[sos-devel] sosreport manifest?

[Bryn M. Reeves]

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On 03/12/2012 01:00 PM, Andrew Hecox wrote:
>> tar archives provide a journal/manifest of the names of files,
>> and where they are. Because tar is a well known file format,
>> there are already language bindings in place for everything
>> anyone would want to do.

Unfortunately this does not solve the problem; as I mentioned before
the tar structure should be considered an ABI. It is subject to change
and is not discoverable in a way that will support upcoming changes in
a robust way.

For instance, sos will soon need to have the ability to collect the
same configuration file from multiple locations and to record this
information in the archive. While it would be possible to search all
archives for all possible paths this is inefficient and prone to
failure. For instance, if we change the set of command line options
used to run a program the path in the tarball will changes as might
the content present at that path.

This also cannot address more complex manipulations of the data than a
simple "read this data from this path". In looking at the tools that
consume sos data there is huge overlap and commonality in the
information that they retrieve and the processing that they carry out.
Reinventing this in each project that has overlapping requirements is
not maintainable long-term and will hinder sos's ability to adapt to
meet changing requirements (since there will be pressure to not make
changes that would affect downstream consumers).

Regards,
Bryn.
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