[wildfly-dev] selecting packages from feature-packs
Me and Stuart have been thinking about how to express feature-pack
package selection in an XML. Each one came up with a proposal but we
appear to have slightly different preferences. In case anybody has an
opinion or a better suggestion, please, share.
Brief description: feature-pack consists of packages. A package is a
unit of content. So a set of packages determines the target installation
content-wise. Feature-pack has a set of default packages. These are the
packages that get installed by default, i.e. when the user installs the
feature-pack w/o specifying any package preferences. In addition to the
default ones a feature-pack may contains non-default packages, these are
present in the feature-pack but will be installed only if the user
explicitly asks for them.
So, the question is how to express these package preferences in an XML.
Proposal 1.
- include-default flag (element or attribute) which defaults to true
(meaning the default packages will be included by default);
- if include-default is false (meaning nothing is installed by default),
then 'include' element can be used to pick the specific packages
(default and non-default ones) to be installed;
- otherwise (when include-default is true) 'exclude' element can be used
to exclude specific undesired default packages.
Proposal 2.
- exclude element - applicable to any package and means do not install
the package (and its dependencies);
- include element - applicable to non-default packages and means do
install the non-default package (and its dependencies);
- pick element - applicable to any package and means install only the
picked package(s) ignoring other default and non-default ones. pick
cannot be used in combination with exclude and include.
Basically, 'include' and 'exclude' in both proposals are practically the
same. The difference is how the picking is expressed. In the first one,
everything is explicitly excluded and then the desired ones are
explicitly included, in the second one the desired ones are simply
explicitly picked.
Thanks,
Alexey