Having an option to ignore generator rule/statement

[bobzhang]

By default, ninja already ignore generator rules, but it does not work on CI sometimes, when doing a git clone, the timestamp is lost

[jhasse]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Is your build manifest not in Git?

[bobzhang]

Suppose you have a rule ```ninja rule cpp command = cpp $in -o $out generator = true build xx.c : cpp xx.c.in ``` And you check in generated files in general, but in CI you don’t have cpp binary installed, it should be fine if git clone preserved time stamp, the rule is not triggered. However, from time to time, the time stamp is not preserved in various environments, so the command cpp is still triggered, this would cause an error since cpp is not available (cpp is expected to be a dev dependency like re2c used in ninja)

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On Jun 5, 2019, at 4:24 AM, Jan Niklas Hasse ***@***.***> wrote: I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Is your build manifest not in Git? — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1585?email_source=notifications&email_token=AAFWMK6WKMKDFBXSHOJXJ7DPY3FQDA5CNFSM4HQ2M5V2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGODW5YPUQ#issuecomment-498829266>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAFWMK32FW5AGCST2GGJ2SLPY3FQDANCNFSM4HQ2M5VQ>.

[bauen1]

@bobzhang You're probably looking for a tool like git-restore-mtime to correct the time stamps of the repo after checkout for CI.

This doesn't seem to be an issue with ninja, since it is behaving as expected (regenerating outdated build objects when needed).

[jhasse]

Or #1459 ;)

[bobzhang]

It is not ninja's fault, but in an imperfect world it would be nice to have ninja provide a work around. I could use tools like @bauen1 mentioned, but I had to make it available in CI first..
#1459 is similar but not exactly the same, ideally I want to have a way to skip the generator rules completely without relying timestamps.
I have a local patch, I would like to send a PR if you are interested