x/pkgsite: javascript links to wrong lines (cs.opensource.google)

[mindfarm]

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

$ go version

Does this issue reproduce with the latest release?

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

Chrome/Ubuntu

go env Output

$ go env

What did you do?

When I go to
https://cs.opensource.google/go/go/+/refs/tags/go1.17.8:src/database/sql/sql.go;l=1792 I click on "QueryRowContext"

What did you expect to see?

I expect to be taken to the defintion of that method

What did you see instead?

I am taken instead to
https://cs.opensource.google/go/go/+/refs/tags/go1.17.8:src/database/sql/sql.go;l=1814
Which is an unrelated call inside an unrelated method

It was pointed out that the definition for db.QueryRowContext on master is at https://cs.opensource.google/go/go/+/master:src/database/sql/sql.go;l=1814

It appears that the problem is that the javascript is confusing the branches that it is on, it is linking to

[jamalc]

I've submitted this feedback to cs.opensource.google. We can leave this open for visibility, but this is out of scope for pkgsite.

[mindfarm]

Thanks, I wasn't sure where to raise it

[mindfarm]

I tested this this morning and things are still a little confused

That is I go to https://cs.opensource.google/go/go/+/refs/tags/go1.17.8:src/database/sql/sql.go;l=1792

Click on "QueryRowContext"

and am now taken to
https://cs.opensource.google/go/go/+/refs/tags/go1.17.8:src/database/sql/sql.go;drc=47f806ce81aac555946144f112b9f8733e2ed871;l=1812

Which has the correct definition for the method, but the version of the code is different ( a look at the page shows that it should instead be linked to https://cs.opensource.google/go/go/+/refs/tags/go1.17.8:src/database/sql/sql.go;l=1777 )

[prattmic]

This is a limitation in https://cs.opensource.google/. The cross-reference metadata is generated at one commit. In this case, it is currently 47f806c. This updates about once per day.

When browsing at a different commit [1], the UI still does its best to match references despite source skew. However, to try to link to the right location, it always links to code at the cross-reference commit (this the drc parameter you see in the URL; it is unfortunately rather misleading to include the tag name and drc in the URL).

When browsing the Go 1.17 code, this limitation is certainly rather annoying since the code skew can be quite high. I think https://cs.opensource.google/ would like to be able to address this and support multiple cross-reference metadata commits (one per release branch, perhaps?), but I don't know if / when that will ever come.

P.S. in your original issue comment, I'm not sure why you ended up with a cross-reference link missing the drc component. That may have been a bug that was fixed. The behavior you see today of being taken to a different version is the intended behavior.

[1] This is quite likely even when browsing master, at least by a few commits, since the cross-references are only updated once per day.

[mindfarm]

@prattmic Thanks!

Is there a better way to discuss/resolve this issue - there's no apparent way to directly send feedback to the team looking after the site, nor to get feedback from them on when a fix is rolled out (etc) (More for the future, I think that this particular issue is as resolved as it's going to be)

WRT the feedback on the actual issue, I had suspected that the problem might lie in the building of the map for the javascript to know where to link to because of things like tags/commits changing things often (an update every time a PR was merged to the branch would be expensive, I wonder how Git{lab,hub} manage it).

[prattmic]

No, unfortunately I don't think they have much public presence. There should be a "Send feedback" button in the ... menu in the upper right corner of the pages, but that is obviously a one-way mechanism.

I wonder how Git{lab,hub} manage it

FWIW, my experience with GitHub cross-references (not sure about Gitlab) is they seem to be mostly text-search-based which looks like strings that might be the identifier, but is not fully precise. https://cs.opensource.google/ is using Kythe indexing, which actually builds the code to provide completely precise references (for the configuration built; we build linux/amd64 e.g.). The text approach does have the advantage that I imagine it is a bit simpler/cheaper to provide across multiple revisions.