[Debian-astro-maintainers] Bug#910950: libfits-java: Missing/broken version info

[Attila Kovacs]

Package: libfits-java
Version: 1.15.2-1
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer (Ole?),

The 'fits.jar' archive that is built for Debian (ver. 1.15.2-1) from source has
a problem locating the version information resource in the JAR, crashing on
Fits.version() calls with an unexpected NullPointerException, and likely
breaking any code that tries to call Fits.version().

It looks like the JAR archive build for Debian has the resource:

  /META-INF/maven/gov.nasa.gsfc.heasarc/nom-tam-fits/pom.properties

missing from the JAR archive.

As such it can break any dependent code that uses the Fits.version() call, and
which otherwise works as expected with the stock (not Debian-built) 'fits.jar'.

Further info:

> lsb_release -rd:

Description:    Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Release:        18.04

> libfits-java version: 1.15.2-1

> Expected behavior:

Fits.version() java calls return the libfits-java underlying library version
String (e.g. "1.15.2"), just like the stock JAR library that is provided by
nom.tam.fits.

> Actual behavior:

Fits.version() calls result in an unexpected NullPointerException. This is both
an unwelcome divergence of behavior the Debian-built JAR from the official
'binary' release, and will break code that tries to use Fits.version() calls.



-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers bionic-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'bionic-updates'), (500, 'bionic-security'), (500, 'bionic'), (100, 'bionic-backports')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.15.0-36-generic (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages libfits-java depends on:
ii  libcommons-compress-java  1.13-2

libfits-java recommends no packages.

Versions of packages libfits-java suggests:
pn  libfits-java-doc  <none>

-- no debconf information