CI / release: Linux wheels: dependency on ziglang?

[jayaddison]

During the GitHub Actions CI build of ua-parser-rs wheels for linux systems, the PyO3/maturin-action@04ac600d27cdf7a9a280dadf7147097c42b757ad action is called with the --zig option enabled:

uap-python/.github/workflows/release-wheels.yml

Lines 73 to 75 in 2179269

	case 'linux':
	job['manylinux'] = 'auto'
	job['args'] = ' --zig'

I think that's a legacy factor, resulting from the port of the wheel publication code from the uap-rust repository.

Is ziglang required for the wheel builds here? If so, I think it could help to declare the dependency more clearly; and if not, then I think that option should probably be removed.

(NB: as far as I can tell, that version of maturin-action will proceed without an error if ziglang is unavailable when requested)

Edit: markdown syntax fixup

[masklinn]

I don't think it's necessary anymore, I believe I added it at the start because I was cross-compiling, but it didn't really work right and then the ARM64 windows and linux builders became available to free repositories so I switched over to that (ua-parser/uap-rust@2a0a85c). I either didn't think of removing it, or figured it couldn't hurt, couldn't tell you.

Does it cause problems?

NB: as far as I can tell, that version of maturin-action will proceed without an error if ziglang is unavailable when requested

If it's unavailable yes, but it doesn't need to be installed separately, maturin will install zig if available for the platform: https://github.com/ua-parser/uap-python/actions/runs/24009038924/job/70017466074#step:5:43

[jayaddison]

It's not causing any problems as far as I know, no - it stood out when I was inspecting the diff from 1.0.1...1.0.2 here.

I attempted a build of ua-parser-rs in this repository without ziglang installed, and that succeeded, so maybe it is unused?

[jayaddison]

@masklinn would you accept a pull request to remove the --zig build argument?

[masklinn]

sure.

[jayaddison]

After learning more in #315 -- and reading the maturin documentation -- I now think that Zig is used to support cross-platform manylinux Python wheel builds, providing an alternative to Docker-based wheel builds.

[masklinn]

Closing for the reason noted above, turns out --zig is apparently of use.