RFE: Add `bst validate` command

Background

This command would validate project, element and optionally user configurations. It will be useful to verify that all configs actually are valid before trying to build them. It will be especially useful for running under CI as a lightweight check for verifying the configs.

At the very least, this command would provide a yes/no kind of feedback for given config files, but ideally it may also try to detect common anti-patterns and report them.

Task description

• Add a top-level bst command to validate *.bst files

Acceptance Criteria

One is able to verify all element and project configuration using a single command.

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marked this issue as related to #485

@cs-shadow I've been told to use bst show for this, but I agree bst validate is much better name

Also linked #485 as is very related with this

Assuming that such a beast were available, would something akin to bst show --all > /dev/null be enough to meet this kind of requirement?

I believe that we currently validate the files in the process of building them, would this just be a matter of copying that functionality and using it on its own?

I.E. Write a function (if it doesn't already exist) which has the purpose of validating all files in a project, and have the build call that function when building instead of however it currently does it, and also having bst validate just call that function

Does this seem like a reasonable way of doing this?

@cs-shadow

@knownexus That seems like a good start to me.

Once we have a validate command that simply does the checks, it can later be extended to provide better help which may not make sense with other commands at present.

Just to give some examples, here are the kind of things that I can imagine bst validate doing in future:

• linting bst files
• auto-formatting bst files (similar to what was proposed under #485)
• validating bst files against user-defined rules
• validating all urls mentioned in the bst files
• validating config is following best practices

Not saying that we should implement all of this from the beginning but simply listing some ideas.

changed the description

assigned to @knownexus

added Doing label

added Enhancement label

mentioned in merge request !925 (merged)

added Important label

changed milestone to %BuildStream_v1.4

mentioned in merge request !990 (closed)

assigned to @juergbi and unassigned @knownexus

bst show with default target support is now in master. This should be helpful for validation, however, I'll leave this issue open for a potential bst validate command with additional features.

removed Doing label

unassigned @juergbi

mentioned in issue #1299 (closed)

marked #1299 (closed) as a duplicate of this issue

marked this issue as related to #1299 (closed)