Re: Re: [Gnu-arch-users] How to support arch on systems with a small PATH_MAX [WAS: arch o n windows?]

[Ron Parker]

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 13:42:41 -0500, Ron Parker <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 06:25:38 +0200, address@hidden <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > 2) tla needs some new 'short-path' flag in '{arch}' and '=meta-info'
> > (and correspondending --short-path options) which it uses to determine
> > if new dirnames there will be created with long (legacy/compatible) or
> > short pathnames.
> 
> I mean, I can see the need for #2 because init-tree could add a
> =short-path flag in {arch} on POSIX-minimal systems before the
> category/category--branch directory is created. Optionally this could
> be done on longer PATH_MAX systems with a flag to init-tree. The same
> applies to the make-archive command.

Actually, I think in the {arch} directory the flag should be
+short-path.  This would make it precious instead of source.  I don't
believe the flag should be checked into the archive, but it should be
local to the invocation of init-tree, get, build-config, etc.

Otherwise, if someone does a get from a non-short-path archive on a
POSIX-minimal system, they would have a new {arch}/=short-path and
this would show up as a change and be checked back into the archive
upon commit.  What an ugly screw up.  At that point all gets from the
archive, would potentially create short-paths in the {arch} dir.

I think a simple short-path file in the =meta-info directory would
suffice for archives.