Wireshark mailing list archives

Re: RFD: Creating subdirectories in epan/dissectors/


From: Graham Bloice <graham.bloice () trihedral com>
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2012 09:27:46 +0100

-----Original Message-----
From: wireshark-dev-bounces () wireshark org [mailto:wireshark-dev-
bounces () wireshark org] On Behalf Of Evan Huus
Sent: 31 August 2012 03:15
To: Developer support list for Wireshark
Subject: Re: [Wireshark-dev] RFD: Creating subdirectories in
epan/dissectors/

Having re-read the entire thread, I've gathered the following list of
objections. I think it covers all of the concerns mentioned so far (in
no
particular order):

1 potential for file-name collisions
2 increased difficulty in using tab-completion
3 potential for less parallel make
4 more complicated to search dissector source
5 concern that the number of folders would scale as poorly as the number
of
files
6 concern that it wouldn't actually provide any benefit

1 and 2 are only issues with the original, rough draft of the naming
scheme.
The refined naming scheme proposed later in the thread does not have
either issue.

3 is only an issue if we write the makefiles wrong. Now that somebody's
mentioned it, hopefully we wouldn't make that mistake :)

4 is valid, but minor. I would hope that most developers use a tool like
ctags,
cscope, or similar to index the code. All of those tools will work
regardless of
how the source is layed out. Manual greps will be more complicated, but
if
you have to run a manual grep on a codebase the size of Wireshark's then
I
think there's already something wrong.

5 is reason to be conservative in our use of folders, but not reason to
discard
the idea. As long as we limit folders to groups with a large number of
files
(10+? more?) then they'll still provide a benefit. 1000 folders is way
too
many, but it's still better than
15000 files!

6 I'm not clear on, since the benefits seem so obvious to me. Perhaps
I've
just done a poor job of explaining. I simply feel that
epan/dissectors/packet-
bluetooth/ would be a good thing for the same reason that
epan/dissectors/
is a good thing: it provides additional logical structure that turns a
list
(inefficient) into a tree (efficient). If people are more in favour of
using
patterned names like packet-bluetooth-* to denote that structure, then
why
do we use folders at all? As Jeff pointed out, we moved all the
dissectors
together into epan/dissectors/ for a reason. That reason still applies
here.

At this point I feel that I've said everything I can possibly say on the
subject. If
people are still generally against the idea then so be it, but I'm not
going to
argue the point anymore.

[Graham Bloice said]

Evan,

Thanks for the list it was really helpful.

FWIW my vote is not to change, I don't find the current layout difficult
and I see no personal benefit if it were changed.  Any changes to use
subdirectories would inconvenience me as my preferred editor would then
have to be set to search sub-directories when "grepping" for dissector
stuff, as would my muscle-memory when grepping from the command line.
However if the group think is to change things then I'll cope.

I would support removing the "packet-" prefix though.  Entirely
unnecessary IMHO.
___________________________________________________________________________
Sent via:    Wireshark-dev mailing list <wireshark-dev () wireshark org>
Archives:    http://www.wireshark.org/lists/wireshark-dev
Unsubscribe: https://wireshark.org/mailman/options/wireshark-dev
             mailto:wireshark-dev-request () wireshark org?subject=unsubscribe


Current thread: