a better way would be for dh_python3 to handle this by
"teaching" use_scm_version to look at debian/changelog, as this would
save 30+ packages having to continually update a setup.py patch.

What do you think?

Best wishes,

   Julian
#1005043#20
Date:
2022-02-06 16:46:53 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Julian (2022.02.06_12:19:54_+0000)

Or export SETUPTOOLS_SCM_PRETEND_VERSION.
https://github.com/pypa/setuptools_scm#environment-variables

pybuild does this for you.

SR
#1005043#25
Date:
2022-02-06 20:37:29 UTC
From:
To:
i dont remember the exact details, but sometimes that doesnt work:
even just building the source package (which runs dh clean, which
invokes setup.py clean) the build fails because "something something
SCM something".

It could be the specific package is doing things in a funky way but
that's my experience at least
#1005043#30
Date:
2022-02-07 06:26:38 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Stefano,

I'm a little confused by this.  Have a look at
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1005039 against
python3-iniconfig.  It has a very straightforward debian/rules, using
pybuild, and its setup.py script has "use_scm_version=True", but it
still produces a python package with version number 0.0.0.

I have tried this in an environment where I have
python3-setuptools-scm installed, by the way (even though the package
does not Build-Depends on it).  I'm using dh-python version 5.20220119

Best wishes,

   Julian