[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#1099282: rdp-classifier: FTBFS: src/edu/msu/cme/rdp/classifier/train/validation/distance/BoxPlotUtils.java:28: error: cannot find symbol

[Étienne Mollier]

Control: tags -1 + confirmed help

Greetings,

rdp-classifier dropped off testing this morning, so had a look
at the situation.  The root cause of the error looks to be:

> src/edu/msu/cme/rdp/classifier/train/validation/distance/BoxPlotUtils.java:28: error: cannot find symbol
> import org.jfree.chart.ChartUtilities;
>                       ^

This seems to be related to changes brought to the
libjfreechart-java package, which benefitted from a newer
upstream version.  However, it accumulated lots of API changes
resulting in the present FTBFS.  I'm not a Java person but
thought I would have a look.  Once the initial occurrences of
ChartUtilities are replaced by contemporary ChartUtils, further
issues occur, like:

	src/edu/msu/cme/rdp/classifier/train/validation/distance/TaxaSimilarityMain.java:325: error: cannot find symbol
	        ((XYPlot) chart.getPlot()).getRenderer().setStroke( new BasicStroke( 2.0f ));
	                                                ^
	  symbol:   method setStroke(BasicStroke)
	  location: interface XYItemRenderer
	src/edu/msu/cme/rdp/classifier/train/validation/distance/BoxPlotUtils.java:96: error: cannot find symbol
	        renderer.setBaseLegendTextFont(lableFont);
	                ^
	  symbol:   method setBaseLegendTextFont(Font)
	  location: variable renderer of type BoxAndWhiskerRenderer
	src/edu/msu/cme/rdp/classifier/train/validation/distance/BoxPlotUtils.java:97: error: cannot find symbol
	        renderer.setStroke(new BasicStroke( 5.0f ));
	                ^
	  symbol:   method setStroke(BasicStroke)
	  location: variable renderer of type BoxAndWhiskerRenderer

There are probably other issues.

At this point, porting effort would be probably easier to do
upstream, except I read in one of their tickets[1] that the "rdp
group has retired as of 4/30/2023".  I considered the option of
removing the package, but it seems that a newer version is
available on Sourceforge[2], which has been published on
2023-08-23, and the download'o'meter shows some activity
(hopefully not just robots crawling for data).  Version 2.14
might be worth a try, but if it does not help, then I'm not
confident about the future of the package.  If someone finds the
package useful and is interested to restore it, please don't
hesitate to share patches to bring rdp-classifier on tracks.

[1]: https://github.com/rdpstaff/classifier/issues/29#issuecomment-1559795968
[2]: https://sourceforge.net/projects/rdp-classifier/files/rdp-classifier/

In hope this sheds some light on the package situation,
-- 
  .''`.  Étienne Mollier <emollier at debian.org>
 : :' :  pgp: 8f91 b227 c7d6 f2b1 948c  8236 793c f67e 8f0d 11da
 `. `'   sent from /dev/pts/3, please excuse my verbosity
   `-    on air: Touchstone - Solace
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