dmdz

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 03/11/2010 12:11 PM, Ellery Newcomer wrote:
> So I'm toying with a prototype, which is proving nice enough, but there
> be a few things that I'm not quite sure which way to go with.

I was eagerly waiting for you to get back regarding this project. Thank you!

> Currently I have the general pattern
>
> dmdz [global flags] foo1.zip [foo1 local flags] foo2.zip [foo2 local
> flags] ...
>
> although when given multiple zips it just compiles them independently.
>
> My thought was when fooi.zip compiles a lib file, the result should be
> made available to all subsequent zip files, so you could do something like
>
> dmdz lib1.zip lib2.zip main.zip
>
> where lib2 can depend on lib1 and main can depend on either lib. But
> then most if not all of lib1's flags need to be forwarded to lib2 and main.
>
> The other alternative I thought of is all the zip files get extracted
> and then all compiled at once.
>
> Or is multiple zip files even a good idea?

To me this looks like a definite V2 thing honed by experience. For now 
the focus is distributing entire programs as one zip file.

> For the more specific case
>
> dmdz [global flags] foo.zip [local flags]
>
> it expects all the relevant content in foo.zip to be located inside
> directory foo, and doesn't extract anything else unless you explicitly
> tell it to.

I don't understand this. Does the program foo.zip have to contain an 
actual directory called "foo"? That's a bit restrictive. My initial plan 
revolved around expanding foo.zip somewhere in a unique subdir of the 
temp directory and considering that a full-blown project resides inside 
that subdir.

> Also, there can be a file 'cmd' (name?) inside foo.zip which contains
> additional flags for the compile, with local flags overriding global
> flags overriding flags found in cmd. At least for dmdz flags.

How about dmd.conf?

> dmd flags get filtered out and forwarded to dmd.
>
> The current strategy for compiling just involves giving every compilable
> thing extracted to dmd. There's also an option to compile each source
> file separately (which I put in after hitting an odd Out of Memory Error).
>
> Comments?

That sounds about right. One thing I want is to stay reasonably KISS 
(e.g. like rdmd is), i.e. not invent a lot of arcana. rdmd has many 
heuristics and limitations but has the virtue that it gets a specific 
job done without requiring its user to learn most anything. I hope dmdz 
turns out similarly simple.

> Also, are there any plans for std.zip, e.g. with regard to ranges,
> input/output streams, etc? The current api seems a smidge spartan.

I've hoped to rewrite std.zip forever, but found no time to do so.


Andrei