Bug#996948: sphinx: please make the output of instance aliases reproducible

[Chris Lamb]

Source: sphinx
Version: 4.2.0-4
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch
User: reproducible-builds at lists.alioth.debian.org
Usertags: randomness toolchain
X-Debbugs-Cc: reproducible-bugs at lists.alioth.debian.org

Hi,

Whilst working on the Reproducible Builds effort [0] we noticed that
sphinx generates output that is not reproducible, causing a number of
packages in Debian to be reproducible.

Specifically, when Sphinx locates an alias of an instance when
generating 'autodoc' documentation it uses the raw Python repr(...) of
the object and does not sanitise it for memory addresses (etc.) like
elsewhere in Sphinx.

This can result in documentation like this:

  -<dd><p>alias of <webob.client.SendRequest object at 0x7fd769189df0></p>
  +<dd><p>alias of <webob.client.SendRequest object at 0x7f0f02233df0></p>

Patch attached that uses the object_description method, which was
added to fix precisely this category of issue.


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


Regards,

-- 
      ,''`.
     : :'  :     Chris Lamb
     `. `'`      lamby at debian.org / chris-lamb.co.uk
       `-
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