rename all plugins's .sos

[markus2330]

As @poldi871reported in #3472 on embedded systems (with the cmake option TARGET_PLUGIN_FOLDER="") kdb plugin-list reports both libraries and plugins. Also by looking at the names of the .sos you cannot know what a plugin is.

An easy fix for both problems would be to rename the .sos to e.g. libelektra-plugin-toml.so instead of libelektra-toml.so. This is a bit redundancy in the case TARGET_PLUGIN_FOLDER!="" but helpful in many other situations (e.g. when looking into the lib folder of the cmake build dir), e.g. on my system (where kdb get system/info/elektra/constants/cmake/BUILTIN_PLUGIN_FOLDER returns /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/elektra4 the plugins would be called e.g. /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/elektra4/libelektra-plugin-toml.so.

So I propose to do this rename. Obviously it is an incompatible change: Elektra needs to be fully reinstalled as the new core would only find newly installed plugins (and not the ones with the old name). Furthermore, I propose (maybe even the bigger change in terms of work) that we drop the name "modules". Instead, only the name "plugin" should be used for plugins, even on loader level. E.g. elektraModulesLoad would be renamed to elektraPluginLoad. I also think that these 3 functions for plugin loading should be public, as they are handy in many situations (e.g. for import/export configuration).

What do you think?

[mpranj]

I agree with this proposal, and there is no better time to do this than pre-1.0. 👍

[markus2330]

@kodebach any thoughts on this?

[kodebach]

Yes, adding a -plugin- part to plugin SOs is a very good idea. It would also avoid weird cases like having to call the plugin gopts, because opts would conflict with the library.

Furthermore, I propose (maybe even the bigger change in terms of work) that we drop the name "modules". Instead, only the name "plugin" should be used for plugins, even on loader level.

Since elektraModulesLoad already returns a elektraPluginFactory that is a sensible change.

Additionally, I would also change elektraPluginFactory from

typedef Plugin * (*elektraPluginFactory) (void);

to

typedef KeySet * (*elektraPluginFactory) (void);

where the returned KeySet * is the contract of the Plugin to avoid the hacky overload of the get function.
I think that is already mentioned in another issue. This also requires changing elektraPluginExport and elektraPluginOpen, but should be doable without any other changes.

[markus2330]

Thank you for your input!

I have split the issues: this issue is only about renaming: adding the -plugin- part, for the rest there is #4490.

[markus2330]

@tmakar last issue for you: spec plugin should be renamed to libelektra-plugin-spec.so (and likewise for all other plugins)

[kodebach]

@tmakar One way this issue can definitely be solved is by adding the -plugin- in this line:

libelektra/scripts/cmake/Modules/LibAddPlugin.cmake

Line 430 in ef00c96

set (PLUGIN_NAME elektra-${PLUGIN_SHORT_NAME})

IMO this would be the best option, but it will probably require more changes to CMake elsewhere, since this changes the name of the CMake targets for plugins.

CMake also supports setting an OUTPUT_NAME for each target independent of the name of a target. That is probably quicker to implement. I haven't looked into details, but I suspect this would only require adding one (or a few) line below this one

libelektra/scripts/cmake/Modules/LibAddPlugin.cmake

Line 639 in ef00c96

add_library (${PLUGIN_NAME} MODULE ${ARG_SOURCES} ${ARG_OBJECT_SOURCES})

to set the OUTPUT_NAME for the ${PLUGIN_NAME} target.

[tmakar]

@tmakar One way this issue can definitely be solved is by adding the -plugin- in this line:

libelektra/scripts/cmake/Modules/LibAddPlugin.cmake

Line 430 in ef00c96

set (PLUGIN_NAME elektra-${PLUGIN_SHORT_NAME})

IMO this would be the best option, but it will probably require more changes to CMake elsewhere, since this changes the name of the CMake targets for plugins.

CMake also supports setting an OUTPUT_NAME for each target independent of the name of a target. That is probably quicker to implement. I haven't looked into details, but I suspect this would only require adding one (or a few) line below this one

libelektra/scripts/cmake/Modules/LibAddPlugin.cmake

Line 639 in ef00c96

add_library (${PLUGIN_NAME} MODULE ${ARG_SOURCES} ${ARG_OBJECT_SOURCES})

to set the OUTPUT_NAME for the ${PLUGIN_NAME} target.

Thanks for the details!!

[tmakar]

@markus2330 PR exists in #4919.