Bug#1130178: gfan: please make the build reproducible

[Chris Lamb]

Source: gfan
Version: 0.7-3
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch
User: reproducible-builds at lists.alioth.debian.org
Usertags: nocheck
X-Debbugs-Cc: reproducible-bugs at lists.alioth.debian.org

Hi,

Whilst working on the Reproducible Builds effort [0], we noticed that
gfan could not be built reproducibly.

This is because the testsuite generated a series of "outputNew" files
which were shipped in the binary package. This meant that if the tests
were skipped (eg. via "nocheck") then the package would have different
contents, even if the contents of these outputNew files was
consistent across test runs.

In addition, I spotted that the call to date(1) was missing the -u
(UTC) parameter, so the package could generate a different manpage if
it was built on the first or last day of the month depending on the
build timezone.

Patch for both issues attached.

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


Regards,

-- 
      ,''`.
     : :'  :     Chris Lamb
     `. `'`      lamby at debian.org / chris-lamb.co.uk
       `-
-------------- next part --------------
--- a/debian/rules	2026-03-09 11:28:07.222629895 -0700
--- b/debian/rules	2026-03-09 11:32:59.797025943 -0700
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
 	dh_link $(GFAN_LINKS)
 
 override_dh_install:
-	dh_install -X~
+	dh_install -X~ -X/outputNew
 
 override_dh_installchangelogs:
 	html2text homepage/gfan.html | \
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@
 # for DEB_VERSION_UPSTREAM
 include /usr/share/dpkg/pkg-info.mk
 
-DATE := $(shell LC_ALL=C date +'%B %Y' -d @$(SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH))
+DATE := $(shell LC_ALL=C date -u +'%B %Y' -d @$(SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH))
 
 debian/gfan.1: debian/gfan.1.in
 	sed -e "s/@DATE@/$(DATE)/" \