Changes/Gawk501

Gawk 5.0.1

Summary

New upstream major version of gawk has been released (4.2.1 -> 5.0.X). Among many changes, the version 5 introduced a namespaces, which may possible break some of the existing scripts.

Owner

• Name: Jakub Martisko
• Email: jamartis@redhat.com

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 31
• Last updated: 2019-07-22
• Tracker bug: #1732116
• Release notes tracker: #363

Detailed Description

The new version of gawk has been released. The new version fixes a number of bugs, some of which were quite significant. Other notable changes include:

• The regex routines have been replaced with those from GNULIB
• Comment handling in the pretty-printer has been reworked almost completely from scratch. As a result, comments in many corner cases that were previously lost are now included in the formatted output.
• Namespaces have been added.
• Gawk now uses the locale settings for ignoring case in single byte locales, instead of hardwiring in Latin-1.

The introduction of namespaces may break some scripts written for gawk 4.2.1 due to different variable names. (This is considered to be a bug by the upstream and there is a patch fixing this)

Benefit to Fedora

See above, the main benefit are several bug fixes.

Scope

• Proposal owners: Update the source archive of the gawk, drop no longer needed patches.

• Other developers: Some modifications to existing gawk scripts may be needed. Especially those, using the inplace gawk extension, where some of the variables have been renamed. (This is considered to be a bug by the upstream and there is a patch fixing this)

• Release engineering: #8489

• Policies and guidelines: N/A

• Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Upgrade/compatibility impact

see above

How To Test

N/A

Dependencies

dnf repoquery -q  --releasever=rawhide --disablerepo='*' --qf='%{name}' --enablerepo=fedora-source --enablerepo=updates-source --enablerepo=updates-testing-source --archlist=src --whatrequires 'gawk' 

Judy
Macaulay2
acl
apt
autoconf213
avr-binutils
avr-gcc
clucene
cone
crack
dictd
eterm
geomview
git
glibc
gnome-libs
gnome-menus
gpgme
gpm
gscan2pdf
gyachi
japanese-bitmap-fonts
kde-filesystem
kdelibs3
kernel
kernel-tools
krb5
lapack
libAfterImage
libassuan
libecpg
libgcrypt
libgpg-error
libguestfs
libksba
libpaper
libphidget
libpq
libsvm
libtpms
libvirt
linuxdoc-tools
lm_sensors
lxcfs
maildrop
mingw-clucene
nco
netcdf
nss
ocaml
ocaml-calendar
ocaml-csv
ocaml-curl
ocaml-curses
ocaml-expat
ocaml-extlib
ocaml-findlib
ocaml-libvirt
ocaml-pcre
ocaml-ssl
ocaml-xml-light
paperkey
pcb
postgresql
powermanga
quilt
rbldnsd
rpm
rss-glx
samba
selinux-policy
stow
surfraw
swig
systemd
topgit
tzdata
virt-top
xblast
xdg-utils
xfsdump
xschem
xscreensaver
yara
zsh

dnf repoquery -q  --releasever=rawhide --disablerepo='*' --qf='%{name}' --enablerepo=fedora --enablerepo=updates --enablerepo=updates-testing --whatrequires 'gawk' 

R-core
akmods
am-utils
authselect-libs
autoconf213
autofs
backupninja
calamares
centerim
ceph-selinux
check-checkmk
checksec
cloud-utils
cloud-utils-growpart
condor-vm-gahp
copr-backend
coreos-installer
ctdb
dhcp-client
dkms
docbook-utils
dracut-kiwi-oem-dump
e2fsprogs-devel
esh
execstack
flamegraph-stackcollapse
flamegraph-stackcollapse-perf
gawk-abort
gawk-devel
gawk-doc
gawk-errno
gawk-json
gawk-lmdb
gawk-nl_langinfo
gawk-pgsql
gawk-redis
gawk-select
gawk-xml
gawkextlib
geeqie
git-secret
glimmer
groff
gt5
gtkpod
guilt
hylafax+
initscripts
krb5-libs
latex2rtf
lbdb
lde
libguestfs
libsmi
linuxconsoletools
linuxdoc-tools
lorax
ltunify
m17n-db
neofetch
netconsole-service
netdump-server
network-scripts
nfs-utils
ocaml
opari2
pal
pcp
phpPgAdmin
pkgdiff
policycoreutils
prettyping
quilt
rarian
readonly-root
rear
redhat-lsb-core
redis
resource-agents
rf
rpm-build
rpmdevtools
rust-packaging
screenie
selinux-policy
seqan
seqan2-apps
sofia-sip-devel
spectre-meltdown-checker
surfraw
syslog-ng
systemtap-testsuite
testssl
topgit
translate-shell
tuned
tw
twa
txt2man
unity-gtk-module-common
virt-p2v-maker
virt-v2v
vzctl-core
xfce4-dev-tools
xschem
ypserv
zram

Contingency Plan

• Contingency mechanism: Reverting to gawk 4.2.1 if significant issues are discovered
• Contingency deadline: Beta freeze (?)
• Blocks release? No
• Blocks product? no

Documentation

• http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gawk.git/tree/NEWS?h=gawk-5.0-stable
• https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/
• https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.html#Namespaces