Hi!

I recently discovered a (minor) annoyance in regard to the naming of the 
source file for UNIX. I'm running Gentoo Linux, which downloads the 
source files from the mirrors provided by Gentoo, and when they can't be 
found there, it fetches the files from the original site, in this case 
www.povray.org. When it has the source files it does an md5 digest to 
verify the size and integrity of the file. However, it happily downloads 
the file, since it is always called 'povuni_s.tgz' but the digest fails 
when there is a new version of the source files up.
  So what I am wondering is if it would be possible to release the 
source code with the version number included in the name a la GNU and 
many other packages. Something like 'povray-3.50c.tar.gz' would be 
sufficient for the build procedure to aqcuire the right files, and leave 
the old versions up for a while.

Thanks for a super great software package!

Best regards,

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>  So what I am wondering is if it would be possible to release the source 
> code with the version number included in the name a la GNU and many 
> other packages. Something like 'povray-3.50c.tar.gz' would be sufficient

	It's been a bit discussed recently under p.programming in the thread

[patch] Suggesting trivial patch (again)

	by Wolfgang Wieser.

	I kinda suspect that this useful filenaming convention won't be used
before a while for *nix releases...Or maybe it's just that I'm in a bad mood
today  ;-)

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Nicolas Calimet wrote:
>>  So what I am wondering is if it would be possible to release the 
>> source code with the version number included in the name a la GNU and 
>> many other packages. Something like 'povray-3.50c.tar.gz' would be 
>> sufficient
> 
> 
>     It's been a bit discussed recently under p.programming in the thread
> 
> [patch] Suggesting trivial patch (again)
> 
>     by Wolfgang Wieser.
> 
>     I kinda suspect that this useful filenaming convention won't be used
> before a while for *nix releases...Or maybe it's just that I'm in a bad 
> mood
> today  ;-)
> 

Ah, I see. I read the thread you mentioned, and it seemed to veer off 
the whole subject after a while and then got dropped.
   I hope Thorsten Froehlich or anyone else in the POV team reads this 
thread also, I don't like crossposting ;-)
   All the while I've been using POV-Ray for many years now, both on 
Windows and GNU/Linux, there's always been the annoyance with the naming 
of the source file(s). Now, while people download the files manually, 
this is not a big or serious problem, since it's easy to rename them.
   But when you depend on md5sums and other means of verification of 
downloaded files it just breaks things whenever _anything_, even a 
single byte, with the source files change. When scripts are getting 
source files in a number of slightly different sizes and versions, but 
all with the same name they simply fail, with ensuing confusion for the 
users.
   It would be a BIG help to the people out there providing POV-Ray to 
users (Gentoo Linux being just one example) if the names of the source 
tarballs uniquely identified a particular instance or release of the 
source code, even if it's just a minor bugfix, at least for the UNIX 
releases.
   It would still be possible, maybe even desirable, to provide the 
povuni_s.tgz file for DOS users, a symlink or a plain copy could provide 
that name for the latest release to them, if there's still anyone out 
there seriously running POV-Ray on DOS.

Thanks

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<fei### [at] feinorghhomelinuxorg>  wrote:

> But when you depend on md5sums and other means of verification of
> downloaded files it just breaks things whenever _anything_, even a
> single byte, with the source files change.

Well, that is to be expected if the archive changes, isn't it?  So you get
the new archive and use it.  If somebody else creates an md5 of some old
archive, well, that is _their_ problem, so complaining to them is the
appropriate thing to do.  If they want to make POV-Ray available this way
they can just mirror the archive they used; which is nicer anyway as it
reduces povray.org server traffic.

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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I do see your point, and bug reports have been filed to the right 
instance in this case (Gentoo bugzilla).
   www.povray.org is used as a 'last resort' for the scripts that 
fetches the files. But - the mirrors are always supposed to be current 
and they do carry the 'right' release for which the scripts are built. 
Problems arise when the downloading fails from the mirrors and 
www.povray.org gets used instead. (See 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18206 ). Since the name of the 
source file is still the same, it gets downloaded but fails the 
verification check.
   It just seems that it would be a fairly easy thing provide an aliased 
name of the tarball, which would make it more convenient to track 
updates and keep both people and automated scripts happy.
   I'll suggest to the Gentoo people that they change the name of the 
source file to an unambiguos 'povray-3.50c.tar.gz', but I think it would 
be a nice service from the POV team to do this as well. :-)



Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

> <fei### [at] feinorghhomelinuxorg>  wrote:
> 
> 
>>But when you depend on md5sums and other means of verification of
>>downloaded files it just breaks things whenever _anything_, even a
>>single byte, with the source files change.
> 
> 
> Well, that is to be expected if the archive changes, isn't it?  So you get
> the new archive and use it.  If somebody else creates an md5 of some old
> archive, well, that is _their_ problem, so complaining to them is the
> appropriate thing to do.  If they want to make POV-Ray available this way
> they can just mirror the archive they used; which is nicer anyway as it
> reduces povray.org server traffic.
> 
>     Thorsten
> 
> ____________________________________________________
> Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
> e-mail: tho### [at] trfde
> 
> Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

Post a reply to this message

<pae### [at] kmstudiosystemscom>  wrote:

>    I'll suggest to the Gentoo people that they change the name of the
> source file to an unambiguos 'povray-3.50c.tar.gz', but I think it would
> be a nice service from the POV team to do this as well. :-)

To the contrary, because you would then download an outdated version and
never know that a more recent version is available.

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

Post a reply to this message

Well, it's just as difficult to know that now. The only indication you 
get in this particular instance is when installation breaks, because of 
the reasons outlined above. The POV-Ray 'bug' was discovered two days 
ago, when people realized that povray-3.50c was out, but only because of 
the installation script failing, but if I am not mistaken it has been 
out for a couple of months now?
   IMHO, it's better to have a slightly outdated version in a particular 
distribution that _always_ works, then the maintainers of the 
distribution specific package can monitor minor releases and bugfixes on 
the POV site and releasing a new package with the new version to the 
users when they are ready.
   I suppose major releases will have more prominent announcements, 
which are easier to track, and does not confuse anyone.
   But even for minor bugfixes, an announcement on the www.povray.org 
website when a new source release is available would suffice, or a 
message on povray.announce
   People (like me) watches POV-Ray pretty closely, and even if there 
are no announcements updates would be discovered anyway.

   Now I understand that you all do this on your free time, and it is 
greatly appreciated, but would the POV team please at least take the 
aforementioned suggestion under consideration? It would be a big help to 
both users and maintainers of distribution packages of POV-Ray for 
different platforms?

   And with symlinks, it would be possible to have the best of both worlds!

   I won't bug you anymore, but... can we have it, please? :-)

Humbly,



Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

> <pae### [at] kmstudiosystemscom>  wrote:
> 
> 
>>   I'll suggest to the Gentoo people that they change the name of the
>>source file to an unambiguos 'povray-3.50c.tar.gz', but I think it would
>>be a nice service from the POV team to do this as well. :-)
> 
> 
> To the contrary, because you would then download an outdated version and
> never know that a more recent version is available.
> 
>     Thorsten
> 
> ____________________________________________________
> Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
> e-mail: tho### [at] trfde
> 
> Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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