[gentoo-soc] Auto dependency builder. Need some thoughts before start to code.

[Александр Берсенев]

Hello,

I am doing auto dependency builder project for GSoC 2011. Here is the
description of my project:
http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/project/google/gsoc2011/bay/25001 .
In short words, I intent to analyse the files accessed during package
building to generate a list of dependencies. Also I want to block
access to files that not belong to dependency packages to check
fullness of the dependency list .

Unfortunately, my mentor has not answered on my questions I sent two
weeks ago. Also, I got some emails from people trying to find him. I
hope he will appear but I should start to code on May, 23 and I need
some advise for starting from experienced developers because I will be
feel myself uncomfortable writing a code without it.

I plan to start coding with writing a tool on C for launching a
program and logging its file access events to the log file. The format
of log file record: seconds from launch, type of event, name of the
file, and all parent processes.

I want to try the this file logging approach first: to modify
LD_PRELOAD environment var of each child process and catch library
calls. If it will be not good I plan to try another approaches,
described in my proposal. Also I like using the clone of root
filesystem mounted through FUSE for logging.

After that I plan to write a tool on python that launch a logging tool
on C and parse logfile of it.

I have some questions for starting:
- Should I use a tool on C and parse logfile of it or write a logging
python module instead?
- Which logging and file access blocking approach do you think is the best?
- Does it make sense to log file read/write offsets?

I plan to address other questions to my mentor if I reach him.

Best,
Alexander Bersenev