Re: [gentoo-portage-dev] [PATCH] egencache: add --stable-mtime option

[Brian Dolbec]

On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 15:51:29 -0800
Zac Medico <zmedico@g.o> wrote:

> On 12/16/2015 09:49 AM, Michał Górny wrote:
> > On Wed, 16 Dec 2015 14:38:03 +0100
> > Alexander Berntsen <bernalex@g.o> wrote:
> >
> >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >> Hash: SHA512
> >>
> >> On 16/12/15 06:33, Zac Medico wrote:
> >>> Disable Manifest "stable mtime" behavior by default, and add a
> >>> corresponding egencache option.
> >> This message tells me nothing about why we need to do this.
> >
> > We need do this because we changed the behavior and the new
> > behavior is counter-intuitive. We already had a number of bugs
> > caused by it, and while it's used by Infra, it's at least
> > unexpected when someone manually runs 'repoman manifest'.
>
> Just because it was historically buggy does not mean that it will
> always be that way. I believe that it will be very safe once we've
> fixed it to include the mtimes of all relevant directories in the max
> mtime calculation.
>
> > I mean, before this all started 'repoman manifest' just updated
> > the Manifest which meant it's mtime changed. Nowadays, it also sets
> > mtime to some value in the past, which means running 'repoman
> > manifest' may result in updated Manifest having mtime older than
> > the old Manifest. As a result, people using rsync are in trouble.
> > And this has been reported too by overlay owners.
>
> We should get our facts straight. It's not possible for the updated
> Manifest to have an older mtime than the old manifest, because the
> mtime of the old Manfiest is included in the max mtime calculation.


I'm generally in favour of this one, infra is changing how they
generate the Changelogs, etc.  So, making this an option makes sense
to me.  
-- 
Brian Dolbec <dolsen>