[PATCH 0/7] Improve support for compressed man pages

[PATCH 0/7] Improve support for compressed man pages

[Alexander Miller]

Hi,

when I looked at the Makefile I noticed it has incomplete compression
support. Most notably the screen and uninstall targets didn't support
switching to a different compression type. More precisely, uninstall
supported only switching from gz or bz2 (but not xz) to uncompressed.
The screen target had no explicit compression support and when it
worked for compressed files it was pure luck.
The patches 2 and 3 provide new recipes for both targets that can
handle any combination of the supported compression types. Any file,
installed or source, may be uncompressed or compressed with any of
gz, bz2, or xz. Whether you compress before or after screen and uninstall
doesn't matter any more.
The other patches add a few minor improvements I'd suggest.

So long,
Alex
---
Alexander Miller (7):
  Makefile: Use better xz options
  Makefile: Improve uninstall target for compressed man pages
  Makefile: Support compressed files for screen target
  Makefile: Skip already compressed files in gz/bz2/xz targets
  Makefile: Add uncompress target to undo effect of gz/bz2/xz targets
  Makefile: Avoid compressing very small files in gz/bz2/xz targets
  Makefile: Mention xz in the instructive comment at top

 Makefile | 54 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------
 1 file changed, 41 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)

-- 
2.7.3

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[PATCH 1/7] Makefile: Use better xz options

[Alexander Miller]

>From xz(1):
   The selected compression settings determine the memory requirements
   of the decompressor, thus using a too high preset level might make
   it painful to decompress the file on an old system with little RAM.
   Specifically, it's not a good idea to blindly use -9 for everything
   like it often is with gzip(1) and bzip2(1).

With small files like man pages, a large dictionary doesn't help at all;
so set a small dictionary size (1MiB). Also, "with text files having
one-byte alignment, setting pb=0 can improve compression slightly."
Otherwise the defaults are fine (specifically, the extreme presets
don't improve compression here and would be a waste of CPU cycles).

Signed-off-by: Alexander Miller <alex.miller-Mmb7MZpHnFY@public.gmane.org>
---
I made a few tests and the settings described above which should work
well in theory also did so in practice. The only surprise was that the
extreme presets actually compressed a little worse. Playing with the
"nice" parameter could squeeze out a few more bits, but I don't think
that would be appropriate; I don't want to optimize the settings for
the current man pages content.
---
 Makefile | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 237310d..95ffc2f 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ MANDIR=$(prefix)/share/man
 
 GZIP=gzip -9
 BZIP2=bzip2 -9
-LZMA=xz -9
+LZMA=xz --lzma2=dict=1M,pb=0
 
 all: screen remove install
 
-- 
2.7.3

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[PATCH 2/7] Makefile: Improve uninstall target for compressed man pages

[Alexander Miller]

Now sources and installed man pages may be in plain/gz/bz2/xz
format (independently). Any combination works reliably.

Signed-off-by: Alexander Miller <alex.miller-Mmb7MZpHnFY@public.gmane.org>
---
I would have preferred find -print0, but sed is line-based. As long
as there are no man page filenames with newlines, that's good enough.
---
 Makefile | 6 +++---
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 95ffc2f..a14078c 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -29,9 +29,9 @@ screen:
 	done
 
 uninstall remove:
-	for i in man?/*; do \
-		rm -f $(MANDIR)/"$$i" $(MANDIR)/"$$i".gz $(MANDIR)/"$$i".bz2; \
-	done
+	find man? -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -print | \
+		sed -e 's/\.\(gz\|bz2\|xz\)$$//; s/.*/&\n&.gz\n&.bz2\n&.xz/' | \
+		(cd $(MANDIR) && xargs -d \\n rm -f)
 
 gz:
 	for i in man?; do $(GZIP) "$$i"/*; done
-- 
2.7.3

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[PATCH 3/7] Makefile: Support compressed files for screen target

[Alexander Miller]

Now, make screen supports (optional, possibly different) compression
of the sources and installed man pages. Thus, allgz/allbz2/allxz/all
targets should update correctly even when switching compression types.

