Create distribution packages for ubuntu (.deb release v0.0.1) #129

dockerh · 2025-06-11T20:25:00Z

Ubuntu Packaging with CPack & GitHub Actions

This PR introduces a GitHub Actions workflow for building and packaging the Unicode Inflection library on Ubuntu using CPack. It generates .deb and .tar.gz artifacts and uploads them to GitHub Releases when a Git tag is pushed. ICU 77.1 is installed from a prebuilt binary release.

Key Changes

CMake / CPack Configuration

Updates CMakeLists.txt to:
- Dynamically parse version from Git tags (e.g. Inflection-0.1.0)
- Configure CPack to generate .deb and .tar.gz artifacts

GitHub Actions Workflow

Workflow file: .github/workflows/create-ubuntu-distribution-packaging.yml
Triggered on tag push (e.g., v0.1.0)
Key steps:
- Installs ICU 77.1 from a prebuilt Ubuntu binary
- Builds using Clang with CMake
- Runs tests with make check
- Packages using cpack
- Uploads artifacts to GitHub Release

Outputs

Ubuntu .deb package
Source .tar.gz package

grhoten · 2025-06-12T05:21:58Z

inflection/CMakeLists.txt

+
+set(CPACK_PACKAGE_NAME "unicode-inflection")
+set(CPACK_PACKAGE_VENDOR "Unicode Consortium")
+set(CPACK_PACKAGE_CONTACT "grhoten@gmail.com")


I think we need to find another contact. I'm not sure that I'm ready to have my email address here.

Is that a mandatory field? If we have to have it, we can use the inflection-team@unicode.org one.

I’d prefer just listing the official GitHub project. The discussion page can be used for communication.

grhoten · 2025-06-12T05:22:36Z

inflection/CMakeLists.txt

+
+# DEB-specific options
+set(CPACK_DEBIAN_PACKAGE_MAINTAINER "Unicode Consortium <grhoten@gmail.com>")
+set(CPACK_DEBIAN_PACKAGE_DEPENDS "libicu-dev (>= 77.1)")


The dev part is only needed for building. The non-dev dependency is needed for runtime.

I'll update the dependency to libicu77 for runtime

nciric

Looks good in general with some comments.

nciric · 2025-06-12T21:52:56Z

.github/workflows/create-ubuntu-distribution-package.yml

+      - 'v*'
+  workflow_dispatch:
+  pull_request:
+    branches: [ main, master ]


I don't think we need the master part. It's obsolete and our repo doesn't have it.

nciric · 2025-06-12T21:54:08Z

.github/workflows/create-ubuntu-distribution-package.yml

+      with:
+        lfs: true
+
+    - name: Setup Git LFS


We can land it as is for now, but fix it after Frank lands 128 (LFS caching).

Sounds good.

nciric · 2025-06-12T21:54:49Z

.github/workflows/create-ubuntu-distribution-package.yml

+        sudo apt update
+        sudo apt install -y cmake build-essential clang pkg-config
+
+    - name: Install ICU 77.1


ICU caching already landed - we can use it here to save bandwidth.

nciric · 2025-06-12T21:56:35Z

inflection/CMakeLists.txt

+
+set(CPACK_PACKAGE_NAME "unicode-inflection")
+set(CPACK_PACKAGE_VENDOR "Unicode Consortium")
+set(CPACK_PACKAGE_CONTACT "grhoten@gmail.com")


Is that a mandatory field? If we have to have it, we can use the inflection-team@unicode.org one.

nciric · 2025-06-16T18:06:43Z

.github/workflows/create-ubuntu-distribution-package.yml

+    - name: Install ICU 77.1
+      run: |
+        cd /tmp
+        wget https://github.com/unicode-org/icu/releases/download/release-77-1/icu4c-77_1-src.tgz


Why do we download and compile sources? Why not just download and install binary release for Ubuntu? It takes time to compile ICU.

