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Remove symlink support for the input files #11556

Closed
Tracked by #11455 ...
bep opened this issue Oct 12, 2023 · 2 comments · Fixed by #11894
Closed
Tracked by #11455 ...

Remove symlink support for the input files #11556

bep opened this issue Oct 12, 2023 · 2 comments · Fixed by #11894

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@bep
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bep commented Oct 12, 2023

This relates to #11543 and others, a part of a major overhaul/simplification/improvement in how Hugo process content (where content includes all files being read and processed as part of the build process).

This work is motivated by several things:

  • We need to improve on the partial builds.
  • We need Hugo to handle larger data sets and use less memory.
  • We need to simplify things to make it possible to add the features planned, but also to make the code easier to maintain.

Working on the above, I have so far just ignored our support for symlinked directories, but now is the time for me to consider putting that support back into my development branch or not.

My main argument for removing it is that it should not really be needed anymore as we got virtual file mounts, e.g.:

[[module.mounts]]
source = "/foo/bar"
target = "content"
lang = "en"

In contrast to symlinks, these mounts are OS and file system agnostic (even work for files/dirs mounted from GitHub), and Hugo knows about them, so we can react to configuration changes.

Some other issues with symlinks are:

  • They're very hard to reason about when files changes and we need to rebuild, and this becomes almost impossible on structural changes (symlinks that is deleted, renamed etc.)
  • There are security concerns, which is why Hugo only allows symlinks in the main project (not in themes/modules).
  • They behave differently on different OSes (on Windows, you need to be an admin to create them).
  • All this symlink checking also has a performance cost.

But most importantly, I don't want us to spend many hours implementing and maintaining a feature that I think is very rarely used (I have never used it).

@bep bep added the Proposal label Oct 12, 2023
@bep bep added this to the v0.120.0 milestone Oct 12, 2023
@bep bep self-assigned this Oct 12, 2023
@hugo-sid
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Just wanted to express my support. I agree with your reasoning to remove support for symlinks.

I think is very rarely used (I have never used it).

I don't think why someone will use symlinks, when module.mounts is available.

@bep bep modified the milestones: v0.120.0, v0.121.0 Oct 31, 2023
@bep bep modified the milestones: v0.121.0, v0.122.0 Dec 6, 2023
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Dec 29, 2023
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Dec 30, 2023
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 5, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 6, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 12, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 12, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 12, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 13, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 14, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 14, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 14, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 14, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 15, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 15, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 15, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 15, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 16, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 16, 2024
bep added a commit to bep/hugo that referenced this issue Jan 17, 2024
bep added a commit that referenced this issue Jan 19, 2024
…, and some general spring cleaning

There are some breaking changes in this commit, see #11455.

Closes #11455
Closes #11549

Fixes #10104
Fixes #10380
Fixes #10694
Fixes #11439
Fixes #11453
Fixes #11457
Fixes #11466
Fixes #11540
Fixes #11551
Fixes #11556
Fixes #11654
Fixes #11661
Fixes #11663
Fixes #11664
Fixes #11669
Fixes #11671
Fixes #11807
Fixes #11808
Fixes #11809
Fixes #11815
Fixes #11840
Fixes #11860
Fixes #11883
Fixes #7425
Fixes #7436
Fixes #7437
Fixes #7544
Fixes #7882
Fixes #8307
Fixes #8498
Fixes #8927
Fixes #9192
Fixes #9324
Fixes #9343
bep added a commit that referenced this issue Jan 24, 2024
…, and some general spring cleaning

There are some breaking changes in this commit, see #11455.

Closes #11455
Closes #11549

Fixes #10104
Fixes #10380
Fixes #10694
Fixes #11439
Fixes #11453
Fixes #11457
Fixes #11466
Fixes #11540
Fixes #11551
Fixes #11556
Fixes #11654
Fixes #11661
Fixes #11663
Fixes #11664
Fixes #11669
Fixes #11671
Fixes #11807
Fixes #11808
Fixes #11809
Fixes #11815
Fixes #11840
Fixes #11860
Fixes #11883
Fixes #7425
Fixes #7436
Fixes #7437
Fixes #7544
Fixes #7882
Fixes #8307
Fixes #8498
Fixes #8927
Fixes #9192
Fixes #9324
Fixes #9343
bep added a commit that referenced this issue Jan 24, 2024
…, and some general spring cleaning

There are some breaking changes in this commit, see #11455.

