Add -A suboption that allows /src folders to be preserved somewhere

[fosskers]

For people who have slow internet and don't want to be cloning git hub repos over and over. This request comes from zxo0oxz on reddit.

[hkupty]

Wouldn't it be better if this was the default behaviour? AFAIK this is what pacman does.
In this case, the suboption would make the source not persisted...

[fosskers]

Note that aura already preserves built packages in the pacman package cache. He wanted this option so that aura could save and then sense already cloned git repos, so that when rebuilding something the cloning wouldn't have to occur again.

[hkupty]

I, personally, have encountered many situations where I need to re-download files over and over again through builds using aura (specially when building nvidia bumblebee drivers, which has even the same file). I wouldn't complain if it's a suboption instead of the default behavior.

In any case, I would like to do this patch.. Note that I'm starting to handle Haskell and, since this is a low priority request, I find it both educationally challenging and rewarding to help with this task :)

[fosskers]

If you can figure everything out, then by all means! I'd be happy to have your contribution.

[fosskers]

It might be a good idea to create a directory for each cloned repo, named by its package name and version number, then store that somewhere in /var, perhaps? Upon the use of the -A suboption, it'll check for the appropriate folders and then just build out of there, or copy to the cache first and then build.

Normal building occurs within temporary directories within the pacman package cache. It's probably a good idea to be consistent.

[hkupty]

Well, I just cloned the repo. I've got some questions before start working:

1. If I stick to pacman's cache dir, when cleaning cache will this files be deleted? If so, I can put this folder below pacman cache dir and have it auto-cleaned by -Scc.
2. I see this feature as a 'persist package' suboption - not only for git repo but also for any package, am I right?

Anyway, I'm starting to read the code to figure out how to implement it.

[fosskers]

1. Those temp files in the package cache are automatically deleted after building.
   If you're going to be manually copying the src folders somewhere, I'd recommend:
   /var/cache/aura/source or something similar. I'm creating new features that will be saving things in /var/cache/aura so it might be handy for you to use that as well.
2. Packages built by aura (the .pkg.tar.gz files) are automatically copied to the package cache, but the source files are all deleted. I suppose you could implement the option to save all source files, yeah.

Aura is getting bigger all the time and the code is pretty split up. You'll probably want to check out Aura/AuraLib.hs. There is a section titled THE WORK which has functions named buildPackages and build. Understanding those could be key to the enterprise.

Also note that I'm planning a major break up of AuraLib.hs, because it's a huge beast. I'm going to split it into Aura/General.hs and Aura/Build.hs. This split may or may not occur for version 1.1.

[fosskers]

@hkupty I had a pretty free day today and got a lot of work done. One of the things I got done was the break up of Aura/AuraLib.hs. It's now three separate libraries, General Build and Dependencies. Where you'll want to be looking now is probably in Build.

[hkupty]

I beg you pardon for this huge gap between my last contact and now... Life had been pretty tough and a bit messed up in the last months... I'll probably be able to develop this feature from this weekend on..

Once again, I sorry for leaving you waiting for so long.. I feel pretty bad about it..

[fosskers]

Don't worry man. I'm not mad or anything, haha. If you have any questions about the code, let me know.

[nc6]

It would be useful to have this also for the upcoming 'M' option to build from the ABS, although I was thinking of using the --allsource option to makepkg to generate full source packages. These could then be untarred next time around, though.