From: Greg Troxel <gdt@lexort.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2026 20:14:28 -0400
Subject: PostGIS 3.7.0rc2 released
In-Reply-To: <001101dd3fda$7c978c70$75c6a550$@pcorp.us> (Regina Obe's message
 of "Tue, 8 Sep 2026 17:39:10 -0400")
References: <001101dd3fda$7c978c70$75c6a550$@pcorp.us>
Message-ID: <rmimrtr1dsr.fsf@s1.lexort.com>

docs build still fails with a non-built complaint, without any errors
reported from doing the docs build.   It's therefore hard to debug.
It also doesn't make sense why a directory "regress" would be involved
in building docs.

  gmake[1]: Entering directory '/tmp/work/databases/postgresql-postgis2.update/work/postgis-3.7.0rc2'
  /usr/pkg/bin/perl ./utils/repo_revision.pl
  fatal: not a git repository (or any parent up to mount point /)
  Stopping at filesystem boundary (GIT_DISCOVERY_ACROSS_FILESYSTEM not set).
  Can't determine revision from git log
  Not updating existing rev file at e2ea03a
  /tmp/work/databases/postgresql-postgis2.update/work/.tools/bin/gmake -C doc html
  gmake[2]: Entering directory '/tmp/work/databases/postgresql-postgis2.update/work/postgis-3.7.0rc2/doc'
  Makefile:626: *** Visual examples are missing. Run 'make -C regress visual-examples' first..  Stop.
  gmake[2]: Leaving directory '/tmp/work/databases/postgresql-postgis2.update/work/postgis-3.7.0rc2/doc'
  gmake[1]: *** [GNUmakefile:251: docs] Error 2
  gmake[1]: Leaving directory '/tmp/work/databases/postgresql-postgis2.update/work/postgis-3.7.0rc2'
  gmake: *** [Makefile:7: docs] Error 2
  *** Error code 2

Reading NEWS:

  To build docs, first run visual examples and make sure you have a running
  PostgreSQL instance.

  `make -C regress visual-examples`

this is really problematic and outside the normal boundaries.

  - "run visual examples" does not parse
  - "make sure you have a running postgresql instance" is not ok.  When
     building packages, they're in a sandbox and while package building
     machines do run build tools, but requiring someone to start up a
     database is way too much for this kind of environment
  - "build docs" and "regress" do not belong together


I see in README.postgis description of doc requirements and will
crosscheck that.   I think there's a makefile bug where missing prereqs
lead to steps being skipped, instead of erroring.


Perhaps pgsql is run within the build temporarily, like regression tests
do.  That's still not great for docs, but it's less problematic than
expecting db setup


I'll look into this before, but I wanted to test/write quickly that rc2
is not suitable for release.  I hope these issues are relatively easy to
address.