RCORDER(8) BSD System Manager's Manual RCORDER(8)NAMErcorder — print a dependency ordering of interdependent files
SYNOPSISrcorder [-k keep] [-s skip] file ...
DESCRIPTIONrcorder is designed to print out a dependency ordering of a set of inter‐
dependent files. Typically it is used to find an execution sequence for
a set of shell scripts in which certain files must be executed before
others.
Each file passed to rcorder should be annotated with special lines (which
look like comments to the shell) which indicate the dependencies the
files have upon certain points in the sequence, known as “conditions”,
and which indicate, for each file, which “conditions” may be expected to
be filled by that file.
Within each file, a block containing a series of “REQUIRE”, “PROVIDE”,
“BEFORE” and “KEYWORD” lines should appear. The format of the lines is
rigid. Each line must begin with a single “#”, followed by a single
space, followed by “PROVIDE:”, “REQUIRE:”, “BEFORE:”, or “KEYWORD:”. No
deviation is permitted. Each dependency line is then followed by a
series of conditions, separated by whitespace. Multiple “PROVIDE”,
“REQUIRE”, “BEFORE” and “KEYWORD” lines may appear, but all such lines
must appear in a sequence without any intervening lines, as once a line
that does not follow the format is reached, parsing stops.
The options are as follows:
-k Add the specified keyword to the “keep list”. If any -k option
is given, only those files containing the matching keyword are
listed.
-s Add the specified keyword to the “skip list”. If any -s option
is given, files containing the matching keyword are not listed.
An example block follows:
# REQUIRE: networking syslog
# REQUIRE: usr
# PROVIDE: dns nscd
This block states that the file in which it appears depends upon the
“networking”, “syslog”, and “usr” conditions, and provides the “dns” and
“nscd” conditions.
A file may contain zero “PROVIDE” lines, in which case it provides no
conditions, and may contain zero “REQUIRE” lines, in which case it has no
dependencies. A file containing no “PROVIDE”, “REQUIRE”, or “BEFORE”
lines may be output at an arbitrary position in the dependency ordering.
There must be at least one file with no dependencies in the set of argu‐
ments passed to rcorder in order for it to find a starting place in the
dependency ordering.
DIAGNOSTICSrcorder may print one of the following error messages and exit with a
non-zero status if it encounters an error while processing the file list.
Requirement %s has no providers, aborting. No file has a “PROVIDE” line
corresponding to a condition present in a “REQUIRE” line in another file.
Circular dependency on provision %s, aborting. A set of files has a cir‐
cular dependency which was detected while processing the stated condi‐
tion.
Circular dependency on file %s, aborting. A set of files has a circular
dependency which was detected while processing the stated file.
SEE ALSOrc(8)HISTORY
The rcorder program first appeared in NetBSD 1.5.
AUTHORS
Written by Perry E. Metzger ⟨perry@piermont.com⟩ and Matthew R. Green
⟨mrg@eterna.com.au⟩.
BSD April 23, 2003 BSD
