Subject: Re: bug#45346: [elpa-archive] :ignored-files is processed to early

From: Jonas Bernoulli <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2020 11:20:34 +0100

Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]> writes:

>> It appears that `:ignored-files' is processes before `:renames' and
>> that that should be changed.
>
> Indeed, the renaming is applied last and it's not easy to change that
> with the approach I use (the renaming is done by `tar` via
> `--transform`).
>
> Maybe I could try and remove the entries after generating the tarball.
> Hmm...

IMO it would be better to just do it in lisp and simplify the call to
`tar'.

> Note, FWIW, I tend to consider that it's OK to keep useless files in the
> tarball as long as they're not actively harmful (e.g. they triple the
> size of the tarball), and more generally I think it's best to use
> `:ignore` and `:renames` with moderation.

I consider useless files to be actively harmful.  Some users will
investigate what those apparently useless files are for and once they
have seen that they are in fact useless some of them still won't be
satisfied and continue to wonder what they have missed because obviously
nobody would include such useless files...  I am like that and would
like to save others (plural) from having to do the same work over and
over again when I can just do it for them once.

     Jonas