Date: Sun, 27 May 2007 16:12:54 -0700 From: Bakul Shah <bakul@bitblocks.com> To: Stephen Montgomery-Smith <stephen@math.missouri.edu> Cc: ports@freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Looking for speed increases in "make index" and pkg_version for ports Message-ID: <20070527231254.D0C325B5E@mail.bitblocks.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 27 May 2007 15:52:16 CDT." <4659EF80.70100@math.missouri.edu>
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Not quite what you asked for but... Given the size and complexity of the port system I have long felt that rather than do everything via more and more complex Mk/*.mk what is is needed is a ports server and a thin CLI frontend to it. This server can store dependency data in an efficient manner, deal with conditional dependencies, port renames, security and what not. It can build or fetch or serve packages, handle updates etc. Things mentioned in UPDATING file can instead be done by the server. In general it can automate a lot of stuff, remove error prone redundancies etc. If it is small enough and written in C, it can even be shipped with the base system instead of various pkg_* programs. It can provide two interfaces, one for normal users (with commands like add, check, config, delete, info, search, update, which) and one for port developers (command for adding/remove/renaming ports, etc.). Initially it must work with existing Makefiles. > I have been thinking a lot about looking for speed increases for "make > index" and pkg_version and things like that. So for example, in > pkg_version, it calls "make -V PKGNAME" for every installed package. > Now "make -V PKGNAME" should be a speedy operation, but the make has to > load in and analyze bsd.port.mk, a quite complicated file with about > 200,000 characters in it, when all it is needing to do is to figure out > the value of the variable PKGNAME. > > I suggest rewriting "make" so that variables are only evaluated on a > "need to know" basis. So, for example, if all we need to know is > PKGNAME, there is no need to evaluate, for example, _RUN_LIB_DEPENDS, > unless the writer of that particular port has done something like having > PORTNAME depend on the value of _RUN_LIB_DEPENDS. So "make" should > analyze all the code it is given, and only figure it out if it is needed > to do so. This would include, for example, figuring out .for and .if > directives on a need to know basis as well. > > I have only poked around a little inside the source for make, but I have > a sense that this would be a major undertaking. I certainly have not > thought through what it entails in more than a cursory manner. However > I am quite excited about the possibility of doing this, albeit I may > well put off the whole thing for a year or two or even forever depending > upon other priorities in my life. > > However, in the mean time I want to throw this idea out there to get > some feedback, either of the form of "this won't work," or of the form > "I will do it," or "I have tried to do this." > > Best regards, Stephen > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hackers-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
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