Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 19:49:25 -0500 From: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> To: freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Call for feedback on a Ports-collection change Message-ID: <p0602041abc1660a416d0@[128.113.24.47]>
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I have been pondering a possible change for the way the ports collection is done. I've done a little exploration into the idea, but I thought I'd ask for more feedback before sinking more time into it. I believe I have someone who would do much of the actual work for this change, so I think I can make it happen, but I want to know if the FreeBSD ports project would be interested in this idea if I come up with some working version. To keep this as a "doable" project, I also have a fairly modest goal: Further reduce the inode-count of the ports collection. That's it. There are many things which could be done as a follow-on to this, but that's all I want to try for right now. The method is also pretty modest. The only thing that makes this a big project is the need to do it across the entire ports collection, and without causing any disruption. What I want to do is create one new file per port, and then move almost all the other files into that new file. Ideally each port would end up with just two files. The Makefile, and this new file (some ports might also need a Makefile.inc file). Especially as disks get ever-larger, I think we're better off with fewer-but-larger files, instead of a larger number of tiny files. I would also write a single simple program, which knows how to find the correct info for any given purpose. Thus, the format of the file should not be important. The program would know what to do for both "old-style" and "new-style" ports, so we don't have to convert the entire collection at once. I think the easiest and clearest way to implement this would be one C program, and not 800 lines of /bin/sh commands and deep make-magic. Does this seem like a reasonable project for me to pursue? Does it conflict with other projects which are already in the works to do a similar restructuring? I wouldn't want to start this project if no one thinks it is worth doing. [This message is BCC'ed to FreeBSD-arch, but I expect the discussion to happen on FreeBSD-ports] -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu
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