[arch-general] Any suggestions on frequently rebuilding a git package?

[C Anthony Risinger]

2011/9/19 Lukáš Jirkovský <l.jirkovsky at gmail.com>:
> On 18 September 2011 17:33, XeCycle <xecycle at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi, I build Emacs from git quite frequently, about twice a month or so.
>> However the PKGBUILD from AUR rebuilds everything each time, which takes
>> too many time I think.  Perhaps Emacs is small, but I think there should
>> be a way to prevent too many rebuilds --- is that possible?
>
> I don't know which package you are using, but in my opinion the best
> approach is the following:
>
> Look in the PKGBUILD and change "cd $srcdir/some_build_directory"
> (which is most likely created git clone) to a directory where the
> sources are downloaded (in most cases it's "$srcdir/$_gitname"). Now
> when you build package using makepkg, only the updated sources are
> rebuilt.
>
> Generally, it's a good idea to read and understand the PKGBUILD before
> building. Then it's pretty simple to edit it in way which allows
> incremental builds.
>
> If you would have any problems with editing this particular PKGBUILD
> to suit your need, you can send the it here and I (or maybe someone
> else) will try to help you with that.

i posted the solution i use for my AUR/internal packages awhile back,
with the intention of suggesting it as a standardized way to handle
this use case:

http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-general/2011-July/021078.html

... not all that long of a thread ;-), but i'll highlight a few key
benefits over locally storing repositories [in build dir], or other ad
hoc solutions:

) uses a targeted fetch instead of a naive clone (for kernel IIRC you
get ~50% size reduction, something like ~180MB)
) stores repositories in a known list of locations, with predictable
ordering (allows for reuse between package variants)
) generates a lightweight proxy in the event a repository is found but
it is read-only (allows for safe use concurrently or within a chroot
[mkchrootpkg])

... this doesn't stop emacs/etc from needing a fresh rebuild each
time, but the repo will forever be intact until removed (it was
unclear if the OP used `rebuild` in the sense of the software [make]
or the repo [clone])

you'd need to add the routines to the target package (they are at the
end of the link i provided).  this package:

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/py/pyjamas-engine-pythonwebkit/PKGBUILD

... makes use of them, and serves as an example.  it's not quite as
"simple" or "KISS" as some may prefer, but hey, features/flexibility
don't always agree with simplicity ... it's not complicated, but it's
not a one-liner either.  in the end it saves me a whole 'lotta time,
and frankly, what else really matters?

-- 

C Anthony