Signed-off-by: Alexander Miller <alex.miller-Mmb7MZpHnFY@public.gmane.org>
---
The formatting of the script is a bit unusual, but I wanted to keep
it compact and I think it's still readable. Feel free to add more
line breaks to the if blocks or use longer variable names if you
don't like it.
---
 Makefile | 28 +++++++++++++++++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 23 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index a14078c..8f2e25c 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -22,11 +22,29 @@ allxz: xz all
 screen:
 	mkdir -p not_installed
 	for i in man?/*; do \
-		if [ $(MANDIR)/"$$i" -nt "$$i" ]; then \
-			cmp -s $(MANDIR)/"$$i" "$$i" > /dev/null 2>&1; \
-			if [ "$$?" != 0 ]; then mv "$$i" not_installed; fi; \
-		fi; \
-	done
+		if b="$${i%.bz2}" && [ "$$b".bz2 = "$$i" ]; then c1=bunzip2; \
+		elif b="$${i%.gz}" && [ "$$b".gz = "$$i" ]; then c1=gunzip; \
+		elif b="$${i%.xz}" && [ "$$b".xz = "$$i" ]; then c1=unxz; \
+		else b="$$i"; c1=; fi; \
+		b=$(MANDIR)/"$$b"; \
+		if [ "$$b" -nt "$$i" ]; then c2=; \
+		elif [ "$$b".bz2 -nt "$$i" ]; then c2=bunzip2; b="$$b.bz2"; \
+		elif [ "$$b".gz -nt "$$i" ]; then c2=gunzip; b="$$b.gz"; \
+		elif [ "$$b".xz -nt "$$i" ]; then c2=unxz; b="$$b.xz"; \
+		else continue; fi; \
+		if [ -z "$$c1$$c2" ]; then \
+			cmp -s "$$i" "$$b"; \
+		elif [ -z "$$c1" ]; then \
+			$$c2 -c "$$b" | cmp -s "$$i" -; \
+		elif [ -z "$$c2" ]; then \
+			$$c1 -c "$$i" | cmp -s - "$$b"; \
+		else \
+			[ "$$c1" = "$$c2" ] && cmp -s "$$i" "$$b" || \
+			$$c1 -c "$$i" | { $$c2 -c "$$b" | \
+				cmp -s /dev/fd/3 -; } 3<&0; \
+		fi || mv "$$i" not_installed; \
+	done; \
+	rmdir not_installed 2> /dev/null; true
 
 uninstall remove:
 	find man? -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -print | \
-- 
2.7.3

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[PATCH 4/7] Makefile: Skip already compressed files in gz/bz2/xz targets

[Alexander Miller]

Signed-off-by: Alexander Miller <alex.miller-Mmb7MZpHnFY@public.gmane.org>
---
 Makefile | 9 ++++++---
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 8f2e25c..cdedb4a 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -52,13 +52,16 @@ uninstall remove:
 		(cd $(MANDIR) && xargs -d \\n rm -f)
 
 gz:
-	for i in man?; do $(GZIP) "$$i"/*; done
+	find man? -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -name '*.[gx]z' -o -name '*.bz2' \
+		-o -exec $(GZIP) '{}' +
 
 bz2:
-	for i in man?; do $(BZIP2) "$$i"/*; done
+	find man? -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -name '*.[gx]z' -o -name '*.bz2' \
+		-o -exec $(BZIP2) '{}' +
 
 xz:
-	for i in man?; do $(LZMA) "$$i"/*; done
+	find man? -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -name '*.[gx]z' -o -name '*.bz2' \
+		-o -exec $(LZMA) '{}' +
 
 # Use with
 #  make HTDIR=/some/dir HTOPTS=whatever html
-- 
2.7.3

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[PATCH 6/7] Makefile: Avoid compressing very small files in gz/bz2/xz targets

[Alexander Miller]

Compressing very small files has only disadvantages. There is
the overhead of running a decompressor, and because of the
added file headers they become even bigger.

Since the scan and uninstall targets now properly handle
mixing compressed and uncompressed files, it becomes possible
to avoid compression where it's not beneficial.

