[vlc-devel] Re: vlc: svn commit r12215 (massiot)

[Christophe Massiot]

On Thu, Aug 18, 2005, Remi Denis-Courmont wrote:

> Linking the whole VLC is slow, and recompiling one file + relinking at
> every make is a severe breakage of the ideas behind make.

Well if you modified a built-in file, you will need to relink VLC, so
regenerating version.c doesn't add much time. If only a file in a
plug-in has been modified, nobody in their right mind would use 'make',
since 'make -C modules/demux' is about 100 times faster, so there
version.c is not even regenerated.

> Also, there's hardly any point in having the SVN revision in binaries.
> Besides, it is conceptually broken given there is no SVN revision number
> in tarballs, and that's what binaries are supposed to be built from.
> 
> All other versions infos (version numbers, compile host, flags, blabla)
> are determined at configure time and need not cause a rebuild at every
> make. That is, in my opinion, the right place to do it, and the place
> where we've been doing it until now.

Having the SVN revision in binaries is VERY convenient for people who
release intermediate versions to beta testers. I have to release test
versions for the freeplayer stuff, and when I'm reported a bug I
strongly prefer to have a revision number than an unprecise date of
build. And apparently I am not the only one needing it.

You must understand that with the involvement of external companies in
the development of VLC, and their distribution of modified versions of
VLC, it is important for us, simply to enforce the GPL, to know which
changeset binary releases are based on, and whether they have been
modified. svnversion gives us both pieces of information. Of course
it is not meaningful for official VLC releases since we know what we
release, but that was not the point here.

As for the compile host etc., I'm OK to admit that they are unlikely to
change after a ./configure, so I wouldn't mind if they were only
generated on configuration. But it is important that svnversion remain
called on each build because modifications can be made without
reconfiguring.

> Finally, I couldn't check, but I'd suspect it breaks if you don't run
> make/make all but use a more specific target.

Then please check.

> > the update of the version file and its compilation, which approximately
> > needs ... well, maybe 2 or 3 seconds on decent hardware.
>                                           ^^^^^^
> 
> Yeah, decent as in VTHR or developer's laptops ??

If this make a real difference to you, I'm sure you can find the lines to
comment out so that toolbox generates a blank file. This is only
intended for the convenience of the developer so if you don't plan to
use it, just disable it in your builds. But other people desperately
need it.

-- 
Christophe Massiot.

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