bug#41400: Current biber version is incompatible with biblatex

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Mikhail Tsykalov <tsymsh@gmail.com> skribis:

> On 29.05.2020 18:38, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> Not long ago, I did this:
>>
>>    commit 40fd909e3ddee2c46a27a4fe92ed49d3e7ffb413
>>    Author: Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
>>    Date:   Fri Apr 24 16:17:38 2020 +0200
>>
>>        gnu: biber: Downgrade to 2.11.
>>
>>        Biber 2.12 is incompatible with biblatex 3.11, which is what's 
>> currently
>>        packaged.  This is a followup to 
>> 41a010875ba4108e666f11fc111cf5bb5dcf5464.
>>
>>        * gnu/packages/tex.scm (biber): Downgrade to 2.11.
>>
>> However, it seems that biblatex has been updated in the meantime.
>>
>> Could you check whether reverting the commit above fixes the problem for
>> you?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Ludo’.
>
> Yes, reverting 40fd909e3ddee2c46a27a4fe92ed49d3e7ffb413 seems to fix
> the problem.

OK, I’ll push the revert shortly.

> I have no idea why biber's test suite doesn't check that biblatex
> version is compatible.
>
> Can we add guix-specific check, so the package would fail to build if
> similar thing happens?

I don’t know why Biber’s test suite doesn’t do the relevant check, but I
don’t think we can it by ourselves.  There’s a biber/biblatex
compatibility matrix in the biblatex documentation:

  
http://ctan.math.washington.edu/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/biblatex/doc/biblatex.pdf

(Linked from <https://ctan.org/pkg/biblatex>.)  I guess we just need to
double-check that when updating.  I’ve added a comment in the code.

Thanks!

Ludo’.