Re: [bug] 2.5.0 build with NO_PERL is broken

[Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>]

On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 7:05 AM, Renato Botelho <garga@freebsd.org> wrote:
> Eric Sunshine <sunshine <at> sunshineco.com> writes:
>> On Fri, Aug 14, 2015 at 6:22 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster <at> pobox.com>
> wrote:
>> > Eric Sunshine <sunshine <at> sunshineco.com> writes:
>> >> On Fri, Aug 14, 2015 at 5:02 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster <at>
> pobox.com> wrote:
>> >>> Eric Sunshine <sunshine <at> sunshineco.com> writes:
>> >>> I do not think that is anything new.  We always have assumed "some"
>> >>> version of Perl available in order to run t/ scripts.
>> >>
>> >> True, but prior to 527ec39, without Perl available, git itself could
>> >> at least be built and used (with some commands unavailable), even if
>> >> it couldn't be fully tested. As of 527ec39, however, git won't even
>> >> build because common-cmds.h can't be generated.
>> >
>> > I wouldn't bother digging in the history myself, but I am reasonably
>> > sure that the current genereate-common-cmds is not the sole instance
>> > that we relied on Perl to build (not test) in the past, and that is
>> > another reason why I do not think this is anything new.
>>
>> Hmm. In my tests by setting PERL_PATH to a bogus (non-existent)
>> command, prior to 527ec39, git builds successfully, whereas, following
>> 527ec39, it does not build. But, perhaps I overlooked something...(?)
>
> It builds but there will be at least 3 commands that won't work:

Hmm, I was under the impression from your initial mail[1] that Git
wouldn't even build without Perl available:

    /bin/sh: /usr/bin/perl: not found
    Makefile:1701: recipe for target 'common-cmds.h' failed
    gmake[2]: *** [common-cmds.h] Error 127

Doesn't this failure prevent generation of the 'git' executable altogether?

> git-submodule
> git-request-pull
> git-am

Also...

git-add--interactive
git-archimport
git-cvsexportcommit
git-cvsimport
git-cvsserver
git-difftool
git-instaweb
git-relink
git-send-email
git-svn

A C rewrite of git-am has recently graduated to 'master'.

> I'm considering to add perl dependency as mandatory on FreeBSD ports tree,
> and maybe this NO_PERL option doesn't make more sense nowadays...

That might make sense. Although some of the above commands may not be
used widely, others, such as git-send-email, probably are used
regularly.

[1]: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/275905