Hi,
On Mon, 2021-03-01 at 11:09 +0100, Abderrahim Kitouni wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Le ven. 19 févr. 2021 à 09:22, Tristan Van Berkom
> <[email protected]> a écrit :
> > Most artifact commands currently accept multiple targets, there remains
> > however `bst artifact checkout` which only accepts one argument - this
> > argument would become optional, and the user could specify an element
> > name instead of an artifact name with the `--element` option, e.g.:
> >
> > bst artifact checkout --element element.bst
> >
> > Commands which support operations on multiple artifacts, would support
> > multiple `--element` specifications, and continue to support wildcards,
> > such as:
> >
> > bst artifact show \
> > --element element1.bst \
> > --element element2.bst \
> > --element "subsystem/stage1*"
>
> This looks fine to me. I have a suggestion though: I think it would be
> nicer to have this as a switch rather than a per target argument. Or
> do you think it's valuable to allow mixing elements and artifacts in
> the same command?
Right, I had that thought as well, and then thought that it would make
it impossible to specify artifacts and elements as arguments in the
same invocations.
To analyze this decision a bit more deeply:
o Often times, when specifying artifacts or elements, we do so with
only one artifact or element on the command line (possibly as a
glob pattern), when specifying many elements on the command line,
we are probably using a script to call `bst` for us.
What I mean to illustrate with this point is mostly that having
a switch:
`bst artifact checkout --elements [element1 [element2 ...]]`
vs having a specific option type to feed in elements as proposed:
`bst artifact checkout --element foo.bst --element bar.bst [artifacts...]`
Does not add significantly more manual typing on the command line
o The number of artifact commands are plenty, and we want to have a
consistent UX for commands in the CLI.
If it is *ever* useful to specify element and artifact targets on
the CLI for *any* command, then we should adopt the proposed syntax
of adding support for multiple `--element` options in order to make
this possible in a manner that is consistent across the board.
Given that it is a fairly low cost to support both in the same command
invocation, I would prefer to support it.
Giving further though to the switch idea... if we were to decide to
*not* support both element and artifact names in the same invocation of
`bst artifact` commands, I think I would prefer to not have a switch
like you suggest, but would instead prefer to have a separate category
of commands, possibly with different sets of capabilities.
I.e. it would make more sense to me to have:
`bst element checkout [<element names>]`
Than to have:
`bst artifact checkout --elements [<artifact or element names>]`
Still, overall I think I prefer to have an exceptional way to
additionally specify element names (with implicitly resolved cache
keys) directly to artifact commands, as a convenience layer.
Cheers,
-Tristan
