Re: Removing dots from toolset names

From: Aleksey Gurtovoy (alexy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-10-06 10:35:08

Jürgen Hunold writes:
> Hi !

Hi Jürgen,

>
> On Tuesday 05 October 2004 15:10, Aleksey Gurtovoy wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > As you probably already know, we also need to take care of these:
>
> Why ? Can someone point me to the rationale for this ?

The original rationale was "to ensure file and directory names are
relatively portable":
http://www.boost.org/more/lib_guide.htm#Directory_structure.

Beman might be able to clarify whether ISO 9660/Level 2 requirements
in particular were one of the motivating factors back then or not,
but currently those are the primary driving force for getting
Boost codebase to conform to these rules: We want to be able
to put a Boost distribution on a CD in the unpacked form, and for
that CD to be readable on the maximum number of platforms.

> Where can I find out which platforms have which limits ?

WWW :). Here, for instance -- http://www.zplace.com/crashtips/filename.html.

>
> > intel-win32-7.1-vc6-stlport-4.5.3-tools.jam: filename > 31 chars, filename
> > contains more than one dot character ('.') intel-win32-7.1-vc6-tools.jam:
>
> Some of these toolsets exist in current 1.31.0 with _more_ than one dot.
> Take vc7.1-stlport-tools.jam for example.

Sure. The requirements weren't strictly inforced until now.

>
> > I suggest we either replace the dots with underscores, or get rid of them
> > completely (besides the last one, of course), i.e. either:
> >
> > borland-5_5_1-tools.jam
> > borland-5_6_4-tools.jam
> > como-win32-4_3_3-vc7-tools.jam
>
> -1
>
> > borland-551-tools.jam
> > borland-564-tools.jam
> > como-win32-433-vc7-tools.jam
> > ...
> > Preferences?
>
> +1

Thanks!

>
> > [I also know that there is more to this than just renaming of the files;
> > any help with the whole matter would be greatly appreciated.]
>
> Just one curious question:
> AFAIK, all of the platforms these toolsets are _for_ support both filenames
> with more than 31 characters and more than one dot.
> I just wonder if we should break and repair the whole V1 build system when
> the offending toolsets are for platforms which don't _have_ these limits.

The changes are not that drastic, but it's a reasonable question to ask.
Ignoring the fact that we already have nonconforming names fixing which
requires some work, IMO all the current requirements except 31-character
limit are not hindering us in any significant way, are easy to satisfy, and
in general have a good cost/benefit ratio.

I don't feel strongly about maximum length of 31, in particular since MacOS 9
is pretty much dead, and we _are_ somewhat restrained by the limit. Being
able to read a Boost CD on, let's say, Linux versions released before 1999 is
definitely going to be appreciated by _somebody_, but there is a certain cost
to that, and personally I'm starting to feel that may be it's not worth it.
But then, as a release manager who has to take care of this issue, I'm
biased.

>
> Just my .02€, developing on linux and win32.

Thanks, they are appreciated.

--
Aleksey Gurtovoy
MetaCommunications Engineering