Common Lisp users are very happy to use Quicklisp when it comes to downloading and maintaining dependencies between their own code and the librairies it is using.

Sometimes I am pointed that when compared to other programming languages Common Lisp is lacking a lot in the batteries included area. After having had to package about 50 common lisp librairies for debian I can tell you that I politely disagree with that.

And this post is about the tool and process I use to maintain all those librairies.

Quicklisp is good at ensuring a proper distribution of all those libs it supports and actually tests that they all compile and load together, so I’ve been using it as my upstream for debian packaging purposes. Using Quicklisp here makes my life much simpler as I can grovel through its metadata and automate most of the maintenance of my cl related packages.

It’s all automated in the ql-to-deb software which, unsurprisingly, has been written in Common Lisp itself. It’s a kind of a Quicklisp client that will fetch Quicklisp current list of releases with version numbers and compare to the list of managed packages for debian in order to then build new version automatically.

The current workflow I’m using begins with using ql-to-deb is to check for the work to be done today:

$ /vagrant/build/bin/ql-to-deb check
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/dist/quicklisp.txt"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/dist/quicklisp/2015-04-07/releases.txt"
update: cl+ssl cl-csv cl-db3 drakma esrap graph hunchentoot local-time lparallel nibbles qmynd trivial-backtrace
upload: hunchentoot

After careful manual review of the automatic decision, let’s just update all what check decided would have to be:

$ /vagrant/build/bin/ql-to-deb update
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/dist/quicklisp.txt"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/dist/quicklisp/2015-04-07/releases.txt"

Updating package cl-plus-ssl from 20140826 to 20150302.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-plus-ssl.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/cl+ssl/2015-03-02/cl+ssl-20150302-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/cl+ssl-20150302-git.tgz"
      md5: 61d9d164d37ab5c91048827dfccd6835
Building package cl-plus-ssl

Updating package cl-csv from 20140826 to 20150302.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-csv.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/cl-csv/2015-03-02/cl-csv-20150302-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/cl-csv-20150302-git.tgz"
      md5: 32f6484a899fdc5b690f01c244cd9f55
Building package cl-csv

Updating package cl-db3 from 20131111 to 20150302.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-db3.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/cl-db3/2015-03-02/cl-db3-20150302-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/cl-db3-20150302-git.tgz"
      md5: 578896a3f60f474742f240b703f8c5f5
Building package cl-db3

Updating package cl-drakma from 1.3.11 to 1.3.13.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-drakma.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/drakma/2015-04-07/drakma-1.3.13.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/drakma-1.3.13.tgz"
      md5: 3b548bce10728c7a058f19444c8477c3
Building package cl-drakma

Updating package cl-esrap from 20150113 to 20150302.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-esrap.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/esrap/2015-03-02/esrap-20150302-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/esrap-20150302-git.tgz"
      md5: 8b198d26c27afcd1e9ce320820b0e569
Building package cl-esrap

Updating package cl-graph from 20141106 to 20150407.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-graph.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/graph/2015-04-07/graph-20150407-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/graph-20150407-git.tgz"
      md5: 3894ef9262c0912378aa3b6e8861de79
Building package cl-graph

Updating package hunchentoot from 1.2.29 to 1.2.31.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//hunchentoot.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/hunchentoot/2015-04-07/hunchentoot-1.2.31.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/hunchentoot-1.2.31.tgz"
      md5: 973eccfef87e81f1922424cb19884d63
Building package hunchentoot

Updating package cl-local-time from 20150113 to 20150407.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-local-time.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/local-time/2015-04-07/local-time-20150407-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/local-time-20150407-git.tgz"
      md5: 7be4a31d692f5862014426a53eb1e48e
Building package cl-local-time

Updating package cl-lparallel from 20141106 to 20150302.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-lparallel.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/lparallel/2015-03-02/lparallel-20150302-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/lparallel-20150302-git.tgz"
      md5: dbda879d0e3abb02a09b326e14fa665d
Building package cl-lparallel

