Re: [PATCH 0/2] Allow oe-pkgdata-util package-info to display more info

[Richard Purdie <richard.purdie@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Tue, 2017-05-16 at 12:56 +0200, Peter Kjellerstedt wrote:
> After a build in our autobuilder, we use `oe-pkgdata-util package-
> info
> -f package.manifest` to store a file with information about each
> installed package. This is typically used to compare builds later
> on. Since not every difference to a package is explained by its
> version, we have found it beneficial to also include the SRC_URI in
> the generated file.
> 
> This patch set adds SRC_URI to the pkgdata that is stored for each
> package, and adds a new option to oe-pkgdata-util package-info,
> -e <var>, that can be used to display extra variables from the
> pkgdata.

I'm going to say no to this.

The reason is that pkgdata is not really about collecting up all build
information. If you want to know how two different builds differ, you'd
use the sigdata files. If I take this patch, more will follow where you
find some new difference you want to track and there are other
mechanisms I'd suggest (buildhistory and siginfo for starters). I don't
want to turn the pkgdata files into something they're not.

Cheers,

Richard