Bug#1064575: python-pyswarms-doc: please make the build reproducible.

[James Addison]

Package: python-pyswarms-doc
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch upstream
User: reproducible-builds at lists.alioth.debian.org
Usertags: randomness

Dear Maintainer,

I'm an occasional volunteer contributor to the Reproducible Builds[1]
project, and recently noticed that your package failed an automated test for
Debian build reproducibility[2] that also appeared in the results of Debian's
Salsa-CI reprotest[3].

The cause of the problem relates to two images named ani.gif and ani_h.gif
respectively in the options_handler.ipynb documentation tutorial file.

In particular, there is an IPython notebook cell[4] declared as type Markdown
that presents the images, and notably does _not_ include an explicit HTML 'alt'
attribute[5] describing the contents of each image.

Part of the documentation rendering process - I have not determined exactly
what yet - adds an 'alt' attribute when it does not exist, and generates a
randomized hex string to use as the value of the attribute.  This causes the
resulting python-pyswarms-doc package to vary on each build.

Providing a static value for the alt attribute on these two image tags allows
the python-pyswarms-doc package to build reproducibly (bit-for-bit identical).

I've created a branch on Salsa with a proposed change, and will open that as
a merge request against pyswarms.git for your review.

Thank you,
James

[1] - https://reproducible-builds.org

[2] - https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/debian/rb-pkg/unstable/amd64/diffoscope-results/pyswarms.html

[3] - https://salsa.debian.org/science-team/pyswarms/-/jobs/5194535

[4] - https://sources.debian.org/src/pyswarms/1.3.0-6/docs/examples/tutorials/options_handler.ipynb/#L230-L249

[5] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_attribute