[bug#45984] [PATCH 0/5] Fix recursive importers

[zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com>]

Hi Ludo,

Thanks for the review.

On Tue, 26 Jan 2021 at 23:24, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:

>> $ guix import gem do-not-exist -r
>> #f
>>
>> $ ./pre-inst-env guix import gem do-not-exist -r
>> guix import: error: failed to download meta-data for package 'do-not-exist'
>
> I think we do want this error message.  Why should we ignore
> non-existent packages when doing ‘-r’?  It would think they’re still a
> problem, no?

Do you mean instead of displaying an error about the query (what the
patch does), displaying which dependent package has failed?  Something
along these lines:

  $ ./pre-inst-env guix import gem foo -r
  guix import: error: failed to download meta-data for package 'bar'


If it is what you have in mind, it needs to really re-think how
’recursive-import’ works.  Not only fixing the corner case. :-)


>> If I understand correctly, then the way the errors are reported could be
>> uniformized between all the importers, and maybe the snippet in the subcommands
>> "guix import <from>" could be refactorized a bit.
>
> Probably.  ‘-r’ started as an option specific to one importer, but now
> that most of them (?) support it, it’d make sense to rethink the
> interfaces.

If we agree on the first part (the function argument “#:key
repo->guix-package” provided to ’recursive-import’ should always return
’values’), then let rethink the interface and how the errors are
handled.


Cheers,
simon