[sane-devel] Moving certain backends to separate directories

[Povilas Kanapickas]

Hi Olaf,

On 8/12/19 3:36 PM, Olaf Meeuwissen wrote:
> Hi Povilas,
> 
> Povilas Kanapickas writes:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> The genesys backend on the current master comprises of 42 files. I
>> propose to move it under `backend/genesys`? The same could eventually be
>> done to other larger backends (or maybe even all backends) as the
>> `backend` directory is becoming hard to navigate.
> 
> I agree that for backends that consist of more than a "handful" of files
> it may be convenient/desirable to move them into a directory of their
> own below backend/.  If doing so, we would need a naming convention and
> what you suggest, using the backend's name as the directory name, makes
> sense and works fine.

It's great that we agree.

> Moving things to a dedicated backend/$BACKEND_NAME directory also makes
> it slightly more convenient to limit searches and may make recompiling a
> bit more performant (depending on how you integrate the build bits).
> 
> One question though, what are you're thoughts on the automake end of
> this approach?  There are a couple of options here:
> 
>  - add a SUBDIRS variable to backend/Makefile.am and write a dedicated
>    Makefile.am for your backend.  This approach will not be able to
>    benefit from any common settings in backend/Makefile.am but keeps it
>    content focussed on the backend at hand.
> 
>  - just insert the directory name everywhere in backend/Makefile.am for
>    files related to your backend.  This simply makes that file a tad
>    more verbose.  You'd still be able to benefit from common settings
>    but backend/Makefile.am would still have to cater to all backends.
> 
>  - extract the backend/Makefile.am bits for your backend into a snippet
>    for inclusion in backend/Makefile.am.  The snippet could either live
>    in backend/ or in backend/$BACKEND_NAME.  In both cases I would call
>    it $BACKEND_NAME.am and in both cases it would have to include the
>    $BACKEND_NAME directory in file names.  This approach would be able
>    to benefit from common settings in backend/Makefile.am and keep focus
>    on the backend at hand nevertheless.

I think that for the beginning it could probably make sense just to edit
backend/Makefile.am and insert the directory name there. We could
explore more complex options later.

Regards,
Povilas