[bug #65415] [gropdf] Do the correct font description files get installed?

[Dave]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?65415>

                 Summary: [gropdf] Do the correct font description files get
installed?
                   Group: GNU roff
               Submitter: barx
               Submitted: Mon 04 Mar 2024 06:23:13 PM CST
                Category: Driver gropdf
                Severity: 2 - Minor
              Item Group: Warning/Suspicious behaviour
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
         Planned Release: None


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Follow-up Comments:


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Date: Mon 04 Mar 2024 06:23:13 PM CST By: Dave <barx>
In bug #64155, Deri pointed to this snippet of
[http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/font/devpdf/devpdf.am
font/devpdf/devpdf.am]

          if test -f $$f; then \
            $(INSTALL_DATA) $$f $(DESTDIR)$(devpdffontdir)/$$f; \
          else \
            $(INSTALL_DATA) $(top_builddir)/font/devpdf/$$f \
              $(DESTDIR)$(devpdffontdir)/$$f; \
          fi; \

as the culprit of an install problem he experienced: "I had a corrupt copy of
U-TR in my build directory so this code copied the corrupt file rather than
the correct file in ./font/devpdf."

This snippet in question dates back to
[http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/commit/?id=87046b294 commit
87046b294], in which gropdf was first added to the groff tree.  The current
version of the snippet is substantively unchanged from then.  (Some variables
have been renamed, and the code was relocated from its original
[http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/font/devpdf/Makefile.sub?id=e68ea4591
font/devpdf/Makefile.sub].)

Git credits this commit to Werner (and he may have been responsible for the
updates to the Texinfo manual and other integration tasks) but the ChangeLog
entry credits Deri, and Deri's name appears as the author of the new source
files, including Makefile.sub.

This historical tour is relevant because when Deri encountered the
corrupt-file propagation in 2024, he asked of the offending lines of code,
"What is the purpose of this?", revealing that even the code's original author
no longer recalls what it was intended to do.

So from the viewpoint of today, does this code do something useful, and the
corrupted file getting copied was collateral damage?  Or should it be
revamped?







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