One needs to only copy the $download_location/usr tree to /usr/local/ folder

See https://github.com/unicode-org/inflection/pull/128/files for example on how to do it.

Thanks for the feedback, I’ll update the workflow to use the binary release and copy the $download_location/usr tree to /usr/local instead of building from source.

CLAassistant · 2025-07-04T19:00:56Z

All committers have signed the CLA.

nciric · 2025-07-07T15:52:49Z

.github/workflows/create-ubuntu-distribution-packaging.yml

+    tags:
+      - 'v*'
+  workflow_dispatch:
+  pull_request:


Would this run the flow on each pull request? I don't think we need that.

I’ll remove the pull_request trigger so the workflow runs only on tag pushes and manual dispatch.

nciric · 2025-07-07T15:53:53Z

.github/workflows/create-ubuntu-distribution-packaging.yml

+        run: |
+          sudo ldconfig
+
+      - name: Debug ICU version


Do we need this for final version?

This was helpful for initial testing, but I agree, it can be removed from the final version. I’ll delete the debug step.

nciric · 2025-07-07T15:54:51Z

.github/workflows/create-ubuntu-distribution-packaging.yml

+      - name: Run tests
+        run: |
+          cd inflection/build
+          make check


I think you can run test in parallel as with previous step (-j$...)

Yes,
I’ll update the make check step to use -j$(nproc) for parallel test execution.

nciric · 2025-07-07T16:02:33Z

.github/workflows/create-ubuntu-distribution-packaging.yml

+        if: steps.cache-icu.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
+        run: |
+          cd /tmp
+          wget https://github.com/unicode-org/icu/releases/download/release-77-1/icu4c-77_1-Ubuntu22.04-x64.tgz


can we extract the ICU version into a variable and use in multiple places? Just the icu4c-77_1-Ubuntu22.04-x64.tgz part

What about ARM64?

Let me look into it, Currently, this workflow targets x64. I’ll explore adding runs-on: ubuntu-latest matrix support for arm64.

nciric · 2025-07-07T16:03:33Z

.github/workflows/create-ubuntu-distribution-packaging.yml

+          path: /usr/local
+          key: icu-77.1-ubuntu-${{ runner.os }}
+
+      - name: Install ICU 77.1 (Binary)


Pls remove the version from the name - this step will stay the same in the future, we'll just have to update the numbers below.

I’ll rename the step to something generic like Install ICU (Binary)

grhoten · 2025-07-07T16:27:09Z

Is it possible to derive the version of the Debian package from resources/share/inflection/config.properties?

dockerh · 2025-07-07T19:30:14Z

Is it possible to derive the version of the Debian package from resources/share/inflection/config.properties?

Great suggestion, I'll look into it.

nciric · 2025-07-07T21:34:11Z

Btw I asked LLM to do something like this, and it came close:

CMake

# Install the library and header files
install(TARGETS inflection DESTINATION lib)
install(DIRECTORY "${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/include/" DESTINATION include)

# --- CPack configuration ---
set(CPACK_PACKAGE_NAME "inflection")
set(CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION ${PROJECT_VERSION})
set(CPACK_PACKAGE_DESCRIPTION_SUMMARY "A C++ library for handling grammatical inflection")
set(CPACK_PACKAGE_VENDOR "Unicode")
set(CPACK_PACKAGE_FILE_NAME "${CPACK_PACKAGE_NAME}-${CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION}-${CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME}")
set(CPACK_GENERATOR "TGZ;ZIP")

include(CPack)

Action with ICU caching:

name: Create Binary Release

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - 'v*'

jobs:
  build_and_release:
    name: Build and Release
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    strategy:
      matrix:
        os: [ubuntu-latest, windows-latest, macos-latest]

    steps:
    - name: Checkout code
      uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: Configure CMake
      run: cmake -B build

