[Pkg-crosswire-devel] ICU and stability issues

[Matthew Talbert]

> Matthew Talbert wrote:
>
>> However, GnomeSword and BibleTime both provide their own string casing
>> function for this purpose, both using standard unicode definitions to
>> provide casing. So, as I've said, even if SWORD is built with ICU, it
>> will provide no benefit to the end user, and may lead to stability
>> issues.
>
> I think it would be a real help in making this choice appropriately if we could get someone (you?) to create a replicable test case, where a libsword 1.5.11-based setup compiled with ICU reliably causes stability issues, but one without ICU does not.  Ideally the app used in the test would be a non-interactive command line tool, so we're not dependent on big GUI apps and users clicking on a bunch of things in order to test.
>
> Likewise, I'd be happy to see someone (else) create a test case where a search fails when using the 1.5.11 library with ICU disabled, but works with it enabled.  Maybe this is as simple as
>
>  sudo installmgr -ri X Y
>  diatheke <some options here>
>
> (But right now, I don't have a known set of X, Y and <some options here> that I know will act as such a test case!).
>
> Once we have repeatable test cases, we can then either fix the stability issue with a patch at build time, or we can make an informed decision decide to build without ICU.  If there is an existing (replicable) bug report that has good info on this, do please point me at it.
>
> If libsword packagers are going to get squeezed between frontend developers who say ICU causes stability issues and should be disabled, and others in the sword-devel community who say it is really does cause loss of functionality to disable it, so it should be enabled... then I'd like to see some clear test evidence, from both sets of people, to help  us packagers make a sane choice!  Is that realistic?
>

I have asked for those saying GnomeSword will not search correctly
without ICU to submit just such a test case, but have not seen any.

There is a thread here,
http://www.crosswire.org/pipermail/sword-devel/2009-January/030641.html,
that while not an official bug report, does indicate the problems, and
upstream's action of immediately disabling many of the filters
constitutes to me an admission that they do cause problems.

Matthew