RFC: add add_artifact! function

[simeonschaub]

This is just an initial prototype and doesn't have tests and docs yet. Is this the right way to do this? Should there be an option for multiple tarball_urls as well?

Closes #1950

[simeonschaub]

@staticfloat Could you take a quick look at this? Just to know whether this is the right direction.

[staticfloat]

Can you explain a bit what the purpose of this function is? Is this to make it easier to download a pre-existing tarball and bind it as an artifact?

[simeonschaub]

Yes exactly! I found it quite cumbersome with the current API to just ship a tarball that's already hosted somewhere as an artifact, especially when you want to update it periodically. This aims to provide this functionality, so the package developer doesn't have to worry about calculating all the correct checksums manually.

[StefanKarpinski]

I wonder if we shouldn't have an external ArtifactUtils.jl package that has extra artifact-related functionality.

[giordano]

An external package is also fine. I believe many people (mis)use BinaryBuilder to create JLL packages because that's the easiest way to create an Artifacts.toml

[simeonschaub]

Is that something that should live under the JuliaLang or JuliaPackaging umbrella, with the goal of factoring out some of BinaryBuilder's functionality into such a package or should I just go ahead and put this into a package of my own?

[staticfloat]

I think an ArtifactTools.jl or ArtifactUtils.jl package could be helpful. IMO, things that are mostly used at artifact creation time it's fine to have as a separate package, but if it's needed at artifact install/load time, it's more likely to be needed in Pkg (or stdlib, in 1.6+).

[jlperla]

This was pointed out to me. Looks like exactly what I needed, but also happy to use a separate package if it is existed.

[simeonschaub]

@giordano Should I just go ahead and start a package for this, or do you have grander plans in terms of factoring out parts of BinaryBuilder?

[giordano]

No, we don't have any plan about this at the moment

[simeonschaub]

@jlperla I started a package here: https://github.com/simeonschaub/ArtifactUtils.jl Should also (hopefully) be registered soon.