241885 - Enable support for multiple 'components' directories

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 241155

(Core :: XPCOM, defect)

Description

[Darin Fisher]

Enable support for multiple 'components' directories.

The new extension manager for Firefox will have a separate components directory
per extension.  To support this, we need to iterate over all of the components
directories during autoregistration.  Ben Goodger suggested storing some
information (a list of directories) in the .autoreg file.  This way, when XPCOM
sees a .autoreg file, it can read it to figure out what directories to scan.

One issue that comes to mind:

The .autoreg file is currently located in XCurProcD, and that might not be the
ideal location in the new world.  Perhaps the .autoreg file should have its own
directory key.  Then Firefox could more easily control the location of the
.autoreg file.

Alternatively, we could try using some other file for this list of directories
to scan.  But, having .autoreg placed in the MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME directory seems
bad since user's might not have sufficient permissions to create a .autoreg file
in that directory.

Comment 1

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

bug 241155 sounds related

Comment 2

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Why do we need to keep a list of directories? The extension manager can/should
call nsIComponentRegistrar->AutoRegister(somedir) when it first installs an
extension. At that point, we're done and we don't need to keep a list, do we?

We *do* need to fix the .autoreg situation. I was planning on adding a .lastreg
file which we can compare timestamps on. This file should be checked in
[bindir]/.lastreg and [profiledir]/[buildid]/.lastreg

Unlike the current .autoreg file, XPCOM shouldn't delete the .lastreg file,
because other profiles will not have a chance to do autoreg.

Comment 3

[Darin Fisher]

> bug 241155 sounds related

yup, this bug is a duplicate.  i looked for that bug (remembering that ben said
he would file it), but i couldn't find it :-(

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 241155 ***