Subject: Re: bug#50476: [PATCH 00/10] Update guile-dbi and guile-dbd-*

From: Arun Isaac <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2021 01:53:11 +0530

Hi Ludo,

>> +    (native-search-paths
>> +     (list (search-path-specification
>> +            (variable "LD_LIBRARY_PATH")
>> +            (files '("lib")))))))
>
> I think we should not add LD_LIBRARY_PATH as a search path spec as it
> can have undesirable side effects; it’s just too broad and risky.

This makes sense.

> The difficulty here is that we want guile-dbi to be able to find its
> guile-dbd-* plugins, right?  The previous method, which was to set the
> RUNPATH of guile-dbi pointing to guile-dbd-*, sounds preferable to me:
> it’s localized and does the job.
>
> The downside of the RUNPATH method is that these are no longer really
> “plugins”: you end up pulling them whether or not you use them.  Perhaps
> you were concerned about the closure size?

Yes, I was concerned about the closure size, but not merely about the
closure size in MB, but also the closure size in number of packages. It
does look a bit awkward when we're pulling in dependencies that are not
really required.

> If that really is a concern, I’d recommend taking a different approach,
> such as using/defining a dedicated search path variable.

That sounds good. How about I create a GUILE_DBD_LD_LIBRARY_PATH
environment variable?

Regards,
Arun