[Boxer-devel] What exactly does boxer do?

[Stephan Foley]

Thanks for the reply!

On Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at 1:09 AM, Jonas Smedegaard <dr at jones.dk> wrote:
> Quoting Stephan Foley (2016-01-17 10:06:45)
>> Hello, I am looking at the source for boxer and trying to figure out
>> what it does. Here is the file listing:
>>
>> perl5/auto
>> perl5/auto/share
>> perl5/auto/share/dist
>> perl5/auto/share/dist/Boxer
>> perl5/auto/share/dist/Boxer/skel
>> perl5/auto/share/dist/Boxer/skel/preseed.cfg.in
>> perl5/auto/share/dist/Boxer/skel/script.sh.in
>> perl5/Boxer
>> perl5/Boxer/CLI
>> perl5/Boxer/CLI/Command
>> perl5/Boxer/CLI/Command/About.pm
>> perl5/Boxer/CLI/Command/Aliases.pm
>> perl5/Boxer/CLI/Command/Commands.pm
>> perl5/Boxer/CLI/Command/Compose.pm
>> perl5/Boxer/CLI/Command.pm
>> perl5/Boxer/CLI.pm
>> perl5/Boxer/Role
>> perl5/Boxer/Role/Interact.pm
>> perl5/Boxer/Task
>> perl5/Boxer/Task/Classify.pm
>> perl5/Boxer/Task/Serialize.pm
>> perl5/Boxer/Task.pm
>> perl5/Boxer/Types.pm
>> perl5/Boxer.pm
>>
>> Ideally, someone can explain what is happening in Task, Types, Role,
>> CLI, etc. Thanks :-)
>
> What more specifically are you uncertain about?

Well, first of all, I am uncertain of the output...can I see an
install script created by boxer.

I am assuming boxer is a ninja level parser...it takes a language in
yaml and outputs the correct metafiles, debian/control and
debian/rules files...correct?

Then, what is the difference between Task, Types and Role? And what is
CLI? Also, what is auto/share/dist/Boxer and what is preseed.cfg.in?

Basically...I want a walk through of the entire thing :-)

> I have no plans to rewirte Boxer in Python (I see no benefit in that),
> but next major release will hopefully change (or extend) to handle data
> expressed not in custom YAML but in standards-based RDF.  I would be
> quite happy to get help in tackling that, if interested.

I used to be very good with Perl, until I switched to Python...maybe I
can help out a bit :-)