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

[Peter Tyser]

Hi Wolfgang,

> > > > 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'm always up for U-Boot and beer;)

<snip>

> >   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.

I can generate a patch that replaces the functionality of the
"autoscript" environment variable with "autostart", but we'd still have
to take care of the "autoscript_uname" variable:

  autoscript_uname - if script image is in a format (FIT) this
		     variable is used to get script subimage unit name.

So I'd vote to either:
1. Remove support for the "autoscript" and "autoscript_uname" variables
altogether now.  There's been a warning in feature-removal-schedule.txt,
I can't imagine that many people use them, and it seems like a waste of
effort to migrate "autoscript/autoscript_uname" to "autostart" if its a
feature that we're going to remove anyway.

2. Add a deprecated warning message when the autoscript* variables are
used and then remove them 2 releases from now.

<snip>

> > 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".

How do we deal with "autoscript_uname"?  I'd vote for #1 above and
remove them both.  People can work around the change in functionality by
explicitly calling "source" after they download a script image.

> > 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.

Sounds good, I'll send some patches to do this and see what people
think.

Best,
Peter