[Obsolete] OXP Authors: GNUstep 1.19.3 bug workaround

[Micha]

<Edit>
While not really obsolete, GNUstep 1.19.3 is broken in more ways and hence is completely unsupported by Oolite.
Older and newer versions of GNUstep are not affected by this bug, so no need to code workarounds specifically for this.
</EDIT>

Hi OXP-authors,

There's a bug in GNUstep since version 1.19.2 which causes whitespaces in an XML Property List to be incorrectly stripped.

<string> A & B </string>
-> "A&B"

ie, leading & trailing whitespace is removed, as well as whitespace surrounding XML entities (& &apos; < > " etc)

This is an issue for Oolite built specifically for Ubuntu Lucid and other Linux Distributions which ship with version 1.19.3 and later of GNUstep.

As a work around, you can avoid using XML entities in your XML property lists where the whitespace surrounding them is significant (eg, entity names).

GNUstep-style property lists are not affected.

Cheers,
- Micha.

[another_commander]

This is important information. Stickied.

It should also be noted that the autopackage installers are not affected by this bug, since they ship with their own versions of the GNUstep library, which are known to work.

[Micha]

Highlighted the 'built specifically'

Also of note is that the bug has been fixed 'upstream' in GNUstep's trunk (1.21), and will be backported to GNUstep 1.20.1. Unfortunately it is up to Ubuntu and Debian (and any other Distro) to backport it further to 1.19. Patches have been supplied for 1.19.3 and it is in progress but will likely take a considerable amount of time to make it into a stable release.

In the meantime, there is a patched version of GNUstep available here:
https://launchpad.net/~3-launchpad-mich ... /+packages

[JensAyton]

Also of note is that the bug has been fixed 'upstream' in GNUstep's trunk (1.21), and will be backported to GNUstep 1.20.1. Unfortunately it is up to Ubuntu and Debian (and any other Distro) to backport it further to 1.19.

Wouldn’t it be better for them to, y’know, not ship obsolete development versions?

[Micha]

Also of note is that the bug has been fixed 'upstream' in GNUstep's trunk (1.21), and will be backported to GNUstep 1.20.1. Unfortunately it is up to Ubuntu and Debian (and any other Distro) to backport it further to 1.19.

Wouldn’t it be better for them to, y’know, not ship obsolete development versions?

Probably - but by the time they go into version freeze it probably wasn't obsolete. In either case the bug was in GNUstep from 1.19.1 onwards until trunk a few days ago - so even if they shipped with 1.20 it wouldn't have made any difference (for this particular bug).

[McDjanoff]

Hello,

The bug is corrected in the gnustep-core 1.20.1 realease.
The debian package was updated in the experimental flavour.
I get the sources, built the package and update my system (Debian Testing).

I get also the oolite 1.74.1 sources and built the debian packages and install it.

I've played two hours with Oolite with no problems.

Regards,
B.

[Micha]

Thanks for the confirmation, B.

I've been playing with 1.20.1 for a few weeks now myself and haven't found any unexplained bugs yet. Unfortunately that doesn't help anybody who upgraded to Lucid or is running any other distro which is stuck at gnustep1.19.x.

[McDjanoff]

As the ubuntu is debian based, I think that the gnustep packages are the same on the two distros and the experimental debian package may be rebuilt on lucid with no modification.

I am agree with you as this kind of operation is not so easy to handle for all users, unfortunally.

The same may be done with RPM, but the RPM based distros packages are different across distros. Fortunally, a quick request on rpmsearch site show that the most of RPM based distros used gnustep-base older than 1.19.

if asked, I can post a short howto.

Regards,
B.

[JensAyton]

I take it we don’t need this stickied any more?

[Kaks]

Unfortunately Maverick, the current release of Ubuntu, has got the exact same gnustep version as Lucid, so I wouldn't unsticky this as yet...