>>>>> Le 08 juin 1998 a 09:27:55 +0200, sperber(a)Informatik.Uni-Tuebingen.De
>>>>> (Michael Sperber [Mr. Preprocessor]) (Michael) ecrivait :
Michael> What I did uses *existing* dir files, no matter if they're outdated or
Michael> not. That's why `Info-rebuild-outdated-dir' would be a misleading
Michael> variable name for the option I introduced.
Yup, you're right. I misread the behaviour introduced by your patch and it
appears that the separation into two different variables is good indeed.
However I would not like to leave the code like this because the two options as
they are defined do not fit well together, their semantics is not cleanly
separated.
Michael> As Hrvoje pointed out, there's not really a reliable way for
Michael> figuring out if a dir file is outdated.
That's true, the existence of an info file more recent than the dir is not a
sufficient condition to tell that the dir file is outdated. On the other hand,
if the dir file has been touched more recently than any info file in the
directory it is a good indication that it is up to date. That's the way `make'
works and nobody complains. That criterion should be sufficient for most users
like me who want to keep using dir files as a cache and don't care if they are
rebuilt more often than strictly necessary.
I propose to implement the following: two different variables,
`Info-auto-generate-directory' controls when the directory information should
be generated on the fly. Options would be:
nil or never : Use existing dir, ignore directories containing none
always : Ignore existing dir files, always auto-generate
if-missing (default) : Use existing dir files, auto-generate if missing
if-outdated : Use up-to-date dir files, auto-generate information for others
`Info-save-auto-generated-dir' controls when auto-generated directory
information should be saved to the dir file. Options would be:
nil or never (default): Never attempt to save
always (always): Always try to save
conservative: Always try to save but asking the user before overwriting an
existing file
I think this separates things more cleanly. Comments requested.
It is quite unfortunate we're discussing these matters now, when all this
should have come up when I first introduced my patches. But better now, than
never.
Oscar
