[Request for help] Making brian reproducible

[Vagrant Cascadian]

On 2021-06-08, Nilesh Patra wrote:
> On 6/8/21 3:40 AM, Vagrant Cascadian wrote:
>> On 2021-06-08, Nilesh Patra wrote:
>>> I was trying to make "brian" package reproducible. To my understanding it has two problems:

>>> * Only _some_ files in the documentation it vendors has stuff (like tags, examples, links) in random order across different builds.
...
> As far as I tweaked around, it looks like either an issue with how the docs are generated via code, more specifically via brian2/sphinxext/generate_examples.py script
> or it is a central problem with sphinx docs itself.
> Admittely, I did not find anything unusual with the code anywhere, but for sure, I _might've_ overlooked something important there.

I'll try to take a look at that specifically, then.


> Yeah, I've always run it with this option applied. The exact command I'm using is:
>
> $ sudo reprotest --vary=-build_path,domain_host.use_sudo=1 --auto-build ../brian_2.4.2-6.dsc -- schroot unstable-amd64-sbuild
>
> But this doesn't give any sensible hints (atleast to me, it doesn't look very useful) - its almost the same as in salsa CI reprotest logs.

Yeah, sounds like this is a totally nondeterministic issue, then.


> If you have some free cycles, would you mind taking in a look?

Will try, though my guess is the problem is somewhere in sphinx...


> And if we find out that this is due to some problem with sphinx
> itself, do you think it is worthwhile to file a bug report with the
> SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH thingy fixed? That'd be a partial patch though.

I prefer submitting individual targeted patches even if they don't fix
all reproducibility issues; it results in a smaller reproducibility
diff, which is less noise (and possibly diffoscope runtime) for someone
to fix the remaining issues!

I also prefer one bug/patch per issue, it is clear what is fixed, and if
some other reproducibility issue shows itself, it can be fixed
separately without ending up with reproducible.patch,
reproducible2.patch ... reproducibleN.patch.


live well,
  vagrant
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