On 8/21/2012 7:36 PM, Gregory Szorc wrote:
On the other end of the spectrum, we could have the build manifest
files be Python "scripts." This solves a lot of problems around
needing functionality in the manifest files. But, it would be a
potential foot gun. See requirement #7.
I don't think this would be a big deal. We could just enforce no side
effects at review, or with a small bit of python we could enforce some
basic restraints in code:
* allow imports from only a small whitelist of known-safe modules:
perhaps just 're', or disallow imports altogether (by modifying the
globals in the execution environment) and pre-import the safe modules
* "fix" output variables to ensure that they are the expected
string/list-of-strings/whatever types
I really think that python manifests are the best choice here, since
python is already optimized to parse them efficiently, the control
structures are fairly straightforward, and most people (both regular
engineers and build-sytem hackers) are going to know enough to get
started without confusion.
One thing that wasn't clear to me from the original post is whether we
are planning on automatically transforming some parts of the existing
makefiles (e.g. DIRS, EXPORTS, preprocessor stuff) into the new manifest
format, or whether the plan is to just migrate by hand. Or is that still
TBD?
--BDS
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