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-rw-r--r--doc/todo/dependency_types.mdwn24
1 files changed, 14 insertions, 10 deletions
diff --git a/doc/todo/dependency_types.mdwn b/doc/todo/dependency_types.mdwn
index 6218222f7..58b5ee955 100644
--- a/doc/todo/dependency_types.mdwn
+++ b/doc/todo/dependency_types.mdwn
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ whenever a matching dependency is added, removed, or *modified*. But a
great many things don't care about the modification case, and often cause
unnecessary page rebuilds:
-* meta only cares if the pages are added or removed. Content change does
+* map only cares if the pages are added or removed. Content change does
not matter (unless show=title is used).
* brokenlinks, orphans, pagecount, ditto (generally)
* inline in archive mode cares about page title, author changing, but
@@ -128,14 +128,11 @@ I implemented the above in a branch.
Then I found some problems:
-* pagestats is often used with a pagespec that uses `tagged()`.
- A pure contentless dependency does not work for that, it needs to look
- at link info.
-* orphans and brokenlinks cannot use contentless dependencies because they
- need to update when links change.
* Something simple like pagecount, that seems like it could use a
contentless dependency, can have a pagespec that uses metadata, like
`author()` or `copyright()`.
+* pagestats, orphans and brokenlinks cannot use contentless dependencies
+ because they need to update when links change.
Now I'm thinking about having a contentless dependency look at page
metadata, and fire if the metadata changes. And it seems links should
@@ -146,7 +143,14 @@ It's easy to see when a page's links change, since there is `%oldlinks`.
To see when metadata is changed is harder, since it's stored in the
pagestate by the meta plugin.
-(Alternative: Make add_depends look at the pagespec. Ie, if it is a simple
-page name, or a glob, we know a contentless dependency can be valid.
-If's more complex, convert the dependency from contentless to full. Finding
-a non-ad-hoc, non-sucky way to do that could be hard.)
+Quick alternative: Make add_depends look at the pagespec. Ie, if it
+is a simple page name, or a glob, we know a contentless dependency
+can be valid. If's more complex, convert the dependency from
+contentless to full.
+
+There is a lot to dislike about this method. Its parsing of the
+pagespec, as currently implemented, does not let plugins add new types of
+pagespecs that are contentless. Its pagespec parsing is also subject to
+false negatives (though these should be somewhat rare, and no false
+positives). Still, it does work, and it makes things like simple maps and
+pagecounts much more efficient.