[U-Boot] [PATCH] Remove deprecated 'autoscr' command

Wolfgang Denk wd at denx.de
Sun Aug 23 22:56:19 CEST 2009


Dear Peter Tyser,

In message <1251059663.9041.21.camel at ptyser-laptop> you wrote:
> 
> > > There was a fair amount of grey area as far as environment variable naming
> > > for those variables that used to refernce autoscr.
> > 
> > Why actually?
> 
> I guess because we don't see eye-to-eye:)

Indeed. We really should have a U-Boot developers meeting ...

> > I disagree here. "autoscript" has not much (if any) meaning when it
> > comes to executing shell scripts (and this is what we are talking
> > about there). I am not aware of a single man page in any of the many
> > Unix flavours using this term. [OTOH, it is the name of an existing
> > company and as such eventually a protected trade mark, at least in
> > some parts of the world.]
> 
> I agree the term "autoscript" is non-standard, but what would be a
> better name for relating to a scipt that is automatically executed?  The
> description of the current autoscript variable is:

It does not get _automatically_ executed. It get's executed when you
run a special command, which reads and executes shell commands from a
script rather than from stdin. The usual shells call this "sourcing a
script file".

>   autoscript	- if set to "yes" commands like "loadb", "loady",
> 		  "bootp", "tftpb", "rarpboot" and "nfs" will attempt
> 		  to automatically run script images (by internally
> 		  calling "source").

This should be killed in this process, as it does nothing but
duplicate the function of the "autostart" variable, just for another
image type. It does not make sense to invent new names for the same
function for all current and furture image types.

> so if "autoscript" is set, a script is automatically ran.  This name
> makes some sense to me and I couldn't think of a better one.  Its name
> is also inline with the "autoload" and "autostart" variables.  I think
> "autosource" is going to confuse a lot of people and is less descriptive
> than the current "autoscript".

"autoload" does something different. IMO, for automatic execution/
running/booting all image types should use "autostart".

> Would you prefer to keep the functionality of the "autoscript" variable
> but with a different name, or remove that functionality altogether?  Or
> are you referring to the references of "autoscript" in the
> board/matrix_vision/mvbc_p/mvbc_p_autoscript and
> board/matrix_vision/mvblm7/mvblm7_autoscript files?

We should merge this into "autostart".

> A little off topic, but I'd personally love to get rid of the
> autoscript/autoscript_uname/autostart/autoload variables and have people
> explicitly use the commands they need.  For example, the dhcp command
> would only set some environment variable values, then tftp/nfs would
> have to be called, followed by the appropriate boot command.  Right now,
> the dhcp command behave in a number of different ways depending on the
> values of the auto* variables mentioned above.  Same with tftp, loadb,
> etc.

I see, and I tend to agree. But  then,  we  should  also  rename  the
commands,  i.  e.  "dhcpboot"  ->  "dhcp", "tftpboot" -> "tftp", etc.
Maybe this should  be  done  in  a  two-step  procedure,  too:  first
introduce  the  new commands (which already changes default behaviour
if you just type for example "tftp"), then  deprecate  and  (after  a
sufficient transition period) remove the old commands.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
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