QPA 1.30 tarball contains macOS metadata files, but shouldn't

[fingolfin]

Apparently the QPA 1.30 release tarball contains ._FOO files as created by the Apple versions of GNU and BSD tar:

._CHANGES
._PackageInfo.g
._README
._version

It would be great if the next release avoided adding such files. This should be automatic if one uses the release-gap-package script from ReleaseTools.

[sunnyquiver]

When I download the package release version of QPA, from releases or I clone the repository from the clone tab, I cannot see any ._FOO files. Where am I supposed to find them?

[fingolfin]

They are in the tar.gz, but you can only see them if you extract it on Linux or Windows, not on macOS

[sunnyquiver]

I get the following on a university linux computer:

loginansatt01:~/qpa-1.30$ pwd
/home/ahomey/o/oyvind/qpa-1.30
loginansatt01:~/qpa-1.30$ ls -A
CHANGES         doc     lib        read.g       version
.codecov.yml        examples    LICENSE        README
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md  .gitignore  .mailmap       .travis.yml
create-release.sh   init.g  PackageInfo.g  tst
loginansatt01:~/qpa-1.30$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS
Release:    18.04
Codename:   bionic

I still cannot see the ._FOO files. Where do I go wrong?

[erich-9]

The two tarballs

• https://files.gap-system.org/gap4/tar.gz/packages/qpa-version-1.30.tar.gz
• https://github.com/gap-packages/qpa/archive/v1.30.tar.gz

have different contents:

Only in qpa-version-1.30: ._CHANGES
Only in qpa-1.30: .codecov.yml
Only in qpa-1.30: CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
Only in qpa-1.30: create-release.sh
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap0.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap0_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap0.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap10.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap10_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap10.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap11.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap11_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap11.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap12.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap12_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap12.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap13.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap13_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap13.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap1.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap1_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap1.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap2.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap2_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap2.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap3.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap3_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap3.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap4.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap4_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap4.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap5.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap5_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap5.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap6.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap6_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap6.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap7.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap7_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap7.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap8.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap8_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap8.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap9.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap9_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chap9.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chapBib.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chapBib_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chapBib.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chapInd.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chapInd_mj.html
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chapInd.txt
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: chooser.html
Only in qpa-1.30/doc: gap-days-lectures
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: lefttoc.css
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: manual.css
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: manual.js
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: manual.pdf
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: manual.six
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: nocolorprompt.css
Only in qpa-1.30/doc: qpadocumentation.bib
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: ._qpadocumentation.xml
Only in qpa-1.30/doc: qpa-exercises.tex
Only in qpa-1.30/doc: qpa-introduction.tex
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: ragged.css
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: rainbow.js
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: times.css
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: toggless.css
Only in qpa-version-1.30/doc: toggless.js
Only in qpa-1.30: .gitignore
Only in qpa-1.30: .mailmap
Only in qpa-version-1.30: ._PackageInfo.g
Only in qpa-version-1.30: ._README
Only in qpa-1.30: .travis.yml
Only in qpa-version-1.30: ._version

[sunnyquiver]

The second tarball is produced on github.com, I guess. While the first is something I have produced. So if one would switch to the gitbub-version, all problems are solved?

[fingolfin]

No, because the github generated tarball is e.g. missing the HTML version of manual. You can avoid the "bad" files next time by setting an environment variable before running tar on a mac, see https://superuser.com/a/260264/0

However, it is not necessary to do this for the 1.30 release; it simply would be nice if future releases did not have this issue.

As suggested above, you could also use https://github.com/gap-system/ReleaseTools for future releases, which automates releases, saves a lot of works this way, catches (and voids) this issue and a bunch more :-). The main drawback for you probably would be that it expects you to also use https://github.com/gap-system/GitHubPagesForGAP ; of course you could just do that, but I fully understand if you'd prefer to keep your existing website setup. But it's trivial to hack release-gap-package to not try to update a website driven by GitHubPagesForGAP (just insert exit 0 before the notice "Updating website" line in it). I'd be happy to add a command line flag to it which does the same, too ; only reason it's not there is that so far nobody requested that.

I'll stop annoying you with the advertisement (but should I have peeked your interest, I am available to answer questions or help getting it to work).