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

[Peter Kjellerstedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Purdie [mailto:richard.purdie at linuxfoundation.org]
> Sent: den 16 maj 2017 15:15
> To: Peter Kjellerstedt <peter.kjellerstedt at axis.com>; openembedded-
> core at lists.openembedded.org
> Subject: Re: [OE-core] [PATCH 0/2] Allow oe-pkgdata-util package-info
> to display more info
> 
> 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

As you may have expected, that was not the response I had hoped for.
However, I will see if we can come to a working solution that you can 
accept.

Since I hope that the change to oe-pkgdata-util is acceptable to you, 
I will focus on the change in package.bbclass.

Regarding siginfo: I assume it has the information in there somewhere. 
However, I have been working with OE for five years now, and it is still 
basically a black hole to me. I have no idea how to do anything useful 
with it.

Regarding buildhistory: AFAICT there is nothing in there about neither 
recipe names nor SRC_URI. I guess that can be added, though, if really 
needed.

On the other hand, we have a tool, oe-pkgdata-util, that provides a 
simple interface to access the package information, and can produce a 
simple information file (oe-pkgdata-util package-info) with one line 
per package. This file is simple enough that I can give it to our 
maintenance team and they can look at it to see if there are any 
differences they need to know about. An additional benefit here is that 
we can run oe-pkgdata-util from within a bitbake task to generate the 
file together with the other artefacts we produce for a release.

That said, I can understand that you do not want to add information to 
the pkgdata that is not really needed to build. However, would you accept 
a way to add to this data, e.g., by specifying a BitBake variable such as 
EXTRA_PKGDATA_VARS with the names of the extra variables that should be 
stored in pkgdata? That way it would not affect anyone unless they 
actually need this extra data, and I would not have the burden of carrying 
a backported version of package.bbclass forever in our layers with all the 
extra maintenance that incurs.

//Peter