[sos-devel] sosreport manifest?

[Bryn M. Reeves]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 03/12/2012 02:35 PM, Andrew Hecox wrote:
> On 03/12/2012 10:17 AM, Bryn M. Reeves wrote: 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.
> 
>> I'd guess to most consumers, the logical layout & content is an
>> API found through tar bindings for whatever your specific
>> languages are.

That does not make an API. APIs have a published specification, are
well-defined and stable for some defined purpose. None of those
criteria are met by the structure of the tarball.

> 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.
> 
>> what are these "same configuration file from multiple locations"
>> use-cases?

It's a feature request we've received to permit sos to function in the
case that multiple versions of the same package are installed on the
system in different locations. Various distributions permit this in
one manner or another so it's something we will have to support very soon.

Regards,
Bryn.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAk9eCsUACgkQ6YSQoMYUY95ctACguWPWrHeN0/ZPvraqZ2uos13e
x8MAn2bwAnG0wxGyp+l3vNKqja3NEttO
=gD8+
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----