git-p4, and python2 EOL

git-p4, and python2 EOL

[Luke Diamand]

We're coming up on when Python2 is end-of-lifed - we have until
January 1st 2020.

git-p4 uses python2, and doesn't work under python3 at all.

The problem is the conversions between Python3 unicode strings and git
(utf-8) and p4 (utf-8, except when it isn't).

I had a go at fixing this here:

https://github.com/luked99/git/commits/git-p4-python3-final-showdown

You can see from the comments that I wasn't really finding it straightforward.

I think I know a bit more about the problem now, but before I start
having another go at fixing this, I wondered if anyone else had any
thoughts on this, or even better, some time to spend on this.

Thanks
Luke

Re: git-p4, and python2 EOL

[Andrey]

Luke,

28.08.2019, 04:49, "Luke Diamand" <luke@diamand.org>:
> We're coming up on when Python2 is end-of-lifed - we have until
> January 1st 2020.
>
> git-p4 uses python2, and doesn't work under python3 at all.
>
> The problem is the conversions between Python3 unicode strings and git
> (utf-8) and p4 (utf-8, except when it isn't).
>
> I had a go at fixing this here:
>
> https://github.com/luked99/git/commits/git-p4-python3-final-showdown
>
> You can see from the comments that I wasn't really finding it straightforward.
>
> I think I know a bit more about the problem now, but before I start
> having another go at fixing this, I wondered if anyone else had any
> thoughts on this, or even better, some time to spend on this.

Please, find a few random thoughts below.
  1. As far as I can see, git-p4 tried to maintain compatibility with both python2 and python3.
     Since python2 is approaching it's EOL, would it make sense to drop support for it in git-p4 completely?
     This would simplify the implementation and wouldn't require fancy objects like PolyStringDict.
     Many projects [2] plan to drop python 2.7 support in 2020 or earlier.
     There are, of course, enterprise distros (RHEL, CentOS), which will keep supporting python2 for several years more.
     As far as I can see, python3 doesn't come by default with CentOS 7, which ends its support in 2024.
     However, RHEL/CentOS ships its own (old) version of git, and python3.6 is available through EPEL repository.
  2. Someone tried to use git-p4 with python3 and a bare repository [1] recently, unsuccessfully.
     A few my stupid attempts to patch git-p4 didn't help.
  3. I no longer work with git-p4 daily, neither have a real P4 repository to test on,
     so I can't really test anything beyond unit tests.
     I'll be glad to review any changes though.

[1] https://public-inbox.org/git/34d6121da46f35e4b81d38169b1b86ca123cef37.camel@gmx.net/
[2] https://python3statement.org/

Thank you,
Andrey.