Signed-off-by: Alexander Miller <alex.miller-Mmb7MZpHnFY@public.gmane.org>
---
If you want to support this feature but disable it by default,
you can set NOCOMPRESS_SIZE=0.
---
 Makefile | 7 ++++---
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 86b1568..2c5719c 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ MANDIR=$(prefix)/share/man
 GZIP=gzip -9
 BZIP2=bzip2 -9
 LZMA=xz --lzma2=dict=1M,pb=0
+NOCOMPRESS_SIZE=256
 
 all: screen remove install
 
@@ -53,15 +54,15 @@ uninstall remove:
 
 gz:
 	find man? -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -name '*.[gx]z' -o -name '*.bz2' \
-		-o -exec $(GZIP) '{}' +
+		-o -size +$(NOCOMPRESS_SIZE)c -exec $(GZIP) '{}' +
 
 bz2:
 	find man? -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -name '*.[gx]z' -o -name '*.bz2' \
-		-o -exec $(BZIP2) '{}' +
+		-o -size +$(NOCOMPRESS_SIZE)c -exec $(BZIP2) '{}' +
 
 xz:
 	find man? -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -name '*.[gx]z' -o -name '*.bz2' \
-		-o -exec $(LZMA) '{}' +
+		-o -size +$(NOCOMPRESS_SIZE)c -exec $(LZMA) '{}' +
 
 uncompress:
 	find man? -name '*.gz' -exec gunzip '{}' + \
-- 
2.7.3

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[PATCH 7/7] Makefile: Mention xz in the instructive comment at top

[Alexander Miller]

Signed-off-by: Alexander Miller <alex.miller-Mmb7MZpHnFY@public.gmane.org>
---
 Makefile | 3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 2c5719c..2c4aa6a 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,7 +1,8 @@
 # Do "make screen" first, if you want to protect already installed,
 # more up-to-date manual pages than the ones included in this package.
 # Do "make install" to copy the pages to their destination.
-# Do "make gz" or "make bz2" first if you use compressed source pages.
+# Do "make gz", "make bz2", or "make xz" first if you use compressed
+# source pages.
 
 DESTDIR=
 prefix?=/usr
-- 
2.7.3

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Re: [PATCH 0/7] Improve support for compressed man pages

[Mike Frysinger]

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On 16 Apr 2016 02:25, Alexander Miller wrote:
> when I looked at the Makefile I noticed it has incomplete compression
> support. Most notably the screen and uninstall targets didn't support
> switching to a different compression type. More precisely, uninstall
> supported only switching from gz or bz2 (but not xz) to uncompressed.
> The screen target had no explicit compression support and when it
> worked for compressed files it was pure luck.
> The patches 2 and 3 provide new recipes for both targets that can
> handle any combination of the supported compression types. Any file,
> installed or source, may be uncompressed or compressed with any of
> gz, bz2, or xz. Whether you compress before or after screen and uninstall
> doesn't matter any more.

imo, we should just drop all compression support.  distros already
handle this properly and pick whatever they want/need.  if no one
is using this code, then it's just sucking up space.
-mike

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Re: [PATCH 0/7] Improve support for compressed man pages

[Alexander Miller]

On Sat, 16 Apr 2016 00:50:58 -0400
Mike Frysinger <vapier-aBrp7R+bbdUdnm+yROfE0A@public.gmane.org> wrote:

> imo, we should just drop all compression support.  distros already
> handle this properly and pick whatever they want/need.

For distros this is useless, of course. I've never used it either.
But I guess there are still people installing stuff from sources
without using a package manager, and they might find it convenient.

>  if no one
> is using this code, then it's just sucking up space.

I'm not concerned about the space, but code needs to be maintained.
IMO, as long as it works, we can keep it; if it has issues we'd
better remove it.

We can drop compression support or do it right - I'm fine with
either option. We shouldn't keep the status quo, though.

Alex
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Re: [PATCH 0/7] Improve support for compressed man pages

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

On 04/16/2016 05:30 PM, Alexander Miller wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Apr 2016 00:50:58 -0400
> Mike Frysinger <vapier-aBrp7R+bbdUdnm+yROfE0A@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> 
>> imo, we should just drop all compression support.  distros already
>> handle this properly and pick whatever they want/need.
> 
> For distros this is useless, of course. I've never used it either.
> But I guess there are still people installing stuff from sources
> without using a package manager, and they might find it convenient.
> 
>>  if no one
>> is using this code, then it's just sucking up space.
> 
> I'm not concerned about the space, but code needs to be maintained.
> IMO, as long as it works, we can keep it; if it has issues we'd
> better remove it.
> 
> We can drop compression support or do it right - I'm fine with
> either option. We shouldn't keep the status quo, though.

