bsd.java.mk 2.0

[Herve Quiroz]

Hi Greg,

On Fri, 23 May 2003, Greg Lewis wrote:

> > > This may need extending to cope with ports that need a JDK at run time
> > > (any examples?).
> >
> > devel/jakarta-ant ?
>
> Good call.  How about:
>
> USE_JAVA = [ BUILD-RUN ]
>
> Where BUILD and RUN may take the values jdk or jre.  I think this should
> be clear, but the BUILD portion adds a build depends and the RUN portion
> adds a run depends.  The most common case will be jdk-jre, meaning the
> port requires the JDK to build but only the jre to run.
>
> This kinda feels a little clunky, so as an alternative maybe:
>
> USE_JAVA = yes
> JAVA_BUILD = jdk
> JAVA_RUN = jre
>
> Comments?

At first, I would have said I prefer the second. But I don't know really.
Maybe with an example I can figure what you mean exactly. Tell me f I
understand correctly:

For most of the ports (libs):
USE_JAVA= BUILD=jdk RUN=jre

Which means build dependency for the chosen JDK and run dependency for the
chosen JRE

For devel/jakarta-ant:
USE_JAVA= RUN=JDK

Which means it builds without anything (JDK related I mean) as ant is
"install only" and need a JDK to run.

> > > We're obviously breaking backward compatibility here, but I think thats
> > > pretty much unavoidable to get the features we want.
> >
> > I agree... What is the policy regarding such major changes in ports ? I
> > mean it will make a lot of ports deprecated and broken. So we should
> > provide bsd.java.mk 2.0 together with all Java ports patches IMHO.
>
> The policy is that we do a sweep and fix the ports when we switch over
> to the new bsd.java.mk.  Actually, the policy is we do the sweep before
> hand and verify all work with the new bsd.java.mk and then just commit
> the changes when we commit the new bsd.java.mk.

That's ok. A lot of work at once but Java ports are not updated too often
anyway.

> > I think we've got something here: use space separated preferences (in the
> > right order) for all JDK/JRE properties. So no more "+" (e.g. "1.3+") but
> > instead an explicit list of versions...
>
> I like the space separation :).  However, I think the "+" sign is still
> useful as a short hand for 1.x 1.y ... 1.current.  It also means we don't
> have to do a sweep when a new Java version comes out and add (for example)
> 1.5 to the list.  I think for maximum flexibility and to preserve the
> usefulness of the "+" we should allow both a "+" and a space separated
> list.  If the version is written with a "+" it must be the only version,
> i.e. you can't have "1.1 1.3+" as a list.

That's a good point. The "+" is still greatly needed. And may be overriden
by the bsd.java.mk:

.if ${USE_JAVA_VERSION} == "1.3+"
USE_JAVA_VERSION= 1.3 1.2 1.1
.endif

So we need to update only bsd.java.mk when a new version of Java comes
out.

BTW, I know this is a bit off-topic but I would like to emphasize the fact
that all those JDK/JRE port dependency handling would greatly benefit from
XML. Because specifying a set of possible JDK using XPath would really be
simple. Then again, it would break the Make stuff and, as Jan Grant told
us, XML is not (yet?) seen as a viable alternative to the current scheme.

But just my cents on the subject:

With a java-ports.xml referencing all JDK ports, aproximatively the same
way Ernst described it in his PR. Then in the port's Makefile you specify:

USE_JAVA= run="//jdk[@version > 1.3 and @vendor == 'sun']"

Then bsd.java.mk performs XSLT ro produce a nice, clean Makefile (but
that's a bit too "hardcoded" IMHO). Or else, it could just get the name of
the right JDK by using some command-line XPath query tool. BTW, I am
currently working on such a tool with limited lib dependencies.

Et voila !

Note: the java-ports.xml could benefit from XInclude so each JDK porter
just need to provide an XML file to describe the JDK he maintains.

Note(2): Again this is just off-topic, "free-style" thoughts on the
subject. And this should probably stay as-is. :)

> > Looks like we're progressing with bsd.java.mk... Any feedback from other
> > Java porters ?
>
> Yes, please jump in if you have an idea to add to the melting pot.  Now
> is the time!

Ernst told me he hasn't had time to read from this mailing list these last
days. Still I would like to hear his opinions on the topic. Mostly because
he is the maintainer of bsd.java.mk and also because he is the maintainer
of a number of Java ports.

Regards,

Herve