No-op plugin for performance

1

I have a file that I need to copy into the staging area.

The organise statement does this fine.

The problem is one of performance.

I have two other parts that I could add the organise statement too but they take a long time to bulid.
As I’m doing development of the snap the file I need to copy is currently changing a lot.

If I add an organize to one of the other two large parts then doing a rebuild takes a long time.

If I can add the organise to a separate part, then I can just clean that part and quickly have my snap rebuilt.

The problem is that parts must have a plugin type. Given this simple organise what plugin can I user that actually does nothing?

2

the nil plugin does nothing, and is usually used with prepare, build and install scriptlets:

parts:
  nil-plugin-example:
    plugin: nil
    source: source-dir
    prepare:
      chmod +x somescript.sh
    install:
      cp somescript.sh $SNAPCRAFT_PART_INSTALL/bin/somescript.sh

You can only organize files that are created by a particular part. i.e. you cannot organize files from your currently defined part in your new part unless you move the installation of those files to the new part.

3

As an alternative, if you’re just copying the files into the snap you can use the dump plugin instead of using the nil plugin with an install scriptlet copying the files into the installation:

parts:
  dump-plugin-example:
    plugin: dump
    source: source-dir
    prepare:
      chmod +x somescript.sh
    organize:
      somescript.sh: bin/somescript.sh
4

Thanks for the response.

I think the real answer to my underlying question is actually that I should use

snap try --devmode prime

snap remove

snap try --devmode prime.

My understanding is that by using try I can edit the scripts directly in the prime directory and re-test without going through a build phase.

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