Re: [Help-smalltalk] Package installation

[Gwenaël Casaccio]

On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 8:37 AM, Paolo Bonzini <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 07/06/2011 11:45 PM, Gwenael Casaccio wrote:
>>
>> In VisualGST when playing with packages, I've seen a strange behavior:
>> The source code of methods was not correctly displayed. It  can happens
>> when you've re-installed a package but not reload it. Because the source
>> code position (FileSegment) is not correctly set and no more correct
>> (the method is maybe removed). I've made a small fix, when installing a
>> package I decompress it in a temporary directory (in ~\.st\...) and when
>> leaving the vm I remove all the files.
>
> That cannot work.  If you load a package with gst-load, the image exits and
> there is no source code anymore.  Much worse than the case you are solving.
>

I've never used gst-load and forget it :s.

> A possible solution could be to add a version tag to the packages, and
> storing source under /var/lib/smalltalk/sources/PACKAGE/VERSION.  Or under
> /var/lib/smalltalk/sources/SHA1-OF-STAR-FILE perhaps.  And also, if you move
> the image to another computer, right now all that is needed to see the
> source is a download of the package (I think); with this additional tweak,
> you would need to expand the package sources.  All this can be done
> automatically using VFS, but it is not so easy.
>
> You have the problem of GCing the sources too.  If extraction is done
> automatically, however, that's not a problem as you can just rm -rf
> /var/lib/smalltalk/sources/*.
>

Yes I was thinking at the versioned approach too. But isn't a kind of
"session" directory
useful when working with VisualGST. If it crashes all the work/changes
could be inside?

>> The idea is for all gst create a session directory where all the
>> packages will be loaded. Thus I've added a new primitive which call
>> tempnam for creating a temporary dir. After I create a session directory
>> for the current GST. And when we leave the vm it's destroyed (when
>> calling update:) #aboutToQuit all the files and the directory are
>> removed too.
>
> There is already Directory class>>#createTemporary:.
>
> Paolo
>