libxml2.16 fails to build without docbook-xsl (circular dependency)

[dhomeier]

I'm seeing these errors in the doc build phase

Making all in doc
/usr/bin/xsltproc --nonet --novalid --param man.output.quietly 1 \
	    -o xmllint.1 http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl xmllint.xml
/usr/bin/xsltproc --nonet --novalid --param man.output.quietly 1 \
	    -o xmlcatalog.1 http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl xmlcatalog.xml
I/O I/O error : error : Attempt to load network entity http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl
Attempt to load network entity http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl
warning: warning: failed to load external entity "http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl"
failed to load external entity "http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl"
cannot parse http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl
cannot parse http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl
make[2]: *** [xmlcatalog.1] Error 4

– apparently xsltproc is trying to download despite the --nonet option, if it does not find docbook.xsl locally (which would be provided by docbook-xsl). The command actually fails even with the corrected/redirected (https) URL, but of course should not download from the net in the build phase anyway. But docbook-xsl in turn depends on libxml2-bin, so on a bootstrapped installation one is stuck here.

---

Package manager version: 0.45.99.git
Distribution version: selfupdate-point (bootstrap), 11.3, x86_64 / 26.0, arm64
Trees: local/main stable/main
Xcode.app none / 26.3
Xcode command-line tools: 13.2.0.0.1.1638488800 / 26.3.0.0.1.1769666919
Max. Fink build jobs: 1

[dmacks]

If dlcbook-xsl only needs libml2-bin (runtime programs, not the library itself), it can possibly switch to using the Apple programs in /usr/bin instead. That should get us going for now, until --nonet gets fixed (or some other flag is found that actually does what we want).

[dmacks]

The error message you got is misleading. It's not trying to download and failing for...some network reason...but is being asked to do network and failing fecause network is prohibited rather than even trying. So --nonet is working properly.

[dhomeier]

Running manually without -nonet gave an almost identical error, but it turned out that was due to the outdated http URL.
Whereas

sudo -u fink-bld /usr/bin/xsltproc --novalid --param man.output.quietly 1 -o xmllint.1 https://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl xmllint.xml
warning: failed to load external entity "https://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl"
cannot parse https://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl

Fetching the file with curl works without problems, but trying to use the local file as DOCBOOK_MAN then fails with a whole bunch of html and other xsl files missing, so download those as separate sources looks like it would require much of the docbook-xsl source.

If dlcbook-xsl only needs libml2-bin (runtime programs, not the library itself), it can possibly switch to using the Apple programs in /usr/bin instead. That should get us going for now, until --nonet gets fixed (or some other flag is found that actually does what we want).

Removing the libxml2 dep I succeeded in building docbook-xsl, but got an error in the postinst script missing update-xml-catalog, which is provided by libxml2-bin, which in its current version depends on libxml2.16-shlibs...

[dmacks]

Debian appears to have it circular as well!

• docbook-xsl:Build-Depends:libxml2-utils
• libxml2-utils: part of Source:libxml2
• libxml2:BuildDepends-{Indep,Arch}:docbook-xsl

How does that work for them??

But their xml-catalog tools are in "xml-core" rather than "libxml2-bin", and appear to have been rewritten sometime after we forked to not use the compiled libxml2-bin binaries. So that might be our best way forward: rebase our update scripts and offload them into a new package with no deps, to allow docbook-xsl to use that new package.

[dmacks]

Or we could take advantage of "Add generated documentation to the dist", which was newly added in 2.15.2. It closes https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2/-/issues/1048, which specifically noted that building the docs is a circularity problem.

[dmacks]

libxml2.16 fixed in 9fada27

Not sure what to do with libxml2 (older libversion that is widely used), since it does not have the prebuilt-docs option. Please advise between disabling docs vs using the newer libversion to build them, or any other ideas.

Nevermind...docbook-xsl with automatically be using the newest available -bin and therefore old-libversion will not be cyclic.

[nieder]

This is still open, so I'll add it here instead of a new issue:

On a brand new Fink install (macOS 26.5.1):

checking for xsltproc... /usr/bin/xsltproc
checking for doxygen... no
configure: error: cannot find doxygen

This is with the commit 9fada27 that forced use of prebuilt docs to avoid circular deps (with docbook)

Using --without-docs lets the build finish but install fails populating libxml2-bin with share/man/man1/xmlcatalog.1 I don't see any manfiles or docs being placed anywhere in the root-* directory (but the prebuilt manpages are still in the source for manual install if necessary)

ps. I also see that libxml2-bin gets etc/xml, but etc/sgml is left in the parent libxml2.16 package. However, libxml2-bin RuntimeVars and PostInstscript reference etc/sgml.