Re: Client-only Meson Build From Sources

On 2026-01-02 12:48:34, Andres Freund wrote:
> On 2026-01-02 12:43:34 -0600, Benjamin Leff wrote:
> > For our use case installing a subset of the tree is sufficient.
> >
> > In order of preference / difficulty:
> > 1) Subset of tree
>
> What precisely do you mean by this?

Poor communication on my part. When I said "in order of preference / difficulty" I meant in order of difficulty/ease of implementation for maintainers (that also satisfies our needs), not our actual preference.

Said differently, let's start with the easiest / lowest hanging fruit first to minimize maintenance burden. A meta target that builds only client portions of the tree seems like the lightest-weight approach.

> > 2) Subset of libs / binaries
>
> Why is 1) peferrable over 2)?

It's not (again I communicated poorly). #2 (install target filtering specific libs/binaries) would actually be better for our use case since it saves both build time and disk space. But since you mentioned #2 would be "slightly harder" in your earlier email, I was trying to suggest we tackle #1 first if that's easier to implement and maintain.

> > 3) Configure-time switch to only build client binaries
>
> I really doubt there's interest in going there.

Understood.

I'm happy to help however I can and support the approach that makes the most sense from a maintenance perspective.