dub assertion failure

[vinesworth]

My intent is to make an import-only library, thus the source paths are kept empty. I try the following package.json:

{
    "name": "ae",
    "targetType": "sourceLibrary",
    "importPaths": [""],
    "dependencies": {
        "ae:net" : "~master",
    },
    "subPackages": [
        {
            "name": "net",
            "targetType": "sourceLibrary",
            "sourcePaths": [""],
            "importPaths": ["net"],
        }
    ]
}

And it asserts on 'dub describe'. Removing 'ae:net' line allows dub to produce a description, but then the subpackage source files are not found in projects that depend on 'ae', and dub asserts again if they depend on 'ae:net' instead.

[s-ludwig]

The problem is the empty path in "sourcePaths" - DUB now outputs a proper error message in this case. This is how it probably should look like instead:

{
    "name": "ae",
    "targetType": "sourceLibrary",
    "importPaths": [],
    "dependencies": {
        "ae:net" : "~master",
    },
    "subPackages": [
        {
            "name": "net",
            "targetType": "sourceLibrary",
            "sourcePaths": [],
            "importPaths": ["net"],
        }
    ]
}

However, if "ae" is the same as this, the directory structure needs to be adjusted before it can be used like this. Ideally, all top-level folders ("net", "sys" etc.) should be moved to "source/ae/" and then the package.json looks just like this:

{
    "name": "ae",
    "targetType": "sourceLibrary",
    "sourcePaths": []
}

Due to the way import paths work in D, it doesn't really make sense to use sub-packages here. To really separate those parts, it would be necessary to put them into different directory hierarchies, e.g.:

net-source/ae/net/*
sys-source/ae/sys/*
...

and then:

{
    "name": "ae",
    "targetType": "none",
    "dependencies": {
        "ae:net" : "~master",
    },
    "subPackages": [
        {
            "name": "net",
            "targetType": "sourceLibrary",
            "importPaths": ["net-source"],
        }
    ]
}

[vinesworth]

Oh, thanks for the hints ) Initially I've contacted the author of ae, and he said that there are multiple projects depending on the current directory structure, thus he will only accept a package.json if it doesn't require that change. What I'm doing is trying to workaround that issue. Do you think it's worthwhile, btw?

[s-ludwig]

Hm, the only workaround that I see is to use "importPaths": [".."] and require that "ae" is checked out in a folder named "ae". But that won't be the case when it's automatically downloaded by DUB.

The other alternative would be to make it a normal source library (instead of header only) and not define any "importPaths", but rely on the module declarations in the source files:

{
    "name": "ae",
    "targetType": "sourceLibrary",
    "sourcePaths": ["net", "sys", ...]
}

I didn't test it, but I think it should be possible to make it work like this, but only if all source files are compiled at once - it will break e.g. in VisualD's single file compilation mode.

Finally, a fork with an adjusted directory structure that is synchronized regularly could of course be used as a last resort. At least git should be able to handle the moved files nicely when rebasing on the latest upstream changes.