Obnam 1.0 released [LWN.net]

Obnam 1.0 released

Posted Jun 7, 2012 9:21 UTC (Thu) by callegar (guest, #16148)
Parent article: Obnam 1.0 released

Cannot execute the example in the man. Consistently getting:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/cliapp/app.py", line 172, in _run
self.process_args(args)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/obnamlib/app.py", line 127, in process_args
cliapp.Application.process_args(self, args)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/cliapp/app.py", line 407, in process_args
method(args[1:])
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/obnamlib/plugins/backup_plugin.py", line 115, in backup
self.add_client(client_name)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/obnamlib/plugins/backup_plugin.py", line 140, in add_client
if client_name not in self.repo.list_clients():
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/obnamlib/repo.py", line 201, in list_clients
listed = set(self.clientlist.list_clients())
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/obnamlib/clientlist.py", line 78, in list_clients
if self.init_forest() and self.forest.trees:
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/obnamlib/repo_tree.py", line 63, in init_forest
vfs=self.fs)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/larch/forest.py", line 167, in open_forest
assert allow_writes is not None
AssertionError

Don't know if I'm doing something wrong... but surely some exception catching and reformulation of exceptional conditions in user friendly words would be good for an 1.0 release. The fact that there is no apparent agreement on when the 'beta' or 'alpha' indications should be removed may cause some harm to free software (see KDE 4.0). BTW, how it is that the log says that 1.0 is in fact obnam version 0.24.1?

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Obnam 1.0 released

Posted Jun 7, 2012 11:16 UTC (Thu) by pkern (subscriber, #32883) [Link]

Assertions are explicitly for unexpected states. You cannot sanely convert that to any user-friendly meaning because then it wouldn't have been an assertion but a regular check for errors.

On the other hand I wonder why one would default initialize the first parameter only to check that it isn't the default in the next line.

Obnam 1.0 released

Posted Jun 7, 2012 11:55 UTC (Thu) by liw (subscriber, #6379) [Link]

The Python stack trace is awful for the user, but it's there as a development aid. If a user sees it, something is badly wrong in Obnam.

Are you sure you have the right version of Obnam? How do you check that? Obnam is supposed to report the right version number in the log file or with "obnam --version", and if it isn't 1.0 then something's wrong.

Do you have the right version of the Larch Python library installed? That stack trace looks like there's an old version installed. Are you running on Debian? Ubuntu? Somewhere else? The Ubuntu PPA is in the process of being updated to fix a few problems with wrong versions. If you're on either Ubuntu or Debian, what is the output of "dpkg -l obnam python-larch"?

(See also my response at http://liw.fi/obnam/bugs/Obnam_cannot_backup_with_failed_... )

Obnam 1.0 released

Posted Jun 7, 2012 22:50 UTC (Thu) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link]

My big fault. All my apologies. Went to the ubuntu ppa, saw the 1.0 release, added the PPA, added obnam without noticing that due to build problems the 1.0 release wasn't actually available, probably mixed an older obnam with a too modern larch.

Obnam 1.0 released

Posted Jun 8, 2012 6:56 UTC (Fri) by liw (subscriber, #6379) [Link]

No worries: it's really my fault for generating such a large pile of packages to be kept in sync. I hope Obnam is more to your satisfaction now.