    - name: Build project
      run: cmake --build build --config Release

    - name: Package with CPack
      run: |
        cd build
        cpack -C Release

    - name: Get package name
      id: get_package_name
      run: |
        cd build
        PACKAGE_FILE=$(find . -name "inflection-*.zip" -o -name "inflection-*.tar.gz" | head -n 1)
        echo "package_file=$PACKAGE_FILE" >> $GITHUB_ENV
        echo "asset_name=$(basename $PACKAGE_FILE)" >> $GITHUB_ENV

    - name: Upload Release Asset
      uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
      with:
        files: ${{ env.package_file }}
        name: Release ${{ github.ref_name }}
        tag_name: ${{ github.ref }}
        body: "Binary release for version ${{ github.ref_name }}"
      env:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

nciric · 2025-07-10T21:30:46Z

inflection/CMakeLists.txt

+  list(GET INFLECTION_VERSION_LIST 2 CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_PATCH)
+endif()
+
+


remove extra new lines (line 141 and here).

nciric · 2025-07-10T21:33:16Z

inflection/CMakeLists.txt

+set(CPACK_PACKAGE_NAME "unicode-inflection")
+set(CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION "${INFLECTION_VERSION}")
+
+


I would put a comment here:

# Apply the current tagged Inflection version to the CPack version. # CPack inherits the version from ??? so we need to reset before the assignment.

nciric · 2025-07-10T21:36:45Z

.github/workflows/create-ubuntu-distribution-packaging.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+name: Build & Package (Ubuntu)


We should have a comment on top (or a separate document) that tells us how to update ICU dependancy:

# To update ICU version: # 1. Update ICU_VERSION variable # 2. Check package names, e.g. is it still Ubuntu22.04- # 3. Update inflection/CMakeLists.txt where we check CPACK_DEBIAN_PACKAGE_DEPENDS "libicu77 (>= 77.1)"

Anything else I missed?

Good idea, will do that.

grhoten reviewed Jun 12, 2025

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nciric reviewed Jun 12, 2025

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nciric reviewed Jun 16, 2025

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dockerh force-pushed the release/ubuntu-packaging-v0.0.1 branch 2 times, most recently from d526bf8 to dde6c7a Compare July 5, 2025 08:12

Github workflow for Ubuntu Packaging

a22316b

dockerh force-pushed the release/ubuntu-packaging-v0.0.1 branch from dde6c7a to a22316b Compare July 5, 2025 19:38

dockerh added 2 commits July 6, 2025 01:08

Github workflow for Ubuntu Packaging.

fde11ea

Github workflow for Ubuntu Packaging!

c3864d6

dockerh requested review from grhoten and nciric July 6, 2025 08:50

nciric requested changes Jul 7, 2025

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nciric reviewed Jul 7, 2025

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Refactor packaging workflow based on the feedback

6421ce9

dockerh added 4 commits July 10, 2025 00:57

Fix CPack versioning: derive major/minor/patch from INFLECTION_VERSION

8a8fa41

Fixing Version Issue

a5800f8

Fixing the Cmake Version

c9ae1f4

Fix: Cpack Version Handling

67ba8aa

dockerh requested a review from nciric July 10, 2025 20:51

nciric approved these changes Jul 10, 2025

View reviewed changes

Add CPack-based Ubuntu packaging and GitHub Actions release workflow

a45eb4d

dockerh requested a review from nciric July 12, 2025 19:46

		list(GET INFLECTION_VERSION_LIST 2 CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_PATCH)
		endif()

		set(CPACK_PACKAGE_NAME "unicode-inflection")
		set(CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION "${INFLECTION_VERSION}")

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Create distribution packages for ubuntu (.deb release v0.0.1) #129

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Create distribution packages for ubuntu (.deb release v0.0.1) #129

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Ubuntu Packaging with CPack & GitHub Actions

Key Changes

CMake / CPack Configuration

GitHub Actions Workflow

Outputs

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