Bug 172882

Summary:	bsdiff(1)/bspatch(1) need version information for synchronization with other forks
Product:	Base System	Reporter:	techtonik
Component:	bin	Assignee:	freebsd-bugs (Nobody) <bugs>
Status:	Open ---
Severity:	Affects Only Me
Priority:	Normal
Version:	1.0-CURRENT
Hardware:	Any
OS:	Any

Description techtonik 2012-10-19 17:00:00 UTC

bsdiff in FreeBSD source is copied from canonical version of bsdiff 4.3 by Colin Percival available from http://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/

There are also many forks with code improvements and potential bug fixes, but before starting any synchronization work there should be way to reference various versions of bsdiff.

I propose to add version strings to bsdiff/bspatch and print them along with usage hints. FreeBSD source tree looks like an official place for the source code now, so 4.4 sounds like a good start.

Sorry for not being able to contribute a patch. I am not a FreeBSD developer and won't be able to test the patch properly. Neither do I know the standards for embedding the version inside C code. I also find it slightly inconvenient to have 3 directories and 3 Makefiles to build tools that always come together.

http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/usr.bin/bsdiff/

Comment 1 Mark Linimon freebsd_committer

2012-10-20 16:36:18 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-bugs->cperciva

over to author.

Comment 2 Colin Percival freebsd_committer

2012-10-22 07:48:11 UTC

Why do the various versions of bsdiff/bspatch need to be synchronized?  I'm
happy to let different people hack it up in a variety of ways for their own
purposes...

-- 
Colin Percival
Security Officer Emeritus, FreeBSD | The power to serve
Founder, Tarsnap | www.tarsnap.com | Online backups for the truly paranoid

Comment 3 techtonik 2012-10-22 09:05:46 UTC

The main reason is to pull back fix for bsdiff crash when somebody
get's to it. The second is too add clarity to the code to make it
easier to hack and cross-platform by default. When forks diverge too
much it is hard to bring modifications back. I'd be happy to pull
worthy changes to my Windows version from these forks, but not being a
C coder I can't do this safe, and I am not sure that the fork is
tested.

https://github.com/mendsley/bsdiff
https://github.com/thoughtpolice/minibsdiff

Version info is needed for troubleshooting what modification of
bsdiff/bspatch users have. Currently `bspatch --version` doesn't show
anything and neither fork added this even after they've made patch
format incompatible.

On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Colin Percival <cperciva@freebsd.org> wrote:
> Why do the various versions of bsdiff/bspatch need to be synchronized?  I'm
> happy to let different people hack it up in a variety of ways for their own
> purposes...
>
> --
> Colin Percival
> Security Officer Emeritus, FreeBSD | The power to serve
> Founder, Tarsnap | www.tarsnap.com | Online backups for the truly paranoid

Comment 4 techtonik 2012-10-22 09:40:09 UTC

Here is another link. This time Google + Mozilla.
http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome/installer/mac/third_party/bsdiff/README.chromium

On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Colin Percival <cperciva@freebsd.org> wrote:
> Why do the various versions of bsdiff/bspatch need to be synchronized?  I'm
> happy to let different people hack it up in a variety of ways for their own
> purposes...
>
> --
> Colin Percival
> Security Officer Emeritus, FreeBSD | The power to serve
> Founder, Tarsnap | www.tarsnap.com | Online backups for the truly paranoid

Comment 5 Colin Percival freebsd_committer

2012-10-22 18:42:15 UTC

Hi Anatoly,

Yes, I'm aware of bsdiff being used widely with a variety of changes.  So what?

On 10/22/12 01:40, anatoly techtonik wrote:
> Here is another link. This time Google + Mozilla.
> http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome/installer/mac/third_party/bsdiff/README.chromium
> 
> On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Colin Percival <cperciva@freebsd.org> wrote:
>> Why do the various versions of bsdiff/bspatch need to be synchronized?  I'm
>> happy to let different people hack it up in a variety of ways for their own
>> purposes...
>>
>> --
>> Colin Percival
>> Security Officer Emeritus, FreeBSD | The power to serve
>> Founder, Tarsnap | www.tarsnap.com | Online backups for the truly paranoid
> 
> 


-- 
Colin Percival
Security Officer Emeritus, FreeBSD | The power to serve
Founder, Tarsnap | www.tarsnap.com | Online backups for the truly paranoid

Comment 6 techtonik 2012-10-22 19:09:34 UTC

Hi Colin,

I got my old patched bsdiff.c file and I don't remember where did I
get the original from and now I have to check it with many sources.
That's very daunting. If it had a version field then at least I could
use it as a starting point and detect what was modified faster.
--
anatoly t.


On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 8:42 PM, Colin Percival <cperciva@freebsd.org> wrote:
> Hi Anatoly,
>
> Yes, I'm aware of bsdiff being used widely with a variety of changes.  So what?
>
> On 10/22/12 01:40, anatoly techtonik wrote:
>> Here is another link. This time Google + Mozilla.
>> http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome/installer/mac/third_party/bsdiff/README.chromium
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Colin Percival <cperciva@freebsd.org> wrote:
>>> Why do the various versions of bsdiff/bspatch need to be synchronized?  I'm
>>> happy to let different people hack it up in a variety of ways for their own
>>> purposes...
>>>
>>> --
>>> Colin Percival
>>> Security Officer Emeritus, FreeBSD | The power to serve
>>> Founder, Tarsnap | www.tarsnap.com | Online backups for the truly paranoid
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Colin Percival
> Security Officer Emeritus, FreeBSD | The power to serve
> Founder, Tarsnap | www.tarsnap.com | Online backups for the truly paranoid

Comment 7 Eitan Adler freebsd_committer

2017-12-31 08:00:15 UTC

For bugs matching the following criteria:

Status: In Progress Changed: (is less than) 2014-06-01

Reset to default assignee and clear in-progress tags.

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