Optional use of require_relative

[daBrado]

Would it be desirable to optionally have the generated ruby code use require_relative (in place of the default require) to bring in other ruby code generated in a given protoc run?

[localshred]

Can you describe a little more what benefit you feel this would provide?

[onethirtyfive]

👍 on this or an alternative I'll propose.

I have protobufs which I inherit from upstream reverse engineering efforts. My generated code is packaged in a different gem (as a dependency because it changes independently), but I want it to share the same top-level Effigy module at runtime.

The proto files are organized like so:

proto/
├── demo.proto
├── dota_commonmessages.proto
├── dota_modifiers.proto
├── dota_usermessages.proto
├── netmessages.proto
├── networkbasetypes.proto
├── s1
│   ├── s1_dota_usermessages.proto
│   ├── s1_netmessages.proto
│   └── s1_usermessages.proto
└── s2
    ├── s2_base_gcmessages.proto
    ├── s2_dota_gcmessages_common.proto
    ├── s2_dota_match_metadata.proto
    ├── s2_dota_usermessages.proto
    ├── s2_gameevents.proto
    ├── s2_netmessages.proto
    ├── s2_te.proto
    └── s2_usermessages.proto

I organize the output manually after compiling with package effigy.wire;, package effigy.wire.s1;, etc. definitions in the protobuf files:

lib/
├── effigy
│   ├── wire
│   │   ├── demo.pb.rb
│   │   ├── dota_commonmessages.pb.rb
│   │   ├── dota_modifiers.pb.rb
│   │   ├── dota_usermessages.pb.rb
│   │   ├── netmessages.pb.rb
│   │   ├── networkbasetypes.pb.rb
│   │   ├── s1
│   │   │   ├── s1_dota_usermessages.pb.rb
│   │   │   ├── s1_netmessages.pb.rb
│   │   │   └── s1_usermessages.pb.rb
│   │   ├── s1.rb
│   │   ├── s2
│   │   │   ├── s2_base_gcmessages.pb.rb
│   │   │   ├── s2_dota_gcmessages_common.pb.rb
│   │   │   ├── s2_dota_match_metadata.pb.rb
│   │   │   ├── s2_dota_usermessages.pb.rb
│   │   │   ├── s2_gameevents.pb.rb
│   │   │   ├── s2_netmessages.pb.rb
│   │   │   ├── s2_te.pb.rb
│   │   │   └── s2_usermessages.pb.rb
│   │   └── s2.rb
│   └── wire.rb
└── effigy.rb

Works wonderfully until I try to require the files. This is because effigy/wire/s2/s2_te.pb.rb is interested in effigy/wire/networkbasetypes.pb.rb.

Strict adoption of ruby namespacing rules--that is, that module code should be organized hierarchically in folders corresponding to their modules--would make require work in all use cases because it would just be plain-old ruby code. The current (and protobuf-esque) approach of dumping all the (internally namespaced) output into a flat folder and hoping for the best on a require doesn't benefit from Ruby's conventions at all.

And this or similar is probably why @daBrado asked about require_relative. Or not and it's just me. :)

Thoughts?

[onethirtyfive]

In case any of you is more curious about my use-case, it's here. You can see how I have to torture things to get them to compile in scripts bin--and I'm having to do the require_relative changes in the lib output manually every time.

[tdeo]

👍 for this as well. It would already be nice to be able to store the .pb.rb files inside lib/protobuf or something instead of just leaving there in lib/.

A PR on this should be quite straightforward, I'm willing to work on this if people are interested

[film42]

@tdeo Feel free to open a PR that supports both options if you're interested. I'd be happy to take a look. I'm not motivated to make the change but I'd be happy to merge a good solution :)