[swift-users] SwiftPM manual dependency management

Sat Jul 22 05:07:13 CDT 2017

Geordie J <geojay at gmail.com> schrieb am Fr. 21. Juli 2017 um 14:39:

> Hi Ankit, thanks for your reply.
>
> Am 21.07.2017 um 07:33 schrieb Ankit Aggarwal via swift-users <
> swift-users at swift.org>:
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 10:34 PM, Geordie J via swift-users <
> swift-users at swift.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> My team and I are trying to use SwiftPM to develop a relatively complex
>> app with multiple dependencies, all of which are being developed locally
>> and in parallel. The reason for this is compatibility with an existing
>> module/import structure used by our iOS app. Maybe I’m doing something very
>> wrong but my experience so far (2 months in) is that this is extremely
>> difficult with SwiftPM.
>>
>> What I’d love to be able to do is to just run `git add submodule
>> http://blah.com/mysubmodule.git` in the Packages subdirectory and
>> SwiftPM would just let me manage dependencies from there myself.
>>
>> I was excited to see that SwiftPM 4 has a "Top of Tree" development
>> option for this purpose. So far my experience with this has not been good.
>> Firstly because SwiftPM *still* unnecessarily tries to clone my repos
>> itself (some of which are huge), and secondly because this creates an
>> absolute path dependency in `.build/dependencies-state.json`, meaning this
>> setup isn’t sharable within our dev team.
>>
>> Attempting this with "local" git urls adds an almost absurd level of
>> complexity, having to tag each commit for SwiftPM to build. The fact that
>> we'd need to make a commit to test whether the project even builds is
>> insane enough as is, let alone the tagging and trying to tell the base
>> project to use a newer minor version etc etc.
>>
>> Adding multiple subtargets is also not an option because the dependencies
>> (as dynamic libraries) really are shared between multiple
>> targets/sub-dependencies, which SwiftPM seems to deal with quite well.
>>
>> *tldr;* *Please* let us manage dependencies ourselves. It’d be so easy
>> if Package.swift had an option along the lines of *.Package.local(named:
>> "XYZ")* that it then looked for in ./Packages/XYZ. Again, maybe I’m
>> overlooking something but this seems like an obvious and vital option to
>> have. It’d also simplify the introductory SwiftPM docs significantly.
>>
>> Is anyone else having this issue? Would this change really be as simple
>> and painless as it sounds? I would be prepared to make a pull request along
>> these lines.
>>
>
> I think you're not really using the Top of Tree feature. You need to add
> each dependency using its canonical URL, hosted at some server like github.
> After adding the dependencies, you can use edit feature to put a dependency
> in Top of Tree mode. To do so, run:
>
> $ swift package edit <PackageName> --path
> ../path/to/self/managed/checkout/of/the/package
>
>
> Yes, this is what I tried this week. I’m pretty sure this is not a case of
> misunderstanding the feature or the docs.
>
>
> The package manager will then stop using the cloned repository and use the
> checkout present at that path (regardless of the state it is in).
>
>
> Yes, but then I have – per dependency – two checkouts of a potentially
> huge repository. Why force everyone on the dev team to clone a huge repo
> twice, only to *never* use one of the clones. Also, SwiftPM breaks when
> —path points at Packages/PackageName, which is exactly where I’d expect the
> package to be, not in some arbitrary external path (+ some kind of internal
> checkout cache that will never be used) as well.
>
> I haven’t tried to test this recently because it’s a slow process but I
> have the impression the deps could be even be cloned more than twice,
> depending on how cleverly SwiftPM realises that multiple Packages have the
> same dependency.
>
> Also, this makes managing interdependent state of development amongst
> dependencies more difficult than needed. How do we guarantee that devs are
> on the same commit when using top of tree development? Tagging and managing
> version numbers etc for day-to-day development is emphatically not an
> option for us. Since SwiftPM packages only work from a git context anyway,
> why not allow use of git’s established pattern of dealing with this, namely
> submodules?
>
> Sharing this setup is not automatic, but simple. Each user just needs to
> run the above command once per dependency.
>
>
> We have about 10 dependencies, *all *of which will* always* be in this
> state. This seems like a lot of overhead and room for user error, plus it’s
> a huge workaround for something that could be very simple.
>
> Also, you only need to do this if you're actively working on a dependency.
>
>
> The point is that we will *always* be working on the dependencies. This
> is the core of what we’re doing, not a short aside. This is what makes me
> think we are either doing something wrong, or there is a big feature gap
> (as it appears from here).
>
> The new manifest also supports using branch instead of version range,
> which is very helpful during the development period.
>
>
> This has much the same result as top-of-tree development, but it is how we
> were able to "hack" SwiftPM 3 into leaving us alone.
>
> Let me know if something is unclear or if you have more questions!
>
>
> Maybe an overview of our structure would be helpful to make our use case
> clearer:
>
> Main Project (git repo, not a Swift Package, contains no swift code
> directly)
> –– Dependencies (external)
> –– Subproject (*internal* git submodule, is a Swift Package, has multiple
> Swift Targets)
> –––– Dependency A (*internal*, git submodule)
> –––––––– Huge external C-language dependencies (managed via git submodules)
> –––– Dependency B (*internal*, git submodule)
> –––––––– Depends on internal dependency D
> –––– Dependency C (*internal*, git submodule)
> –––––––– Depends on *internal* dependency A
> –––––––– Depends on *internal* dependency B
> –––––––– etc.
> –––– Dependency D (*internal*, git submodule)
>

