[pulseaudio-discuss] [PATCH] Don't let user-set PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH values affect behaviour

[Tanu Kaskinen]

On Mon, 2014-10-06 at 12:46 +0200, David Henningsson wrote:
> 
> On 2014-10-06 12:41, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> > On Sat, 2014-10-04 at 11:13 -0600, Glenn Golden wrote:
> >> David Henningsson <david.henningsson at canonical.com> [2014-10-02 11:29:50 +0200]:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 2014-10-02 11:17, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> >>>> On Mon, 2014-09-29 at 13:50 +0200, David Henningsson wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 2014-09-28 11:23, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> >>>>>> The logic for choosing the runtime directory is complicated enough
> >>>>>> also without adding PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH into the mix. XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
> >>>>>> is sufficient for users to control the runtime directory.
> >>>>>> PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH has not been documented, so this change doesn't
> >>>>>> constitute an interface break.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> A quick googling of PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH seems to indicate usage of this
> >>>>> environment variable in at least chromium and enlightenment, and also
> >>>>> recommended in several blog posts and mailing lists, including this one.
> >>>>> It is likely used in several home-made scripts.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I'm hesitant to remove it for that reason.
> >>>>
> >>>> The argument that "if you use undocumented interfaces, you can only
> >>>> blame yourself if your script breaks" probably won't change your mind,
> >>>> so I guess we'll just have to make this a documented interface then.
> >>>
> >>> Well, while not officially documented, we have still advocated the use of it
> >>> on this mailing list [1], which to some degree could be seen as the de-facto
> >>> documentation of PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH, given the lack of official
> >>> documentation saying otherwise.
> >>>
> >>
> >> 2c suggestion from the albatross-avoidance dept: How about adding it to the
> >> official doc, but as an explcitly deprecated feature (and with an explicit
> >> associated date/version beyond which it will not be supported)?
> >
> > I'd be ok with that. PulseAudio should then also print warnings when it
> > notices that PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH has been set. David, what do you think?
> > I volunteer to write the patch that prints those warnings.
> 
> What's the reason to remove it in the first place? Does it cause any 
> significant problem, or is it just to have one environment variable less 
> to care about? If it is the latter, not sure if it's worth the effort (i 
> e, other people's effort) to remove it.

It's only about having one less environment variable to care about.

> Btw; as for XDG_RUNTIME_DIR vs PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH, there might be a use 
> case for both, if we want PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH to be auto-created if the 
> dir does not exist, which we don't want for XDG_RUNTIME_DIR.

We don't have a use case for PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH. Other people may have a
use case for it, but we don't know whether they want the directory to be
created or not (we have certainly never promised them any particular
behaviour).

If you don't think it's a good idea to deprecate the variable, then
let's not do that.

-- 
Tanu