I'm inclined to say drop it. Would you mind putting together a 
patch, Alex?

Cheers,

Michael


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Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/
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Re: [PATCH 0/7] Improve support for compressed man pages

[Alexander Miller]

On Mon, 18 Apr 2016 13:57:54 +0100 Michael Kerrisk wrote:

> On 04/16/2016 05:30 PM, Alexander Miller wrote:
> > On Sat, 16 Apr 2016 00:50:58 -0400
> > Mike Frysinger <vapier-aBrp7R+bbdUdnm+yROfE0A@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> >   
> >> imo, we should just drop all compression support.  distros already
> >> handle this properly and pick whatever they want/need.  
> > 
[...]
> > 
> > We can drop compression support or do it right - I'm fine with
> > either option. We shouldn't keep the status quo, though.  
> 
> I'm inclined to say drop it. Would you mind putting together a 
> patch, Alex?

I'm not sure what exactly we should do.
The problem isn't really compressing the files, but the "screen"
and "uninstall" targets.

If we drop support for compressing man pages ourselves, what shall
we do with those targets? They aren't useful for distros either.
And they *still* might have to deal with files compressed by the
distro's package manager (if a user tries to update manually).
We could
- drop "screen" and/or "uninstall", too
  (getting rid of the problem and simplifying the Makefile but
  being inconvenient for users);
- fix them to handle man pages compressed by the distro
  (but not compressed sources, resulting in only slightly simpler
  patches than those I've posted);
- or explicitly state "screen" (and maybe "uninstall") don't support
  compressed files. This is problematic IMO, especially since they
  are used by "make all". Moreover, "uninstall" can remove .gz/.bz2
  files but no .xz files right now; this could be changed to include
  .xz or to exclude .gz/.bz2.
  
What do you want me to drop/fix with a new patch?

Alex 
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Re: [PATCH 0/7] Improve support for compressed man pages

[Mike Frysinger]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2335 bytes --]

On 18 Apr 2016 19:10, Alexander Miller wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Apr 2016 13:57:54 +0100 Michael Kerrisk wrote:
> > On 04/16/2016 05:30 PM, Alexander Miller wrote:
> > > On Sat, 16 Apr 2016 00:50:58 -0400
> > > Mike Frysinger <vapier-aBrp7R+bbdUdnm+yROfE0A@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > >   
> > >> imo, we should just drop all compression support.  distros already
> > >> handle this properly and pick whatever they want/need.  
> > > 
> [...]
> > > 
> > > We can drop compression support or do it right - I'm fine with
> > > either option. We shouldn't keep the status quo, though.  
> > 
> > I'm inclined to say drop it. Would you mind putting together a 
> > patch, Alex?
> 
> I'm not sure what exactly we should do.
> The problem isn't really compressing the files, but the "screen"
> and "uninstall" targets.
> 
> If we drop support for compressing man pages ourselves, what shall
> we do with those targets? They aren't useful for distros either.
> And they *still* might have to deal with files compressed by the
> distro's package manager (if a user tries to update manually).
> We could
> - drop "screen" and/or "uninstall", too
>   (getting rid of the problem and simplifying the Makefile but
>   being inconvenient for users);
> - fix them to handle man pages compressed by the distro
>   (but not compressed sources, resulting in only slightly simpler
>   patches than those I've posted);
> - or explicitly state "screen" (and maybe "uninstall") don't support
>   compressed files. This is problematic IMO, especially since they
>   are used by "make all". Moreover, "uninstall" can remove .gz/.bz2
>   files but no .xz files right now; this could be changed to include
>   .xz or to exclude .gz/.bz2.

imo, drop the screen target.  for uninstall, that's a semi-common
idiom that packages have (and autotools supports out of the box).
keeping that sounds fine.

