[OpenAFS-devel] Re: AFS::Command status

[Phillip Moore]

I apologize for not putting out a patch release of the 1.999 branch
(which was a stupidly optimistic version number -- I was anticipating
releasing 2.000 way back in late 2010).

In each case, all of the issues you reported were addressed in the v2
code base, but, as I have noted in a separate response, that code
never saw the light of day.

If the --help formatting is going to change, then adapting the code to
work transparently with BOTH the old and new versions of the command
line utilities will be very difficult.   First, you need to understand
why I was parsing the --help output in the first place.   I designed
this API to adapt, dynamically, to support whatever features were
present in the vos/pts/fs/bos binaries which are found in the $PATH.
By parsing the help output two different ways (foo help, to get a list
of available commands, and then foo $command --help to get a list of
available command options), the code is able to provide higher level
feedback on which methods(commands) and arguments(options) can be
used.

If you are dead set on changing the help output, the format of which
has been the same pretty much ever since I started working with
Transarc AFS (a very long time ago...  I was in my 20s :-( ), then you
need to be careful about how this code is adapted.   You can't just
convert it to work with the new format, since this will then break the
use of AFS::Command for anyone with an older installation of AFS.   I
am pretty sure that it would be possible to make the code that parses
this smart enough to detect which help format is being parsed, and
then behave accordingly.

I am not willing to commit the time to this, since I don't work with
OpenAFS at all anymore, but if someone with adequate perl development
skills wants to take this over, I'll certainly help them get up to
speed on the code.

On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 10:47 AM, Andrew Deason <adeason@sinenomine.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 21:46:03 -0600
> Ken Dreyer <ktdreyer@ktdreyer.com> wrote:
>
>> I had a question in relation to gerrit.openafs.org/7378, "revert -help
>> formatting".
>>
>> Would it be feasible to fix AFS::Command? Is Phil actively maintaining
>> this module?
>
> I've been submitting other minor fixes for AFS::Command to Phil; he said
> he'd release a new minor version sometime. I haven't done anything for
> the -help parsing yet, but yeah, it could be done.
>
> --
> Andrew Deason
> adeason@sinenomine.net
>
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