Recent changes in xfsprogs

Recent changes in xfsprogs

[Nathan Scott]

Yo Barry,

xfsprogs/doc/CHANGES

        - Rename include/list.h to xfs_list.h so that other applications
          do not accidentally use it.

What was the problem here?  This doesnt sound like the right fix -
there should be no applications outside of the XFS userspace that
use libxfs.h - thats what <xfs/xfs.h> is for (exactly this reason,
preventing namespace collision, by reducing all the XFS internals
being exposed).

Also, there seems to be lots of checkin mail not making it out to
oss.sgi.com (let alone review mail), making it difficult for people
to keep up to date with changes (and keep distros, like Debian,
uptodate) ... could y'all make some effort to keep us "on the
outside" in the loop?

Oh, noone is updating oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/{news,index}.html
with recent changes either - seems like progress has come to a
halt to those of us no longer in the secret cabal, anyway ;) ...
just FYI.

cheers.

-- 
Nathan

Re: Recent changes in xfsprogs

[David Chatterton]

Nathan,

Nathan Scott wrote:
> Yo Barry,
> 
> xfsprogs/doc/CHANGES
> 
>         - Rename include/list.h to xfs_list.h so that other applications
>           do not accidentally use it.
> 
> What was the problem here?  This doesnt sound like the right fix -
> there should be no applications outside of the XFS userspace that
> use libxfs.h - thats what <xfs/xfs.h> is for (exactly this reason,
> preventing namespace collision, by reducing all the XFS internals
> being exposed).
> 

A classic problem with cpp is that it is possible for someone else to
introduce a header that breaks your build. By introducing a header
called list.h, a very common name, we have exposed products whose build
may not have strictly doing the right thing (adding /usr/include/xfs to
their include path) to pulling in this file rather than the one they
intended.

So strictly speaking XFS was doing nothing wrong, but its a simple
change for us to make to be more friendly. The application that had this
problem has also been fixed to use <xfs/foo.h>.

> Also, there seems to be lots of checkin mail not making it out to
> oss.sgi.com (let alone review mail), making it difficult for people
> to keep up to date with changes (and keep distros, like Debian,
> uptodate) ... could y'all make some effort to keep us "on the
> outside" in the loop?
> 

True, not everything has been escaping of late.

> Oh, noone is updating oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/{news,index}.html
> with recent changes either - seems like progress has come to a
> halt to those of us no longer in the secret cabal, anyway ;) ...
> just FYI.
> 

Its now on my list of things to do.

David

-- 
David Chatterton
XFS Engineering Manager
SGI Australia

Re: Recent changes in xfsprogs

[Nathan Scott]

On Wed, 2006-12-06 at 12:49 +1100, David Chatterton wrote:
> ...
> A classic problem with cpp is that it is possible for someone else to
> introduce a header that breaks your build.

Heh, its a poor tradesman who blames his tools. :)

>  By introducing a header
> called list.h, a very common name, we have exposed products whose build
> may not have strictly doing the right thing (adding /usr/include/xfs to
> their include path) to pulling in this file rather than the one they
> intended.

Well, clearly they're doing the wrong thing.  We've now introduced
a half-baked scheme where one random header is inconsistent with
the rest, because of some other broken application.  That's dopey.

The convention there now is such that its easy to tell what include/
files have kernel counterparts (the xfs_* prefixed ones), and the
rest are generically named (list.h, cache.h, parent.h, paths.h,
linux.h, etc).  This change now makes list.h sit in no-mans-land...
please revert it back, since the app is fixed anyway (you are also,
of course, ignoring the flip side of your own argument, which is that
other equally broken apps could be using <xfs/list.h>, which moved
and hence broke their builds).  You can't win by pandering to broken
3rd party applications... best you can do is keep the XFS stuff sane
and internally consistent.

> > Oh, noone is updating oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/{news,index}.html
> > with recent changes either - seems like progress has come to a
> > halt to those of us no longer in the secret cabal, anyway ;) ...
> > just FYI.
> > 
> 
> Its now on my list of things to do.
> 

Great - thanks!

cheers.

-- 
Nathan

Re: Recent changes in xfsprogs

[Eric Sandeen]

Nathan Scott wrote:

> Also, there seems to be lots of checkin mail not making it out to
> oss.sgi.com (let alone review mail), making it difficult for people
> to keep up to date with changes (and keep distros, like Debian,
> uptodate) ... could y'all make some effort to keep us "on the
> outside" in the loop?

here here! :)

-Eric