Undesirable nul file with tlmgr.bat under Windows

[Torsten Schuetze]

Hi Norbert,

On 17/07/2019 04:21, Norbert Preining wrote:

> Hmm, so this should come from the following code in TLUtils.pm:
>   my $cmd = "$wget $mirror/ --timeout=$NetworkTimeout -O "
>             . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null")
>             . " 2>" . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null");
>
> Where $wget = "wget" and win32() checks $^0 for /^MSWin/i
> So in your case, as it returns cygwin, it shoud expand to
> 	wget .../ --timeout=... -O /dev/null 2>/dev/null
> and no "nul" file should be created ... very strange.
>
> Can you please **edit** TLUtils.pm (in TLROOT/tlpkg/TeXLive/)
> and around line 3775 add the following printf so that it looks like
> this:
>   my $cmd = "$wget $mirror/ --timeout=$NetworkTimeout -O "
>             . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null")
>             . " 2>" . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null");
>   print STDERR "DEBUG cmd = $cmd\n";           ####### ADDED LINE !!!!
>   my $ret = system($cmd);

I first added the debug output in line 3775 and it didn't work with $
tlmgr.bat --repository ctan update --list

Then I added it in 3714 and then it prints
DEBUG cmd = wget http://mirror.ctan.org --timeout=30 -O nul 2>&1
and creates the nul file.

$ diff -c TLUtils.pm TLUtils.pm.orig
                                                *** TLUtils.pm  Thu Jul
18 19:24:41 2019
--- TLUtils.pm.orig     Fri Jul 12 08:50:34 2019
***************
*** 3711,3717 ****
    my $mirror = $TeXLiveServerURL;
    my $cmd = "$wget $mirror --timeout=$NetworkTimeout -O "
              . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null") . " 2>&1";
!   print STDERR "DEBUG cmd = $cmd\n";           ####### ADDED LINE !!!!
    #
    # since we are reading the output of wget to find a mirror
    # we have to make sure that the locale is unset
--- 3711,3717 ----
    my $mirror = $TeXLiveServerURL;
    my $cmd = "$wget $mirror --timeout=$NetworkTimeout -O "
              . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null") . " 2>&1";
!
    #
    # since we are reading the output of wget to find a mirror
    # we have to make sure that the locale is unset
***************
*** 3773,3779 ****
    my $cmd = "$wget $mirror/ --timeout=$NetworkTimeout -O "
              . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null")
              . " 2>" . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null");
-   print STDERR "DEBUG cmd = $cmd\n";           ####### ADDED LINE !!!!
    my $ret = system($cmd);
    # if return value is not zero it is a failure, so switch the meanings
    return ($ret ? 0 : 1);
--- 3773,3778 ----

So, the offending code is line 3712. And this looks slightly different
than line 3773. If you change my $cmd at line 3712 into
DEBUG cmd = wget http://mirror.ctan.org --timeout=30 -O nul 2>&1 >nul
than it seems to work. At least for this test case. Here is the diff

$ diff -c TLUtils.pm TLUtils.pm.orig
*** TLUtils.pm  Thu Jul 18 19:44:34 2019
--- TLUtils.pm.orig     Fri Jul 12 08:50:34 2019
***************
*** 3710,3718 ****
    # do not reduce retries here, but timeout still seems desirable.
    my $mirror = $TeXLiveServerURL;
    my $cmd = "$wget $mirror --timeout=$NetworkTimeout -O "
!              . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null")
!              . " 2>&1 >" . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null");
!   print STDERR "DEBUG cmd = $cmd\n";           ####### ADDED LINE !!!!
    #
    # since we are reading the output of wget to find a mirror
    # we have to make sure that the locale is unset
--- 3710,3717 ----
    # do not reduce retries here, but timeout still seems desirable.
    my $mirror = $TeXLiveServerURL;
    my $cmd = "$wget $mirror --timeout=$NetworkTimeout -O "
!             . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null") . " 2>&1";
!
    #
    # since we are reading the output of wget to find a mirror
    # we have to make sure that the locale is unset
***************
*** 3774,3780 ****
    my $cmd = "$wget $mirror/ --timeout=$NetworkTimeout -O "
              . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null")
              . " 2>" . (win32() ? "nul" : "/dev/null");
-   print STDERR "DEBUG cmd = $cmd\n";           ####### ADDED LINE !!!!
    my $ret = system($cmd);
    # if return value is not zero it is a failure, so switch the meanings
    return ($ret ? 0 : 1);
--- 3773,3778 ----

I hope that the patched lines 3713/3714 solve the problem of the
undesirable nul file. I don't know why -O nul is not sufficient, but the
Linux/Cygwin 2>&1 >nul solution works (for me).

Ciao
  Torsten


PS: If you want that I test a patch (may be other places are also
affected) before release I would be happy to do this.