We need a script to update all of dmd's paraphernalia. By this I'm
putting the task up for grabs and am describing it.
The script would require git to be installed, and would orchestrate git
commands to freshen the installation. Either a tag can be given, or the
script would automatically detect the latest "semistable" release, or
even the script can be told to get the latest and greatest. The exact
tagging convention is to be defined later.
The trick with such tools is they must "just work". That means wherever
and however you installed dmd, the script should be able to detect
everything it needs for a successful update. This means: dmd and rdmd
binary locations, druntime and phobos library locations, and druntime
and phobos import locations.
The way I'm thinking this all can be done is by running dmd -v against a
small do-nothing program that imports one std module, for example
std.stdio. The run will print (among other things):
binary dmd
version v2.054
config /Users/john/dmd.conf
parse test
importall test
import object (/Users/john/code/dmd/druntime/import/object.di)
import std.stdio (/Users/john/code/dmd/phobos/std/stdio.d)
...
Simple parsing reveals the location of the configuration file and the
locations of druntime and std imports. Further simple parsing of the
conf file reveals the location of libraries.
With this information in hand, the script goes and fetches the
appropriate code in the appropriate places.
Also, the tool needs to do all of its work transactionally, i.e. first
download everything next to the target with an added suffix (e.g.
".tmp"). Only after a full successful download, the tool would rename
everything .tmp to its final name (an operation that can't fail under
most circumstances).
If anyone is willing to take up working on this, it would be great. D
itself is a great candidate as the language to write the tool in, and
has the advantage of being more portable than shell scripts.
We'll add the tool to the tools/ repository and offer it with the
standard distribution.
Thanks,
Andrei
