527909 - can we make the files in js/src/config hg symlinks to the copies in config/ ?

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox Build System :: General, defect)

Description

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

We have a check:: rule that enforces that the copies of files in js/src/config are identical to the ones in the top-level config/ directory, which is nice because it prevents drift. However, it means that often I forget to sync them before pushing and turn the tree orange. Could we just make them hg symlinks instead? This should enforce that they're always the same file. (I'm not sure how hg symlinks work on Windows.)

Comment 1

[Dirkjan Ochtman (:djc)]

Not sure how they work on Windows, either. I think they're files with the pathname in them (I guess they could be real symlinks on NTFS, but I don't think we do that).

Comment 2

[Jim Blandy :jimb]

Are 'hg symlinks' something other than symlinks checked into Mercurial?

One of the goals of bug 97954 was that the 'src' tree become something that one could copy out on its own and build independently.  Say, as a SpiderMonkey release.  The symlinks would be something that someone doing a release would have to take into account.

But it's not as if we do SM releases often, or even regularly.  I'd appreciate the view of someone more experienced here.

Comment 3

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

They are in fact just symlinks, and they don't actually work on Windows. (you just get plain files containing the name of the file being linked to.) If they did work on Windows, I don't think it'd be that big of a deal to support a "make src" or something that would tar up the source directory for you (copying source files instead of symlinks).

As it stands, this isn't feasible.