Re: [OE-core] [PATCH RFC] bitbake.conf/pseudo: Switch from exclusion list to inclusion list

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

On Mon, 2023-12-11 at 20:35 +0000, Ross Burton wrote:
> On 11 Dec 2023, at 17:35, Richard Purdie via lists.openembedded.org <richard.purdie=linuxfoundation.org@lists.openembedded.org> wrote:
> > 
> > Currently, pseudo tracks all files referenced within it's presence unless
> > they're listed in an exclusion list. The exclusion list has grown to be
> > fairly unwieldy.
> > 
> > This patch swaps PSEUDO_IGNORE_PATHS for PSEUDO_INCLUDE_PATHS which in
> > theory should be easier and more explicit to maintain.
> 
> I’ve never understood the rationale behind exclude over include (then again there’s lots I don’t understand), so I’m very much for this in principle.

If you create a file and then move it into pseudo's "sight",
problematic things can happen. That sounds like an odd thing to do
until you see tmp files created in /tmp, or a "cp /dev/null newfile" or
the fun games you can play with /proc.

Another example would be create something in cwd (not included), then
move it so becomes something which is included and the permissions are
lost.

The argument was that exclusions were therefore safer than inclusions
and in some ways that is true. The question is which is going to work
the best and be the most maintainable too. This patch at least allows
us to experiment with the other choice.

Cheers,

Richard