[Rd] Patch idea: an environment variable for setting the user ID

[Dénes Tóth]

Maybe a further thing to consider is to introduce an environment 
variable by which one can avoid `add_build_stamp_to_description_file()` 
and any other calls altogether which affect bitwise reproducibility 
during the build process. If two users build the same package on exactly 
the same hardware and in the same software environment, the tarballs are 
expected to be identical. This is not the case now.

Denes

On 11/22/19 9:25 PM, Henrik Bengtsson wrote:
> Another thing to consider if one wants to anonymize the build is the
> UID/GID of the files in the tarball.  So there might be a need for a
> R_BUILD_UID and R_BUILD_GID, e.g. by setting those to 32767
> ("nobody").
> 
> /Henrik
> 
> On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 9:25 AM Will L <will.landau using gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks, Kurt.
>>
>> I think I now have enough time to write a patch. What are the steps? I have
>> read https://www.r-project.org/bugs.html#how-to-submit-patches but I do not
>> seem to have permission to create a Bugzilla account at
>> https://bugs.r-project.org/bugzilla/.
>>
>> Will
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 2:46 AM Kurt Hornik <Kurt.Hornik using wu.ac.at> wrote:
>>
>>>>>>>> Will L writes:
>>>
>>>> To R-devel,
>>>> In `R CMD build`, the ID of the user is automatically inserted into the
>>>> DESCRIPTION file, e.g.
>>>
>>>> Packaged: 2018-11-06 14:01:50 UTC; <MY USER ID>
>>>
>>>
>>>> This is problematic for those of us who work in corporate settings. We
>>> must
>>>> not divulge our user IDs in the packages we develop and release.
>>>
>>>> Jim Hester pointed out that these two lines in
>>>> `add_build_stamp_to_description_file()`
>>>> <
>>> https://github.com/wch/r-source/blob/521c90a175d67475b9f1b43d7ae68bc48062d8e6/src/library/tools/R/build.R#L170-L171
>>>>
>>>> are responsible. Could we consider his suggestion of using an optional
>>>> environment variable to overwrite the default behavior?
>>>
>>>> user <- Sys.getenv("R_BUILD_USERNAME")
>>>> if (!nzchar(user)) user <- Sys.info()["user"]
>>>> if(user == "unknown") user <- Sys.getenv("LOGNAME")
>>>
>>> Yep, something along these lines should be possible.
>>> R_BUILD_USER or R_BUILD_LOGNAME may seem more natural though ...
>>>
>>> Best
>>> -k
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Will Landau
>>>> --
>>>> wlandau.github.io
>>>> linkedin.com/in/wlandau
>>>> github.com/wlandau
>>>
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>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> wlandau.github.io
>> linkedin.com/in/wlandau
>> github.com/wlandau
>>
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>>
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