[pkg-go] Bug#830729: Bug#830729: golang-github-mitchellh-go-homedir: FTBFS: homedir_test.go:44: "/home/lamby" != "~"

[Tianon Gravi]

On 17 July 2016 at 08:22, Chris Lamb <lamby at debian.org> wrote:
> So, I can make the tests pass if I *remove* the "HOME=" bit in
> debian/rules. Sorry I can't be more help.

It looks like it passes in the reproducible builds framework, but I
think I might have a hunch for what's failing on your system.

When I build, I build via sbuild, so it builds as my user, but sets
HOME to something non-existent, hence without HOME being reset, the
tests fail in sbuild (which is what the buildds use too).

My _hunch_ is that whatever you're using to build (pbuilder perhaps?)
is running as your user ("lamby") but not including "/etc/passwd" from
your host (which "sbuild" appears to provide -- at least for the user
I currently am), so when the tests try to discover the current user's
home directory, it fails in the strange ways we're seeing.

I'm hoping we can find an easy way to verify my theory so we can
decide whether this might need to instead be an autopkgtest (which I'd
rather avoid, but if it's not reasonable to expect our current "build
user" to have a valid entry in "/etc/passwd" we don't have much
choice).


♥,
- Tianon
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