Removing the autoregister feature from rbuild

[Eric Kohl]

Hi!

I want to remove the "autoregister" feature from rbuild. Let me explain 
why I want to do this.

The "autoregister" feature in rbuild is used to automatically add dlls 
to the syssetup.inf file which require an ole server registration. The 
ole servers in these dlls will then be registered in the 2nd setup stage.

The gain of adding the ole server dlls to syssetup.inf automatically is 
almost non existant as a developer needs to add an 'autoregister' 
element to the rbuild file of the dll.
For example:
     <autoregister infsection="OleControlDlls" type="DllInstall" />
The corresponding line in the 'OleControlsDll' section of syssetup.inf is:
     11,,comctl32.dll,2

Please remember that the line above only needs to be added once.

Now, what do we loose by generating syssetup.inf automatically? Right 
now it is only the comments in this file as it is parsed and serialized 
by the inflib library.

OTOH, my future plans for syssetup.inf are severely hampered by the way 
rbuild handles syssetup.inf because rbuild is not able to create or 
modify a Unicode version of syssetup.inf. But, a Unicode version of 
syssetup.inf is required in order to replace the hard-coded creation of 
the start menu and desktop links in syssetup.dll by a configurable, 
localizable and Windows compatible inf-based method.

And finally since Timo suggested to replace rbuild by cmake: The 
autoregister feature would surely be one of the victims of this change.
So why not drop this almost useless feature now?

What do you think?

Regards,
Eric

[Johannes Anderwald]

> Hi!

Hi!
> OTOH, my future plans for syssetup.inf are severely hampered by the way 
> rbuild handles syssetup.inf because rbuild is not able to create or 
> modify a Unicode version of syssetup.inf. But, a Unicode version of 
> syssetup.inf is required in order to replace the hard-coded creation of 
> the start menu and desktop links in syssetup.dll by a configurable, 
> localizable and Windows compatible inf-based method.

excellent!
> What do you think?

IMHO the loss of autoregister feature compared to the gain is very acceptable. Please proceed with your plans.
> Regards,
> Eric

kind regards,
Johannes

[Sylvain Petreolle]

I fully agree on this.
This will also remove the need to rebuild the dll (and possibly other dependant modules)
if we have to disable a registration for testing/debugging purposes.

As I previously said on IRC, we shouldn't expect making coffee from our build system.

Kind regards,
Sylvain Petreolle

----- Message d'origine ----
> De : Eric Kohl [e-mail]
> À : ReactOS Development List [e-mail]
> Envoyé le : Dim 13 juin 2010, 20h 11min 49s
> Objet : [ros-dev] Removing the autoregister feature from rbuild
>
> Hi!

I want to remove the "autoregister" feature from rbuild. Let me
> explain why I want to do this.

The "autoregister" feature in rbuild is
> used to automatically add dlls to the syssetup.inf file which require an ole 
> server registration. The ole servers in these dlls will then be registered in 
> the 2nd setup stage.

The gain of adding the ole server dlls to
> syssetup.inf automatically is almost non existant as a developer needs to add an 
> 'autoregister' element to the rbuild file of the dll.

For example:
> <autoregister infsection="OleControlDlls" type="DllInstall" 
> />

The corresponding line in the 'OleControlsDll' section of syssetup.inf
> is:

11,,comctl32.dll,2

Please remember that the line
> above only needs to be added once.

Now, what do we loose by generating
> syssetup.inf automatically? Right now it is only the comments in this file as it 
> is parsed and serialized by the inflib library.

OTOH, my future plans for
> syssetup.inf are severely hampered by the way rbuild handles syssetup.inf 
> because rbuild is not able to create or modify a Unicode version of 
> syssetup.inf. But, a Unicode version of syssetup.inf is required in order to 
> replace the hard-coded creation of the start menu and desktop links in 
> syssetup.dll by a configurable, localizable and Windows compatible inf-based 
> method.

And finally since Timo suggested to replace rbuild by cmake: The
> autoregister feature would surely be one of the victims of this change.

So
> why not drop this almost useless feature now?

What do you
> think?

Regards,
Eric

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[Timo Kreuzer]

Sylvain Petreolle wrote:
> I fully agree on this.
> This will also remove the need to rebuild the dll (and possibly other dependant modules)
> if we have to disable a registration for testing/debugging purposes.

Speaking of dlls and dependencies: I think our current approach (all
modules depend on the dlls it links) is retarded. A clean rebuild of
ntdll leads to a massive relink orgy. I suggest to use libraries from
RosBE by default. To make sure we have all exports we ever need, we
should build our own import libraries with all exports for all windows
versions. We could begin with an rbuild switch that tells whether to use
the import lib from reactos or from RosBE. another approach would be to
seperate the dll target from the import library target, so that remake
ntdll will not cause the import library to be rebuild. another problem I
see with the current dependencies is that you can't remove some modules
from the build because other modules depend on it.

Regards,
Timo

[Jérôme Gardou]

What about making the relink depend on the modification of the 
spec file?

Le mercredi 16 juin 2010 21:59:31, Timo Kreuzer a écrit :
> Sylvain Petreolle wrote:
> > I fully agree on this.
> > This will also remove the need to rebuild the dll (and possibly

other
> > dependant modules) if we have to disable a registration for
> > testing/debugging purposes.
>
> Speaking of dlls and dependencies: I think our current approach

(all
> modules depend on the dlls it links) is retarded. A clean rebuild

of
> ntdll leads to a massive relink orgy. I suggest to use libraries

from
> RosBE by default. To make sure we have all exports we ever

need, we
> should build our own import libraries with all exports for all

windows
> versions. We could begin with an rbuild switch that tells

whether to use
> the import lib from reactos or from RosBE. another approach

would be to
> seperate the dll target from the import library target, so that

remake
> ntdll will not cause the import library to be rebuild. another

problem I
> see with the current dependencies is that you can't remove

some modules
> from the build because other modules depend on it.
>
> Regards,
> Timo
>
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