[Reproducible-builds] Minimising work needed for this build-path issue

Ximin Luo infinity0 at debian.org
Mon Sep 19 10:46:00 UTC 2016


HW42:
> Ximin Luo:
>> Ximin Luo:
>>> I'm going to suggest SOURCE_ROOT_DIR [..]
>>
>> OTOH, taking into account dkg's earlier point about overloading
>> "root", perhaps SOURCE_BASE_DIR would be better.
>>
>> It is used quite heavily:
>>
>> https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=\bSOURCE_BASE_DIR\b
>>
>> but only by cmake files:
>>
>> https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=\bSOURCE_BASE_DIR\b+-path%3A.cmake%24+-path%3ACMakeLists.txt%24
>>
>> However, they seem to use this to mean the same thing as what we want,
>> so it could actually be an argument in favour of us using the name
>> too. (I've not seen how it works for subprojects, I will have to dig
>> deeper for that.)
> 
> I disagree. Using something already used will hit back in someway.
> I did not look closely at the CMake files but it looks like this means
> something else if for some reason the their SOURCE_BASE_DIR isn't at the
> toplevel.
> 

OK, it turns out they use this to mean the parent of the package's source root, i.e. the directory that contains many packages' source code. This is what I was afraid some projects might use "source root" to mean (i.e. something like /usr/src), in the same way that $datarootdir in GNU conventions means /usr/share and $datadir refers to /usr/share/$pkg.

> If you like SOURCE_BASE_DIR, why not SOURCE_BASE_DIRECTORY [0].
> 
> [0]: https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=\bSOURCE_BASE_DIRECTORY\b

This is too long, I will just go with SOURCE_ROOT_DIR for the time being unless I get some better ideas. SOURCE_TOP_DIR is another candidate (used by 1 package as a python constant [1]) but I think both "top" and "root" suffers similarly from the ambiguity issue described previously.

[1] https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=\bSOURCE_ROOT_DIR\b

On an unrelated note, I don't like this overuse of "I disagree" and it's a really bad pattern I've seen in various other internet threads. It's (1) a waste of readers' time (2) adds nothing to the discussion and (3) is pointlessly antagonistic. Indeed if 10 people replied to this thread merely to say "I disagree" I would completely disregard these replies; they don't push the discussion forward, nor explain why something is to be disagreed with. The statement is useless, let's focus on writing sentences actually related to the topic at hand.

X

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