Reading over this entire thread, I've come across this again, which I think
sums up the pain point better than anything else:

> *I think the friction is coming from the fact that we’d like to use
> SwiftPM just to build, rather than to manage our dependencies.*
>

When I say "swift build", I expect swift to build! Not to check for commits
and tags and dependencies, not to clone anything, just build what is there.
For all the other stuff we have the "swift package ..." commands.

Imagine if "swift package update" did the step that currently happens
before "swift build" builds the project (dep management, cloning etc). And
to retain old behaviour we could have "swift build --update-deps" with a
note on failing "swift build" builds suggesting users try the update flag
to get the old behaviour.

I think this would be an equally welcome addition for users not currently
on a strong internet connection.

The question would be how Swift knows which dependency is which. The answer
should be pretty simple: look in each Packages/package/Package.swift for
the available package names and build them if there's a dependency on them
somewhere in the graph.

There's something about that idea that seems at odds with the current
git-centric model, though I'm still skeptical that the git-centric model is
a reasonable base case.  For example, it's confusing because
Sources/TargetName uses a filesystem convention while package dependencies
currently do not, but kind of actually do after "swift package edit" has
been run, and would have to with any of the current proposals. Is the
complexity of using git as the base case becoming clear? No matter what
we're doing, the reality is that we end up with files in our filesystem. To
me having the dep as a remote git repo is actually the edge case, which is
the opposite of the current model.

To do anything with a moderate level of complexity took me weeks to get
figure out the ins and outs of and get to a point where it was repeatable
within the team. Again, I think this can be done better. And I think
assuming that dependencies are local unless specified otherwise would make
this a lot easier. Why not for example just have "swift package update"
check out the git repos into its internal build cache and symlink them into
Packages/PackageName, always building packages from ./Packages? I'd find
that a lot more consistent and transparent.

In the meantime the multi-package repo proposal seems like a step in the
right direction. In a way though it seems to me like a crutch for an
underlying inconsistency in both tooling namespaces ("swift build" vs
"swift package") and in convention vs configuration (specific directory
structure vs automated dep management via git).

I'm not sure what the implications of this are, but I'm starting to wonder
whether "swift build" and "swift package" are conceptually two different
but related projects, and whether it'd be a good idea in the medium-long
term to more clearly separate them.

Cheers,
Geordie

PS. The top-of-tree workaround does work after all, but is complicated
because we're also running "swift build" from within a docker image to
build for other platforms, so the absolute paths are (inescapably)
different between the environments.

Again, the idea of having absolute paths there at all seems unnecessary,
but until multi-package repos are available it seems the best option will
be scripting a find-and-replace in ".build/dependencies-state.json" before
running "swift build"...

> Again, this could be solved with a simple API addition in the manifest:
>
> Package(
>   …
>   dependencies: [
>     .package.local(named: "Dependency A")
>     .package.local(named: "Dependency B")
>     ...
>   ]
> )
>
>
> At the end of the day it seems we can work around this by cloning the
> submodules at *Project/Submodule* instead of *Project/Package/Submodule*
> and then running *swift package edit Submodule —path ./Submodule*, just
> that this process would have to be manual for each new dev cloning the
> repo. And then we’d still have two checkouts of the same thing. Yes, this
> works, it just seems very inefficient and still hacky. And it’s very
> possible it'll break again with future SwiftPM versions.
>
> I’m just surprised the idea of a "local dependency" is not seen as a first
> class citizen in SwiftPM, still trying to understand the logic behind that.
> Maybe you can give me an idea of the reasoning behind this?
>
> Best Regards,
> Geordie
>

>
>
>> Best Regards,
>> Geordie
>>
>>
>> PS. In SwiftPM 3 we had been using a hack that worked great: by filling
>> in the dependencies' "basedOn" key in `workspace-state.json`, SwiftPM just
>> left us alone.. We were able to commit `workspace-state.json` into our base
>> project’s git repo and the rest Just Worked™. Now with the absolute paths
>> being checked for this doesn’t seem to be an option.
>>
>>
> Please do not rely on internals of the package manager as they're not
> stable and will change without notice.
>
>
> This was not our preferred way of going about it of course. But it was
> (unfortunately) the best solution to the problem.
>
>
>
>
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