On 04/06/2015 16:48, Paul Eggert wrote:
An option along these lines sounds like it would be useful, thanks.
But I have some confusions and/or problems with the suggestion.
First, the patch doesn't alter the documentation, which is typically
the hardest part of any change like this. The documentation should
give an example of how the new option would be useful.
Second, I'm having trouble seeing how to use the option (and this is
probably because of the first item...). How does the maintainer keep
track of a clamped mtime? Isn't that a hassle to maintain? Can't
'tar' do this for you, instead of your having to do it?
Regarding the second issue: I believe the typical use would be to pass
in a main packaging date (such as the date of /debian/changelog or the
date of the top entry in that file), then any files newer than that
(recompiled files) would get the fixed timestamp, while older files
(such as manpages and default conffiles copied from the source tree)
would keep their older timestamps, which might be the same over several
package versions, thus reducing the size of binary deltas between deb
files and improving the quality of conffile handling.
tar of cause has no memory, and should not have. It is a tool that
relies totally on its explicit inputs to produce the same output from
the same input. Anyway, tar would have very little chance to remember
results across different buildds picking up the same source package.
Enjoy
Jakob
--
Jakob Bohm, CIO, Partner, WiseMo A/S. https://www.wisemo.com
Transformervej 29, 2860 Søborg, Denmark. Direct +45 31 13 16 10
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