advpng installed on ubuntu, or OS X via homebrew, _does not_ have a proper version number

[jayroh]

On a recent install of ubuntu, installing advancecomp provides the advpng binary. However, when running advpng -V it returns unexpected output:

advpng -V
advancecomp vnone by Andrea Mazzoleni, http://www.advancemame.it

This causes the bin resolver to bail, when there's no proper version number

when :advpng, :gifsicle, :jpegoptim, :optipng
  capture("#{escaped_path} --version 2> #{Path::NULL}")[/\d+(\.\d+)+/]

Happy to provide a PR to handle this if it's helpful. Thanks!

[kaspergrubbe]

Might be a good idea to make Andrea Mazzoleni and the advpng team (If any such organisation exist) know about this. They might not be aware that other developers depend on it.

[jayroh]

That's a good idea. I'll see if I can find a good channel to report it over to him.

[jayroh]

For what it's worth - this also happens with the version installed from homebrew

[kaspergrubbe]

Yes, I can also verify your finding from the Homebrew version.

$ advpng
advancecomp vnone by Andrea Mazzoleni, http://www.advancemame.it
Usage: advpng [options] [FILES...]

Modes:
  -l, --list            List the content of the files
  -z, --recompress      Recompress the specified files
Options:
  -0, --shrink-store    Don't compress
  -1, --shrink-fast     Compress fast (zlib)
  -2, --shrink-normal   Compress normal (libdeflate)
  -3, --shrink-extra    Compress extra (7z)
  -4, --shrink-insane   Compress extreme (zopfli)
  -i N, --iter=N        Compress iterations
  -f, --force           Force the new file also if it's bigger
  -q, --quiet           Don't print on the console
  -h, --help            Help of the program
  -V, --version         Version of the program

But neither -V or --version reports the version:

$ advpng --version
advancecomp vnone by Andrea Mazzoleni, http://www.advancemame.it

$ advpng -V
advancecomp vnone by Andrea Mazzoleni, http://www.advancemame.it

The homebrew package version I have is version 2.1:

$ brew list --versions | grep advancecomp
advancecomp 2.1

[toy]

After checking source: autover.sh is responsible for getting version for ./configure to put into a generated header, .version file is not there, so it relies on git tags. I presume something like absence of git binary is breaking the process of building ubuntu and homebrew packages and the version defaults to none.
It will be great if you can contact responsible teams or people about the issue. And I think they can understand if something can be improved in the configuration process of advancecomp.

I'll try to come up with some solution, although PR is always welcome.

[toy]

https://github.com/toy/image_optim/compare/versionless-advpng should fix the problem

[kaspergrubbe]

I was looking into changing the Homebrew package, which is defined here: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/master/Formula/advancecomp.rb

However, when reading the autover.sh script, the script will first look for a git-tag, if that fails it will look for a .version-file, if that fails, it will set the version to none.

The brew package fetches the source directly from the advancecomp project here:

url "https://github.com/amadvance/advancecomp/archive/v2.1.tar.gz"

I have downloaded the code myself, and I don't see any filed named .version, so maybe the maintainers simply forgot to release the code with the file, which is why we are seeing this behaviour.

@jayroh Did you reach out to @amadvance, or should I fire an e-mail in his direction?

[toy]

Wrong archive is fetched, it should be https://github.com/amadvance/advancecomp/releases/download/v2.1/advancecomp-2.1.tar.gz. The one that is used is archive of git repository which doesn't contain .version file, and the one I've linked is a release archive which I think is created from repository after running all auto* tools and running the script that generates .version file.

[jayroh]

https://github.com/toy/image_optim/compare/versionless-advpng should fix the problem

This is a much better diff than the one I put together! Will this make its way into master?

[kaspergrubbe]

@toy Nicely spotted, I will update the Homebrew package.

[jayroh]

@kaspergrubbe I have not had a chance to email @amadvance - but maybe he'll see this issue and chime in. I'll post something over on sourceforge.

Looking through everything found here I think this is as much a problem with the "package" maintainers as it is with the build process itself. If done right, it's fine, but there's a lot of wiggle room in there to get it wrong.

[jayroh]

Bug filed at the Ubuntu package bug tracker here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/advancecomp/+bug/1797662

[toy]

Thank you both for handling changes in homebrew and ubuntu!
I'm going to merge the change and release new version.

[jayroh]

Excellent! Thank you so much @toy :)