I think at the end of the day we need to consolidate functionality as we
have two tools that do the exact same thing (more or less).
Dark should be defined as a tool that deconstructs a database (msi or msm)
into a wxs + exportable tables. If this is the case then melt's
functionality should be truncated to limit it to modifying the wixpdb. Or
melt essentially gets dropped and that wixpdb modification is put into dark
if the wixpdb is supplied.
Having two tools that essentially do the same thing makes little sense and
confuses patching which is what we want to get away from.
Stephen
On Mon, 19 Jan 2015 16:14 Rob Mensching <r...@firegiant.com> wrote:
> I'm really not at all excited about *another* tool in v4. I'd much rather
> we be able to use the MSI and the cabs as the source without having to
> preprocess them. Maybe melt.exe keeps the functionality or maybe dark.exe
> is the best place for it but you only use it to optimize the process.
> Otherwise, the patch unbinder stuff can just use the original build output.
>
> I guess that's where I'd like to see this in v4 (or later if it can't make
> v4): patching should operate off the standard build output: msi, external
> cabs/files, and .wixpdb. If we can't patch from that, we should enhance
> what we're outputting to patch it.
>
> Having to think ahead makes in so many different ways makes patching
> terribly unapproachable.
>
> _______________________________________________________________
> FireGiant | Dedicated support for the WiX toolset |
> http://www.firegiant.com/
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tunney, Stephen [mailto:stephen.tun...@nuance.com]
> Sent: Monday, January 5, 2015 8:01 PM
> To: WiX toolset developer mailing list
> Subject: Re: [WiX-devs] Updating Melt to extract files from the Binary
> table for patching
>
> Also, I would say that we should do the *least* amount of work in v3 (ie.
> adding a simple switch to melt).
>
> I could work on newtool.exe in v4 in my spare time.
> ________________________________________
> From: Bob Arnson [b...@joyofsetup.com]
> Sent: January 5, 2015 10:51 PM
> To: wix-devs@lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: Re: [WiX-devs] Updating Melt to extract files from the Binary
> table for patching
>
> Dark extracts to a flat list of files named after their ids. Melt extracts
> to a source tree, which makes it easier to update. Plus Melt does the
> .wixpdb updating.
>
> Putting the extraction/updating in Melt was a bad idea. (Whoever it was
> who had that idea, I certainly can't remember.) It mixes two very different
> things. Adding the functionality to Dark is a little better but not by
> much. (Dark is *mostly* about decompiling; extraction is something else
> tacked on.) I think it would make it easier to discover the patching
> benefits if it were its own tool.
>
> To be honest, if you wanted to do that for v4, it could start in v3:
> Leave Melt.exe alone, copy the extraction/updating code to NewTool, add
> the Binary extraction, and merge it (almost) as-is to v4.
>
> The only downside: It will take significant research, discussion, and
> heated debate to come up with a new tool name...
>
> On 05-Jan-15 22:21, Tunney, Stephen wrote:
> > Quick side question for 4.x
> >
> > Why do we have melt AND dark? The two of you seem to want them to act
> the same, don't they really do the same thing (decompile a MS* database)?
> Melt updates/generates a .wixpdb as well which is the only real difference
> I can see.
> >
> > Should it be considered to merge the two tools together perhaps? Just a
> thought exercise perhaps but the questions you two both raised have put a
> smell in my nose.
> > Stephen
> > ________________________________________
> > From: Bob Arnson [b...@joyofsetup.com]
> > Sent: January 5, 2015 6:51 PM
> > To: wix-devs@lists.sourceforge.net
> > Subject: Re: [WiX-devs] Updating Melt to extract files from the Binary
> > table for patching
> >
> > On 03-Jan-15 20:36, Stephen Tunney wrote:
> >> Ok, so here's my pitch:
> >>
> >> v3.x would get a couple of new flags
> >> -xn (extract in new directory format) <patch> -xb (extract binaries,
> >> does not get squashed by -sextract and uses old path format) <path>
> > Do we need both? I like -xn -- subdirectories for files and binaries a
> > la Dark, right? That provides binaries and prompts users to update
> > their scripts and/or existing melt output.
> >
> > --
> > sig://boB
> > http://joyofsetup.com/
> >
> >
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> http://joyofsetup.com/
>
>
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