Subject: Re: [PATCH] config.mak.uname: use iconv from Homebrew on macOS

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2025 18:59:08 +0900

Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> writes:

> "brian m. carlson" <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> On 2025-12-09 at 19:35:34, René Scharfe wrote:
>>> The library function iconv(3) supplied with macOS versions 15.7.2
>>> (Sequoia) and 26.1 (Tahoe) is unreliable when doing conversions from
>>> ISO-2022-JP to UTF-8 in multiple steps; t3900 reports this breakage:
>>> 
>>>   not ok 17 - ISO-2022-JP should be shown in UTF-8 now
>>>   not ok 25 - ISO-2022-JP should be shown in UTF-8 now
>>>   not ok 38 - commit --fixup into ISO-2022-JP from UTF-8
>>> 
>>> As a workaround, use libiconv from Homebrew, if available.
>>
>> I like this solution, since it means when Apple ships their own Git
>> (which doesn't use Homebrew), they will be incentivized to fix the
>> problem since the test fails.
>
> Well, their build without Homebrew would fail with or without this
> patch, no?  It is a good thing either way ;-)

Does anybody know if a purely vanilla installation of macOS, without
any third-party software collection like homebrewk, is supposed to
be even serviceable?  That is, if somebody at Apple builds a version
of Git that they ship themselves (they do, don't they?), can they
untar the latest tarball on a vanilla macOS box, type "make test",
and expect it to pass?

Are there folks in the audience, with stakes in having such a thing
working, whether working for Apple or not, listening?  Can you
perhaps help us to get to that point?  The effort would involve (1)
fixing bugs in their own system, like this iconv issue, (2) marking
some part of the expectation unachievable by sprinkling !macOS
prerequisite in our tests, if bugs in their system like iconv cannot
be fixed for some reason, and (3) once we get to the point of
passing all tests, have a CI job to make sure we will stay clean.

Or do folks in macOS ecosystem already do something similar but
outside this mailing list, and it is useless for me to attempt to
help them?