Re: Puzzler: Can cfengine replace make?

[Steve Traugott]

On Tue, Nov 06, 2001 at 11:22:17AM -0800, Marion Hakanson wrote:
> Steve Traugott wrote:
> 
> > (Cc'ing to both help-cfengine@gnu.org and infrastructures@terraluna.org).
> > 
> > Many of us commonly use 'make' as a state engine for tracking
> > long-term dependencies over the life of a machine.  For instance,
> > here's a fragment of a real-world makefile, used in a AIX environment,
> > . . .
> > Now, here's the question:  Can anyone see a way to do this once-only
> > type of action cleanly in cfengine?  I've tried several different ways
> > over the years, but I've never been satisfied with the results.  
> > 
> > Steve
> 
> Folks,
> 
> We've also been frustrated here with cfengine's apparently not having a
> way to represent make-like semantics ("update this item only if it's older
> than the source").  A former colleague came up with a trick for dealing
> with this issue in the "editfiles:" section of a cfengine file, basically
> by embedding a timestamp within the file being edited.  Here's an excerpt:

Here's something interesting -- the usage we're making of 'make' is
explicitly *not* the "update if older" feature; we've always done a
'touch *' in the stamps directory before kicking off 'make'.  With
most packaging tools you don't want to try to re-install things that
are already installed.  Really all I'm looking for is a binary state
engine -- similar to cfengine's classes but with persistent memory.

What I've wound up doing sometimes, for instance, is driving multiple
cfengine (and other) scripts from 'make'.  Each script has it's own
special purpose, like managing the install of a particular app, which
keeps things modularized, while 'make' takes care of stamping and
lifetime ordering.

Steve
-- 
                        .       .    `   *    
Steve Traugott   ` .  *  +                       
Infrastructure Architect            + `     
stevegt@TerraLuna.Org    '   *  .   '  +`   *   
http://www.stevegt.com/

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