i don't think we need to worry about supporting `make uninstall` if
the package was installed initially by the distro -- you have to deal
with version skew of course which pretty much no one does.  just make
sure `make install && make uninstall` works sanely.

wrt compression, we could be lazy/greedy here too.  when we uninstall
locale.5, just rm locale.5*.  in practice, this is unlikely to be an
issue ...
-mike

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Re: [PATCH] Makefile: Drop compression support and screen target

[Alexander Miller]

Fixup.
---
Sorry, I messed it up.
I forgot to delete the part of the initial comment mentioning screen.
please append this to the previous patch and apply them together.
---
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index eef45ef..f494e8f 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,5 +1,3 @@
-# Do "make screen" first, if you want to protect already installed,
-# more up-to-date manual pages than the ones included in this package.
 # Do "make install" to copy the pages to their destination.
 
 DESTDIR=
-- 
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Re: [PATCH 0/7] Improve support for compressed man pages

[Mike Frysinger]

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On 16 Apr 2016 18:30, Alexander Miller wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Apr 2016 00:50:58 -0400
> Mike Frysinger <vapier-aBrp7R+bbdUdnm+yROfE0A@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> >  if no one
> > is using this code, then it's just sucking up space.
> 
> I'm not concerned about the space, but code needs to be maintained.
> IMO, as long as it works, we can keep it; if it has issues we'd
> better remove it.

sorry for the ambigious term ... i'm not referring to disk space, but
to the code "sucking up space in the Makefiles and our eyes".

> We can drop compression support or do it right - I'm fine with
> either option. We shouldn't keep the status quo, though.

i'm not advocating for the status quo ;)
-mike

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Re: [PATCH 0/7] Improve support for compressed man pages

[walter harms]

Am 18.04.2016 16:49, schrieb Mike Frysinger:
> On 16 Apr 2016 18:30, Alexander Miller wrote:
>> On Sat, 16 Apr 2016 00:50:58 -0400
>> Mike Frysinger <vapier-aBrp7R+bbdUdnm+yROfE0A@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>>  if no one
>>> is using this code, then it's just sucking up space.
>>
>> I'm not concerned about the space, but code needs to be maintained.
>> IMO, as long as it works, we can keep it; if it has issues we'd
>> better remove it.
> 
> sorry for the ambigious term ... i'm not referring to disk space, but
> to the code "sucking up space in the Makefiles and our eyes".
> 
>> We can drop compression support or do it right - I'm fine with
>> either option. We shouldn't keep the status quo, though.
> 
> i'm not advocating for the status quo ;)
> -mike

as one of those people that like to have it directly from source ...

I would advocate for having just one compression type .gz would be ok.
space i nowadays not the main concern but it is convinced to have.

re,
 wh
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Re: [PATCH 0/7] Improve support for compressed man pages

[Mike Frysinger]

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On 18 Apr 2016 17:08, walter harms wrote:
> Am 18.04.2016 16:49, schrieb Mike Frysinger:
> > On 16 Apr 2016 18:30, Alexander Miller wrote:
> >> On Sat, 16 Apr 2016 00:50:58 -0400
> >> Mike Frysinger <vapier-aBrp7R+bbdUdnm+yROfE0A@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> >>>  if no one
> >>> is using this code, then it's just sucking up space.
> >>
> >> I'm not concerned about the space, but code needs to be maintained.
> >> IMO, as long as it works, we can keep it; if it has issues we'd
> >> better remove it.
> > 
> > sorry for the ambigious term ... i'm not referring to disk space, but
> > to the code "sucking up space in the Makefiles and our eyes".
> > 
> >> We can drop compression support or do it right - I'm fine with
> >> either option. We shouldn't keep the status quo, though.
> > 
> > i'm not advocating for the status quo ;)
> 
> as one of those people that like to have it directly from source ...
> 
> I would advocate for having just one compression type .gz would be ok.
> space i nowadays not the main concern but it is convinced to have.

in my experience, the majority of packages nowadays don't try to "help"
you out and automatically compress installed man pages.  so why should
man-pages do it ?  you already either (1) have a custom solution or (2)
have uncompressed pages installed.
-mike

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