Policies

The Bob Policy mechanism provides backwards compatibility as a first-class feature. Most of the general documentation below is taken from CMake (CC BY 2.5) as the design goals are identical.

Motivation

Bob is an evolving project. The developers strive to support existing projects as much as possible as changes are made. Unfortunately there are some cases where it is not possible to fix bugs and preserve backwards compatibility at the same time. The Bob policies try to make the transition as smooth as possible without stalling the development of the tool due to legacy design decisions or bugs.

Design Goals

The design goals for the Bob Policy mechanism were as follows:

Existing projects should build with versions of Bob newer than that used by the project authors
- Users should not need to edit code to get the projects to build
- Warnings may be issued but the projects should build
Correctness of new interfaces or bugs fixed in old ones should not be inhibited by compatibility requirements
- Any reduction in correctness of the latest interface is not fair to new projects
Every change to Bob that may require changes to project code should be documented
- Each change should also have a unique identifier that can be referenced by warning and error messages
- The new behavior is enabled only when the project has somehow indicated it is supported
We must be able to eventually remove code implementing compatibility with ancient Bob versions
- Such removal is necessary to keep the code clean and allow internal refactoring
- After such removal attempts to build projects written for ancient versions must fail with an informative message

Solution

We’ve introduced the notion of a policy for dealing with changes in Bob behavior. Each policy has:

a unique name,
a disabled (old) behavior that preserves compatibility with earlier versions of Bob,
an enabled (new) behavior that is considered correct and preferred for use by new projects,
documentation detailing the motivation for the change and the old and new behaviors.

Projects may configure the setting of each policy to request old (disabled) or new (enabled) behavior. When Bob encounters recipes that may be affected by a particular policy it checks to see whether the project has set the policy. If the policy has been set (enabled or disabled) then Bob follows the behavior specified. If the policy has not been set then the old behavior is used but a warning is produced telling the project author to set the policy.

Setting Policies

Policies can be set in config.yaml. They are either set implicitly by bobMinimumVersion or explicitly in the policies section.

In most cases a project release should simply set a policy version corresponding to the release version of Bob for which the project is written. Setting the policy version requests new behavior for all policies introduced in the corresponding version of Bob or earlier. Policies introduced in later versions are marked as not set in order to produce proper warning messages. The policy version is set using the bobMinimumVersion key in config.yaml of the project.

For example, the configuration:

bobMinimumVersion: "0.13"

will request new behavior for all policies introduced in Bob 0.13 or earlier. Of course one should replace “0.13” with a higher version as necessary.

When a new version of Bob is released that introduces new policies it will still build old projects because they do not request new behavior for any of the new policies. When starting a new project one should always specify the most recent release of Bob to be supported as the policy version level. This will make sure that the project is written to work using policies from that version of Bob and not using any old behavior.

Additionally, each policy may be set individually to help project authors incrementally convert their projects to use new behavior or silence warnings about dependence on old behavior. The policies section in config.yaml may be used to explicitly request old or new behavior for a particular policy. This overrides any defaults that were set by bobMinimumVersion.

Defined policies

relativeIncludes

Introduced in: 0.13

User configuration files (e.g. default.yaml or files passed by -c on the command line) can include other configuration files in the include section. Versions of Bob before 0.13 included these files always relative to the root of the project configuration.

Starting with Bob 0.13 it is possible to have global and user specific configuration files too. To allow inclusion of further files from these configuration files the include location was changed to “file relative” includes. That is, any included file is seared relative to the currently processed file.

Old behaviour: Include further files from default.yaml and command line passed files relative to the project root directory. Global configuration files use the new policy in any case.
New behaviour: All files are included relative to the currently processed file.

cleanEnvironment

Introduced in: 0.13

The environment variables that are consumed in recipes are fundamentally calculated from the recipes only. Bob has the notion of white listed variables that shall not influence the build result but should still be set during execution. Their value is kept unchanged from the current OS environment when building packages.

Previously the current set of environment variables during package calculation started with the ones named by whitelist in default.yaml. This made these variables bound to the value that was set during package calculation. Especially on Jenkins setups this is wrong as the machine that configures the Jenkins may have a different OS environment than the Jenkins executors/slaves. Also using such variables in the recipes made the calculated packages dependent on the state of the local machine.

