207838 - versioncache should be XML file

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Bugzilla :: Query/Bug List, enhancement)

Description

[Jason Pyeron]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.0; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)
Build Identifier: 

This is just a logical step. Storing the data as a perl file is nice, but not 
portable. (What portable issues are there?)

It is a pseudo blocker of bug 188570.

personally I dont like temp files, but it is another issue.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

The versioncache file isn't there to store data for other systems, its there as
a cache. As such, having it be perl makes sense.

(I'd love to have it just go away for all sorts of reasons, but thats a separate
issue)

Nothing is stored in there which isn't in other places in the database.

Comment 2

[Jason Pyeron]

I compleatly understand why the file is there, but it still can be loaded into 
scope using eval from XML. Then it would be more NEAT. Then other issues would 
never arrise aswell (ie running the java & perl versions at same time, now 
require seperate caches)

Addressing the NEATness issus:

There have been bugs involving the format of this file previously.
see bug 160089, comment 2

I know this has been fixed (the bug does not reflect this tho), it is a 
rational behind having it in a well understood (by users & developers) format.

see bug 160422

this one shows an example of how external apps from that of the bugzilla cgi 
fiddle with it. (my opinion would be that external apps should not write to the 
file nor rely on its existance) With this file in perl format, it limits 
external applications to perl. 

Now I know this does not appear to be a valid argument here, but I think that 
given time and version 3.0, i think it will become more apparent.

Comment 3

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

verif. wontfix.

versioncache is there for performance at the moment.  The most performant way to
cache data like that for use by perl code is as perl code.  Having to parse the
XML to get the data out of it would just slow it down.

Comment 4

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Re: comment 2, it sounds like you might be looking for some of the data provided
by config.cgi...

Comment 5

[Jason Pyeron]

I was just resoving some bugs we had on the Java port. Not looking for 
any "data". 

We had a bug filed asking if the versioncache file was needed. From comment 3, 
it looks like it is not needed.

We will leave it out of our java port.