#798913 ar: Please keep the undeterministic behavior the default

Package:
binutils
Source:
binutils
Description:
GNU assembler, linker and binary utilities
Submitter:
Celelibi
Date:
2015-10-11 10:36:06 UTC
Severity:
normal
#798913#5
Date:
2015-09-14 04:39:51 UTC
From:
To:
Dear maintainer,

I noticed that recently, the ar tool has been updated and now has the D
option is enabled by default. This option has the notable effect of
setting the timestamp of the files in the generated archive to 0.

This has a bad interaction with 'make' since it needs to read that
timestamp in order to decide whether to rebuild the files in the archive
or not.

It is not possible to add the U option by default as it seems quite new
and not backward compatible. Should this U option be included in a
Makefile, older versions of ar would reject it and fail. It is thus no
longer possible to write a correct Makefile using archive members.

Getting back to the old behavior that always write the correct timestamp
would solve this problem at no cost.

This bug is related (and probably replaces) bug #798804.


Best regards,
Celelibi

#798913#10
Date:
2015-09-19 00:54:01 UTC
From:
To:
I fully endorse Celelibi's request to bring back the old "non
deterministic" behavior of ar as a default.

A similar conversation is taking place for the Fedora build

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1195883

Cheers, Edo

On Mon, 14 Sep 2015 06:39:51 +0200 Celelibi <celelibi@gmail.com> wrote:
 > Package: binutils
 > Version: 2.25.1-1
 > Severity: normal
 >
 > Dear maintainer,
 >
 > I noticed that recently, the ar tool has been updated and now has the D
 > option is enabled by default. This option has the notable effect of
 > setting the timestamp of the files in the generated archive to 0.
 >
 > This has a bad interaction with 'make' since it needs to read that
 > timestamp in order to decide whether to rebuild the files in the archive
 > or not.
 >
 > It is not possible to add the U option by default as it seems quite new
 > and not backward compatible. Should this U option be included in a
 > Makefile, older versions of ar would reject it and fail. It is thus no
 > longer possible to write a correct Makefile using archive members.
 >
 > Getting back to the old behavior that always write the correct timestamp
 > would solve this problem at no cost.
 >
 > This bug is related (and probably replaces) bug #798804.
 >
 >
 > Best regards,
 > Celelibi
 >
 > -- System Information:
 > Debian Release: stretch/sid
 > APT prefers testing
 > APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1,
'experimental')
 > Architecture: i386 (x86_64)
 >
 > Kernel: Linux 3.10.11 (SMP w/2 CPU cores; PREEMPT)
 > Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
 > Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
 > Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)
 >
 > Versions of packages binutils depends on:
 > ii libc6 2.19-19
 > ii zlib1g 1:1.2.8.dfsg-2+b1
 >
 > binutils recommends no packages.
 >
 > Versions of packages binutils suggests:
 > pn binutils-doc <none>
 >
 > -- no debconf information
 >
 >

#798913#15
Date:
2015-10-10 06:36:37 UTC
From:
To:
Please could you have a look to add the U flag in make by default, without
setting an environment variable?