30151 - Merge all xpt files in every package: Improves startup performance by atleast 15%

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: XPCOM, defect, P3)

Description

[Suresh Duddi (gone)]

This is an offshoot of bug# 29658

We need to merge all xpt files from every package into one file for beta1.

Comment 1

[Suresh Duddi (gone)]

We closed bug# 29658 which fixes the same problem on unix and win.

This is the mac bug where this performance improvement makes the biggest difference.

Marking beta1

Comment 2

[Phil Peterson]

[PDT+] w/b minus on 3/10

Comment 3

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

What do we have to do to make this work on Mac? Is this more than script 
tweaking?

Comment 4

[J.J. Enser]

Got the xpt_link MPW tool from Patrick. Working on the implementation from 
AppleScript / MacPerl.

Comment 5

[Jon Granrose]

I talked with jj a little about this yesterday.  The problem with using the 
xptlink.pl script we use on win32 and linux, is that it uses a system() call 
with command line arguments, and while I haven't tried it, I recall reading or 
hearing that the mac doesn't accept command line arguments for system() calls in 
macperl.  So most likely this will have to be an applescript script.

Comment 6

[J.J. Enser]

updated status:
with Jon's help, I got the overall process in place. I can now call xptlink.pl 
from applescript, which calls the xpt_link MPW tool.

I still need to juggle a little more with chdir() commands, absolute vs. relative 
paths, and quoting the Mac pathnames so that spaces don't make xpt_link choke.
// something like this doesn't work:
// xpt_link macintosh HD:folder:merged.xpt Macintosh HD: folder 2:file1.xpt ...

I want this process, like the rest of the packaging automation, to be disk-name-
and-access-path-independant.

The good news is that I can deliver, at least manually, for a day or two, xpi 
files with the "linked" xpt files in them.

I hope all this trouble will save us more than 1 or 2 seconds on startup time 
(that's what Simon estimated ;-)

Comment 7

[J.J. Enser]

fixed.
xpt_link added to the packaging automation to merge .xpt files in each installer 
module. (Mozilla & Netscape)

Note: The MPW Tool currently lives on the Release Build Mac only. It should be 
added to the MacOS Build Environment (in ToolServer?) or be part of the standard 
build script since the source is in Mozilla.

Comment 8

[Paul MacQuiddy]

verified in beta branch builds, see leger's performance data to see if all your 
hard work paid off :-)

Comment 9

[J.J. Enser]

This was supposed to improve startup time only, and just by a couple of 
seconds... :-(