Updating package cl-nibbles from 20141106 to 20150407.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-nibbles.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/nibbles/2015-04-07/nibbles-20150407-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/nibbles-20150407-git.tgz"
      md5: 2ffb26241a1b3f49d48d28e7a61b1ab1
Building package cl-nibbles

Updating package cl-qmynd from 20141217 to 20150302.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-qmynd.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/qmynd/2015-03-02/qmynd-20150302-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/qmynd-20150302-git.tgz"
      md5: b1cc35f90b0daeb9ba507fd4e1518882
Building package cl-qmynd

Updating package cl-trivial-backtrace from 20120909 to 20150407.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-trivial-backtrace.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/trivial-backtrace/2015-04-07/trivial-backtrace-20150407-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/trivial-backtrace-20150407-git.tgz"
      md5: 762b0acf757dc8a2a6812d2f0f2614d9
Building package cl-trivial-backtrace

Quite simple.

To be totally honnest, I first had a problem with the parser generator library esrap wherein the README documentation changed to be a README.org file, and I had to tell my debian packaging about that. See the 0ef669579cf7c07280eae7fe6f61f1bd664d337e commit to ql-to-deb for details.

What about trying to install those packages locally? That’s usually a very good test. Sometimes some dependencies are missing at the dpkg command line, so another apt-get install -f is needed:

$ /vagrant/build/bin/ql-to-deb install
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-csv_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-csv-clsql_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-csv-data-table_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-db3_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-drakma_1.3.13-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-esrap_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-graph_20150407-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-hunchentoot_1.2.31-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-local-time_20150407-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-lparallel_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-nibbles_20150407-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-qmynd_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-trivial-backtrace_20150407-1_all.deb
(Reading database ... 79689 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-plus-ssl (20150302-1) over (20140826-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package cl-csv.
Preparing to unpack .../cl-csv_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-csv (20150302-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package cl-csv-clsql.
Preparing to unpack .../cl-csv-clsql_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-csv-clsql (20150302-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package cl-csv-data-table.
Preparing to unpack .../cl-csv-data-table_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-csv-data-table (20150302-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package cl-db3.
Preparing to unpack .../cl-db3_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-db3 (20150302-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-drakma_1.3.13-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-drakma (1.3.13-1) over (1.3.11-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-esrap_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-esrap (20150302-1) over (20150113-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-graph_20150407-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-graph (20150407-1) over (20141106-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-hunchentoot_1.2.31-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-hunchentoot (1.2.31-1) over (1.2.29-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-local-time_20150407-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-local-time (20150407-1) over (20150113-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-lparallel_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-lparallel (20150302-1) over (20141106-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-nibbles_20150407-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-nibbles (20150407-1) over (20141106-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-qmynd_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-qmynd (20150302-1) over (20141217-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-trivial-backtrace_20150407-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-trivial-backtrace (20150407-1) over (20120909-2) ...
Setting up cl-plus-ssl (20150302-1) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of cl-csv:
 cl-csv depends on cl-interpol; however:
  Package cl-interpol is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package cl-csv (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of cl-csv-clsql:
 cl-csv-clsql depends on cl-csv; however:
  Package cl-csv is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package cl-csv-clsql (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of cl-csv-data-table:
 cl-csv-data-table depends on cl-csv; however:
  Package cl-csv is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package cl-csv-data-table (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Setting up cl-db3 (20150302-1) ...
Setting up cl-drakma (1.3.13-1) ...
Setting up cl-esrap (20150302-1) ...
Setting up cl-graph (20150407-1) ...
Setting up cl-local-time (20150407-1) ...
Setting up cl-lparallel (20150302-1) ...
Setting up cl-nibbles (20150407-1) ...
Setting up cl-qmynd (20150302-1) ...
Setting up cl-trivial-backtrace (20150407-1) ...
Setting up cl-hunchentoot (1.2.31-1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 cl-csv
 cl-csv-clsql
 cl-csv-data-table

Let’s make sure that our sid users will be happy with the update here:

