MiniPortile
MiniPortile
This documents versions 2 and up, for which the require file was
renamed to mini_portile2
. For mini_portile versions 0.6.x and
previous, please visit
the v0.6.x branch.
- Documentation: http://www.rubydoc.info/github/flavorjones/mini_portile
- Source Code: https://github.com/flavorjones/mini_portile
- Bug Reports: https://github.com/flavorjones/mini_portile/issues
This project is a minimalistic implementation of a port/recipe system for developers.
Because “Works on my machine” is unacceptable for a library maintainer.
Not Another Package Management System
mini_portile2
is not a general package management system. It is not
aimed to replace apt, macports or homebrew.
It’s intended primarily to make sure that you, as the developer of a library, can reproduce a user’s dependencies and environment by specifying a specific version of an underlying dependency that you’d like to use.
So, if a user says, “This bug happens on my system that uses libiconv
1.13.1”, mini_portile2
should make it easy for you to download,
compile and link against libiconv 1.13.1; and run your test suite
against it.
This scenario might be simplified with something like this:
rake compile LIBICONV_VERSION=1.13.1
(For your homework, you can make libiconv version be taken from the
appropriate ENV
variables.)
Sounds easy, but where’s the catch?
At this time mini_portile2
only supports autoconf- or
configure-based projects. (That is, it assumes the library you
want to build contains a configure
script, which all the
autoconf-based libraries do.)
As of v2.2.0, there is experimental support for CMake-based projects. We welcome your feedback on this, particularly for Windows platforms.
How to use (for autoconf projects)
Now that you know the catch, and you’re still reading this, here is a quick example:
gem "mini_portile2", "~> 2.0.0" # NECESSARY if used in extconf.rb. see below.
require "mini_portile2"
recipe = MiniPortile.new("libiconv", "1.13.1")
recipe.files = ["http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/libiconv/libiconv-1.13.1.tar.gz"]
recipe.cook
recipe.activate
The gem version constraint makes sure that your extconf.rb is
protected against possible backwards-incompatible changes to
mini_portile2
. This constraint is REQUIRED if you’re using
mini_portile2
within a gem installation process (e.g., extconf.rb),
because Bundler doesn’t enforce gem version constraints at
install-time (only at run-time.
#cook
will download, extract, patch, configure and compile the
library into a namespaced structure.
#activate
ensures GCC will find this library and prefer it over a
system-wide installation.
How to use (for cmake projects)
Same as above, but instead of MiniPortile.new
, call MiniPortileCMake.new
.
Directory Structure Conventions
mini_portile2
follows the principle of convention over configuration and
established a folder structure where is going to place files and perform work.
Take the above example, and let’s draw some picture:
mylib
|-- ports
| |-- archives
| | `-- libiconv-1.13.1.tar.gz
| `-- <platform>
| `-- libiconv
| `-- 1.13.1
| |-- bin
| |-- include
| `-- lib
`-- tmp
`-- <platform>
`-- ports
In above structure, <platform>
refers to the architecture that
represents the operating system you’re using (e.g. i686-linux,
i386-mingw32, etc).
Inside the platform folder, mini_portile2
will store the artifacts
that result from the compilation process. The library is versioned so
you can keep multiple versions around on disk without clobbering
anything.
archives
is where downloaded source files are cached. It is
recommended you avoid trashing that folder to avoid downloading the
same file multiple times (save bandwidth, save the world).
tmp
is where compilation is performed and can be safely discarded.
Use the recipe’s #path
to obtain the full path to the installation
directory:
recipe.cook
recipe.path # => /home/luis/projects/myapp/ports/i686-linux/libiconv/1.13.1
How can I combine this with my compilation task?
In the simplest case, your rake compile
task will depend on
mini_portile2
compilation and most important, activation.
Example:
task :libiconv do
recipe = MiniPortile.new("libiconv", "1.13.1")
recipe.files << {
url: "http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/libiconv/libiconv-1.13.1.tar.gz"],
sha256: "55a36168306089009d054ccdd9d013041bfc3ab26be7033d107821f1c4949a49"
}
checkpoint = ".#{recipe.name}-#{recipe.version}.installed"
unless File.exist?(checkpoint)
recipe.cook
touch checkpoint
end
recipe.activate
end
task :compile => [:libiconv] do
# ... your library's compilation task ...
end
The above example will:
- download and verify integrity the sources only once
- compile the library only once (using a timestamp file)
- ensure compiled library is activated
- make the compile task depend upon compiled library activation
As an exercise for the reader, you could specify the libiconv version in an environment variable or a configuration file.
Download verification
MiniPortile supports HTTPS, HTTP, FTP and FILE sources for download. The integrity of the downloaded file can be verified per hash value or PGP signature. This is particular important for untrusted sources (non-HTTPS).
Hash digest verification
MiniPortile can verify the integrity of the downloaded file per SHA256, SHA1 or MD5 hash digest.
recipe.files << {
url: "http://your.host/file.tar.bz2",
sha256: "<32 byte hex value>",
}
PGP signature verification
MiniPortile can also verify the integrity of the downloaded file per PGP signature.
public_key = <<-EOT
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1
mQENBE7SKu8BCADQo6x4ZQfAcPlJMLmL8zBEBUS6GyKMMMDtrTh3Yaq481HB54oR
[...]
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
EOT
recipe.files << {
url: "http://your.host/file.tar.bz2",
gpg: {
key: public_key,
signature_url: "http://your.host/file.tar.bz2.sig"
}
}
Please note, that the gpg
executable is required to verify the signature.
It is therefore recommended to use the hash verification method instead of PGP, when used in extconf.rb
while gem install
.
Native and/or Cross Compilation
The above example covers the normal use case: compiling dependencies natively.
MiniPortile
also covers another use case, which is the
cross-compilation of the dependencies to be used as part of a binary
gem compilation.
It is the perfect complementary tool for
rake-compiler
and
its cross
rake task.
Depending on your usage of rake-compiler
, you will need to use
host
to match the installed cross-compiler toolchain.
Please refer to the examples directory for simplified and practical usage.
Supported Scenarios
As mentioned before, MiniPortile
requires a GCC compiler
toolchain. This has been tested against Ubuntu, OSX and even Windows
(RubyInstaller with DevKit)
License
This library is licensed under MIT license. Please see LICENSE.txt for details.