Old behavior: Environment computation in root recipes starts with white listed variables of the current OS environment.
New behavior: Package computation starts with a clean environment. The default environment variables (environment) may reference OS environment variables and are taken as initial environment for package computation. White listed variables are only available while building packages and are taken verbatim from the current OS execution environment.

tidyUrlScm

Introduced in: 0.14

Historically the URL SCM was not tracking the checkout directory but the individual files that are downloaded by the SCM. This has the advantage that it is possible to download more than one file into the same directory. There are a couple of major disadvantages, though:

When extracting multiple archives in the same directory it might be possible that some files are overwritten.
Any extracted files are not tracked by Bob and will be left untouched in develop mode when the recipe is updated. This leads to stale files in the src-directory and will typically prevent that matching binary artifacts are found.
Trying to reliably apply patches across SCM updates is tricky because files are only overwritten and never garbage collected.

Starting with 0.14 Bob will manage the whole checkout directory. This unifies the behaviour with the other SCMs and solves the above disadvantages. This change might break existing projects because with the new behaviour it is not possible to put multiple URL SCMs into the same directory.

Old behavior: Bob tracks only the downloaded file across recipe updates. Upon changes only the involved file is moved away and the new one is downloaded. Extracted files from archives stay in workspace.
New behavior: The whole directory where the URL SCM is checked out is tracked by Bob. Changing the recipe will move away the whole checkout directory, including any possibly extracted files.

allRelocatable

Introduced in: 0.14

When up- or downloading binary artifacts Bob has to make sure that the artifact is independent of the actual location in the file system. This is not always the case for tools that are executed on the build host. Historically Bob assumed that all packages that were created from recipes that define at least one tool are not relocatable. Such packages were not up- or downloaded except when building in a sandbox because the sandbox virtualises the paths and makes them deterministic everywhere.

Starting with Bob 0.14 the relocatable property allows to specify this more fine grained. To not break existing recipes the relocatable property has a default value compatible to the old behaviour described above. Because this heuristic is quite pessimistic and almost always wrong the allRelocatable policy switches the default to always relocatable.

Old behavior: The default value of the relocatable property is True unless the recipe defines at least one tool. In this case the default value is False.
New behavior: The default value of the relocatable property is always True.

Starting with Bob 0.15 the new behavior will also enable fingerprinting if a fingerprint script has been defined. In case of a non-relocatable package the fingerprint will additionally encode the workspace path. This enables safe artifact exchange even outside of a sandbox.

offlineBuild

Introduced in: 0.14

Bob assumes that build and package steps are always deterministic. It is therefore usually not a good idea to access the network other than in the checkout step where the external source code is fetched. Bob has the ability to isolate the network when building a package in a sandbox. If the network must still be accessible during build and/or package steps the recipe might set the respective properties (see {build,package}NetAccess).

Old behavior: External network access is always possible.
New behavior: During checkout steps the external network is always accessible. When building inside a sandbox the network will be isolated during build and package steps by default. A recipe might override this to still allow network access if required.

sandboxInvariant

Introduced in: 0.14

Traditionally the impact of a sandbox to the build has not been handled consistently. On one hand the actual usage of a sandbox was not relevant for binary artifacts. As such, an artifact that was built inside a sandbox was also used when building without the sandbox (and vice versa). On the other hand Bob did rebuild everything from scratch when switching between sandbox/non-sandbox builds. This inconsistent behavior is rectified by the sandboxInvariant policy that consistently declares builds as invariant of the sandbox.

Old behavior: The sandbox is handled inconsistently. Bob will use binary artifacts across sandbox/non-sandbox builds but will rebuild clean if doing so. Changing the sandbox recipe will invalidate binary artifacts even when not using the sandbox.
New behavior: The build result is always an invariant of the sandbox, that is the sandbox content and its usage makes no difference for Bob. This means that binary artifacts are used across sandbox/non-sandbox builds. Moving between sandbox/non-sandbox builds just triggers incremental builds of the affected packages. Changing the sandbox content will also trigger just incremental builds of affected packages.

