[bug#65479] [PATCH core-updates v3 02/63] search-paths: Add $XML_CATALOG_FILES and $SGML_CATALOG_FILES.

[Bruno Victal]

Hi Ludo’,

On 2023-10-12 08:16, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Hi Bruno,
> 
> Bruno Victal <mirai@makinata.eu> skribis:
> 
>> These variables are used by some packages for XML/SGML catalog lookups.
>>
>> * guix/search-paths ($XML_CATALOG_FILES, $SGML_CATALOG_FILES): New variable,
>> extracted from …
>> * gnu/packages/xml.scm (libxml2, opensp)[native-search-paths]: … here. Refer
>> to the variables from (guix search-paths) respectively.
>> * gnu/packages/perl.scm
>> (perl-app-xml-docbook-builder)[native-search-paths]: Use $XML_CATALOG_FILES.
>> * doc/guix.texi (Search Paths): Update documentation to reflect changes.
> 
> The way I see it, we’d define in (guix search-paths) only search paths
> that are repeated in several different places, like $SSL_CERT_DIR.

I didn't do an exhaustive search of what applications under the sun make use
of the XML_CATALOG_FILES and SGML_CATALOG_FILES environment variables but I
can say that we were missing them in a few crucial packages. In the packages
where I added these search-paths (spans across various patches) I went through
their manpages and in some occasions had to grep through their source code to
confirm this.

[…]

> $XML_CATALOG_FILES has 2 users, one of which looks dubious and should
> probably be audited, and $SGML_CATALOG_FILES has only 1 user.  Thus, the
> status quo seems good to me.

Which package are you finding its use dubious?
By 2 users I presume the ones within the commit which isn't the end of the tale,
see patches 03-04, 15, 18 and 24-25.
In v1/v2 their use was much more pronounced until Maxims suggestion of 
introducing
%libxslt-search-paths [1] to avoid top-level import cycles. (whilst also being
a more concise way to convey this information without manually duplicating it
when cycles did occur in v2)

$SGML_CATALOG_FILES actually has other users, opensp [2], libxml2 and libxslt
come to mind and are used in subsequent patches within the series.


[1]: Message-Id: <87a5swmxhn.fsf@gmail.com>
     Link: 
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-patches/2023-10/msg00268.html>
[2]: Message-Id: <e4e0b35c-00f9-5532-2a1d-84ad032a3e09@makinata.eu>
     Link: 
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-patches/2023-06/msg00395.html>

-- 
Furthermore, I consider that nonfree software must be eradicated.

Cheers,
Bruno.