$ sudo apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  g++-4.7 git git-man html2text libaugeas-ruby1.8 libbind9-80
  libclass-isa-perl libcurl3-gnutls libdns88 libdrm-nouveau1a
  libegl1-mesa-drivers libffi5 libgraphite3 libgssglue1 libisc84 libisccc80
  libisccfg82 liblcms1 liblwres80 libmpc2 libopenjpeg2 libopenvg1-mesa
  libpoppler19 librtmp0 libswitch-perl libtiff4 libwayland-egl1-mesa luatex
  openssh-blacklist openssh-blacklist-extra python-chardet python-debian
  python-magic python-pkg-resources python-six ttf-dejavu-core ttf-marvosym
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  cl-interpol
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  cl-interpol
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 51 not upgraded.
3 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 20.7 kB of archives.
After this operation, 135 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
Get:1 http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian/ sid/main cl-interpol all 0.2.1-2 [20.7 kB]
Fetched 20.7 kB in 0s (84.5 kB/s)
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
debconf: (Dialog frontend will not work on a dumb terminal, an emacs shell buffer, or without a controlling terminal.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline
Selecting previously unselected package cl-interpol.
(Reading database ... 79725 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../cl-interpol_0.2.1-2_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-interpol (0.2.1-2) ...
Setting up cl-interpol (0.2.1-2) ...
Setting up cl-csv (20150302-1) ...
Setting up cl-csv-clsql (20150302-1) ...
Setting up cl-csv-data-table (20150302-1) ...

All looks fine, time to sign those packages. There’s a trick here, where you want to be sure you’re using a GnuPG setup that allows you to enter your passphrase only once, see ql-to-deb vm setup for details, and the usual documentations about all that if you’re interested into the details.

$ /vagrant/build/bin/ql-to-deb sign
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-csv_20150302-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-csv_20150302-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-db3_20150302-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-db3_20150302-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-drakma_1.3.13-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-drakma_1.3.13-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-esrap_20150302-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-esrap_20150302-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-graph_20150407-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-graph_20150407-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/hunchentoot_1.2.31-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/hunchentoot_1.2.31-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-local-time_20150407-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-local-time_20150407-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-lparallel_20150302-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-lparallel_20150302-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-nibbles_20150407-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-nibbles_20150407-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-qmynd_20150302-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-qmynd_20150302-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-trivial-backtrace_20150407-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-trivial-backtrace_20150407-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files

Ok, with all tested and signed, it’s time we upload our packages on debian servers for our dear debian users to be able to use newer and better versions of their beloved Common Lisp librairies:

$ /vagrant/build/bin/ql-to-deb upload
Trying to upload package to ftp-master (ftp.upload.debian.org)
Checking signature on .changes
gpg: Signature made Sat 02 May 2015 05:06:48 PM MSK using RSA key ID 60B1CB4E
gpg: Good signature from "Dimitri Fontaine <[email protected]>"
Good signature on /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1_amd64.changes.
Checking signature on .dsc
gpg: Signature made Sat 02 May 2015 05:06:46 PM MSK using RSA key ID 60B1CB4E
gpg: Good signature from "Dimitri Fontaine <[email protected]>"
Good signature on /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1.dsc.
Uploading to ftp-master (via ftp to ftp.upload.debian.org):
  Uploading cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1.dsc: done.
  Uploading cl-plus-ssl_20150302.orig.tar.gz: done.
  Uploading cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1.debian.tar.xz: done.
  Uploading cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1_all.deb: done.
  Uploading cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1_amd64.changes: done.
Successfully uploaded packages.

Of course the same text or abouts is then repeated for all the other packages.

Enjoy using Common Lisp in debian!

Oh and remember, the only reason I’ve written ql-to-deb and signed myself up to maintain those upteens Common Lisp librairies as debian package is to be able to properly package pgloader in debian, as you can see at https://packages.debian.org/sid/pgloader and in particular in the Other Packages Related to pgloader section of the debian source package for pgloader at https://packages.debian.org/source/sid/pgloader.

That level of effort is done to ensure that we respect the Debian Social Contract wherein debian ensures its users that it’s possible to rebuild anything from sources as found in the debian repositories.