In any case a recipe shall produce the same result regardless of the fact that a sandbox is used or not. This is and has always been a fundamental assumption of Bob with respect to binary artifacts. If the result of a recipe depends on the host environment then an appropriate environment variable defined by the sandbox should be used to let Bob detect this.

uniqueDependency

Introduced in: 0.14

Traditionally it was allowed to name a dependency more than once in a recipe. On the other hand the semantics were not well defined. The result was picked up only once. Due to the multiple references different variants of the dependency could be created, though. This was detected only if the result of the dependencies was used. Otherwise this created unaddressable packages that cannot be built individually. It is also possible that, even if the packages themself are of the same variant, they might provide different dependencies or variables upwards. This is handled but not easily detectable by the user.

Old behavior: Listing a dependency more than once in a recipe is tolerated. The result is only picked up once, though. Anything else (environment, tools, …) is picked up at each instance again, possibly replacing previous definitions.
New behavior: A dependency must only be named once. This is enforced after evaluating the if condition of the dependencies. It is therefore still possible to have multiple references to the same package given that only one reference is active. Everything else will result in a parsing error.

mergeEnvironment

Introduced in: 0.15

The environment and privateEnvironment sections of the recipes and classes it inherits from are merged when the packages are calculated. Traditionally this was done on a key-by-key basis without variable substitution. Keys from the recipe or an inherited class would simply shadow keys from later inherited classes. This had the effect that the definitions of later inherited classes were lost. It was also not possible to pick them up via variable substitution. Suppose the following simple recipe/class structure:

recipes/foo.yaml:
    inherit: [asan, werror]
    privateEnvironment:
        CFLAGS: "${CFLAGS:-} -DFOO=1"

classes/asan.yaml:
    privateEnvironment:
        CFLAGS: "${CFLAGS:-} -fsanitize=address"

classes/werror.yaml:
    privateEnvironment:
        CFLAGS: "${CFLAGS:-} -Werror"

Previously the definition of CFLAGS in the recipe would completely shadow the ones of the inherited classes. So the CFLAGS variable would only ever be amended with -DFOO=1. In contrast to this unintuitive result the new behavior is to take all classes into account and merge their values by applying the usual variable substitution.

Old behavior: Environment keys in the recipe or earlier inherited classes shadow any later inherited classes. Variable substitution is done only with the first definition of the key. Any shadowed deviations are not examined. Given the above example the resulting CFLAGS would be ${CFLAGS:-} -DFOO=1.
New behavior: All environment keys are eligible to variable substitution. The definitions of the recipe has the highest precedence (i.e. it is substituted last). Declarations of classes are substituted in their inheritance order, that is, the last inherited class has the highest precedence. Given the above example the resulting CFLAGS would be ${CFLAGS:-} -fsanitize=address -Werror -DFOO=1

secureSSL

Introduced in: 0.15

Due to historical reasons Bob did not check for SSL certificate errors everywhere. While most parts were already secure the git SCM and HTTPS archive backend were still insecure by default.

Old behavior: The git SCM and the HTTPS archive backend do not check for certificate errors by default. May still be enabled by setting the corresponding sslVerify option to True.
New behavior: Whenever a secure connection is used the certificate is checked. May be disabled selectively by setting the corresponding sslVerify option to False.

sandboxFingerprints

Introduced in: 0.16

When Host dependency fingerprinting was introduced, Bob initially used a shortcut and did not execute fingerprint scripts in the sandbox. This saved a bit of complexity and also relieved the build logic from the need to build the sandbox just to execute the fingerprint script. While the old approach was not producing wrong results it was overly pessimistic. It prevents sharing of any fingerprinted artifacts between sandbox and non-sandbox builds even if the fingerprint is the same.

Old behavior

Fingerprint scripts are not executed in sandbox builds. Instead the sandbox image as a whole is used as fingerprint. This prevents the exchange of fingerprinted artifacts between sandbox- and non-sandbox-builds.

New behaviour

Bob will execute fingerprint scripts in the sandbox too. Fingerprinted artifacts will be shared between sandbox- and non-sandbox-builds given the fingerprintScript[{Bash,Pwsh}] yields the same result. Fingerprint results for sandbox builds are cached in the binary artifact cache if available. This reduces the need to build the sandbox just to calculate the fingerprint.

Old artifacts that were built in a sandbox will not be found anymore in the artifact cache. They will have to be built again. Non-sandbox build artifacts are not affected.

fingerprintVars

Introduced in: 0.16

When then fingerprintScript[{Bash,Pwsh}] mechanism was introduced in Bob 0.15 there was no dedicated environment variable handling implemented for them. The simple policy was to pass all environment variables of the affected package to the fingerprintScript. Unfortunately this results in the repeated execution of identical scripts if the variables change between packages, even if they are not used by the fingerprintScript.

This policy adds the support for the new fingerprintVars key in the recipes. This key specifies a list of variables that the fingerprintScript uses.

Old behavior: All variables of the fingerprinted package are passed to the fingerprintScript. The fingerprintVars settings are ignored. This might lead to unnecessary executions of identical fingerprintScript with different variable values.
New behavior: Only the subset of environment variables, defined by fingerprintVars of the fingerprinted package is passed to the fingerprintScript. Other environment variables are unset but whitelisted variables (see whitelist) are still available.

noUndefinedTools

Introduced in: 0.18

It was perfectly valid to list tools in {checkout,build,package}Tools that are not defined. This could lead to build failures because of missing tools that could have been detected already at parsing time. In practice there is no need to rely on this behavior. It is always possible to define a place holder recipe to syntactically satisfy the dependency.

Old behavior: It is not necessary that tools are actually defined when being used in a recipe. If they are available they will be used. If a tool is undefined it is silently ignored.
New behavior: Tools listed in {checkout,build,package}Tools must be defined. Any undefined tool will lead to a parsing error.

scmIgnoreUser

Introduced in: 0.18

The user information part of an URL is used as authentication for the resource that is encoded in the rest of the URL. Except for gaining authorization to the resource, the user information fundamentally does not influence the content that is referenced by the URL. To share binary artifacts between different user identities and to prevent repeated checkouts Bob will ignore the user information. This policy affects the git and url SCMs.

Old behavior: The user information of the URL is significant for the checkout content. Binary artifacts are not shared between different users. If the user information of an URL changes the checkout is moved to the attic.
New behavior: The user information in the URL of git and url SCMs is ignored. Bob assumes that the actual content is unaffected by the authentication part.

pruneImportScm

Introduced in: 0.18

The import SCM syncs a directory from the recipes to the source workspace. Before Bob 0.18 this was not done when building with --build-only even though the files are already locally present. It was anticipated that the user instead edits the source workspace directly and syncs its changes back to the recipes. To make this workable the prune property defaulted to False to prevent accidental deletion of changed in the workspace.

This proved to be confusing, inefficient and additionally had the problem to potentially leave stale files in the workspace. Starting with Bob 0.18 the import SCM is always updated even if --build-only is specified. Now the user never needs to edit the workspace and the prune policy is mostly useless. This policy changes the default but keeps the property so that a user is still able to retain the old behaviour on a case-by-case basis.

Old behaviour: The prune property of the import SCM defaults to False. Deletions of files at the source location are not propagated to the workspace. Files are only overwritten if the source is younger than the destination file in the workspace. This may lead to wrong build results because of stale files.
New behaviour: The prune property defaults to True. The user must edit the files at the import source location because the destination in the workspace is overwritten and obsolete files are deleted.

gitCommitOnBranch

Introduced in: 0.22

This policy handles the use of git if commit and/or tag and branch are named in the recipe. Before Bob 0.22 the commit took precedence and the branch was ignored. The commit was checked out leaving the repo in a detached HEAD state. For the developer this makes some additional steps necessary, e.g. switching to a branch before being able to push. If the commit was not on the branch special attention must be paid. Otherwise a commit might got lost.

Old behavior: commit was checked out leaving the repo in a detached HEAD state.
New behavior: Bob checks if the commit and / or tag is on the configured branch and performs a checkout of the commit on a local branch.