Closes #11455
Closes #11549

Fixes #10104
Fixes #10380
Fixes #10694
Fixes #11439
Fixes #11453
Fixes #11457
Fixes #11466
Fixes #11540
Fixes #11551
Fixes #11556
Fixes #11654
Fixes #11661
Fixes #11663
Fixes #11664
Fixes #11669
Fixes #11671
Fixes #11807
Fixes #11808
Fixes #11809
Fixes #11815
Fixes #11840
Fixes #11860
Fixes #11883
Fixes #7425
Fixes #7436
Fixes #7437
Fixes #7544
Fixes #7882
Fixes #8307
Fixes #8498
Fixes #8927
Fixes #9192
Fixes #9324
Fixes #9343
bep added a commit that referenced this issue Jan 24, 2024
…d some general spring cleaning

There are some breaking changes in this commit, see #11455.

Closes #11455
Closes #11549

Fixes #10104
Fixes #10380
Fixes #10694
Fixes #11439
Fixes #11453
Fixes #11457
Fixes #11466
Fixes #11540
Fixes #11551
Fixes #11556
Fixes #11654
Fixes #11661
Fixes #11663
Fixes #11664
Fixes #11669
Fixes #11671
Fixes #11807
Fixes #11808
Fixes #11809
Fixes #11815
Fixes #11840
Fixes #11860
Fixes #11883
Fixes #7425
Fixes #7436
Fixes #7437
Fixes #7544
Fixes #7882
Fixes #8307
Fixes #8498
Fixes #8927
Fixes #9192
Fixes #9324
Fixes #9343
bep added a commit that referenced this issue Jan 25, 2024
…d some general spring cleaning

There are some breaking changes in this commit, see #11455.

Closes #11455
Closes #11549

Fixes #10104
Fixes #10380
Fixes #10694
Fixes #11439
Fixes #11453
Fixes #11457
Fixes #11466
Fixes #11540
Fixes #11551
Fixes #11556
Fixes #11654
Fixes #11661
Fixes #11663
Fixes #11664
Fixes #11669
Fixes #11671
Fixes #11807
Fixes #11808
Fixes #11809
Fixes #11815
Fixes #11840
Fixes #11860
Fixes #11883
Fixes #7425
Fixes #7436
Fixes #7437
Fixes #7544
Fixes #7882
Fixes #8307
Fixes #8498
Fixes #8927
Fixes #9192
Fixes #9324
Fixes #9343
bep added a commit that referenced this issue Jan 26, 2024
…d some general spring cleaning

There are some breaking changes in this commit, see #11455.

Closes #11455
Closes #11549

Fixes #10169
Fixes #10364
Fixes #10482
Fixes #10630
Fixes #10656
Fixes #10694
Fixes #10918
Fixes #11262
Fixes #11439
Fixes #11453
Fixes #11457
Fixes #11466
Fixes #11540
Fixes #11551
Fixes #11556
Fixes #11654
Fixes #11661
Fixes #11663
Fixes #11664
Fixes #11669
Fixes #11671
Fixes #11807
Fixes #11808
Fixes #11809
Fixes #11815
Fixes #11840
Fixes #11853
Fixes #11860
Fixes #11883
Fixes #11904
Fixes #7388
Fixes #7425
Fixes #7436
Fixes #7544
Fixes #7882
Fixes #7960
Fixes #8255
Fixes #8307
Fixes #8863
Fixes #8927
Fixes #9192
Fixes #9324
bep added a commit that referenced this issue Jan 27, 2024
…d some general spring cleaning

There are some breaking changes in this commit, see #11455.

Closes #11455
Closes #11549

Fixes #10169
Fixes #10364
Fixes #10482
Fixes #10630
Fixes #10656
Fixes #10694
Fixes #10918
Fixes #11262
Fixes #11439
Fixes #11453
Fixes #11457
Fixes #11466
Fixes #11540
Fixes #11551
Fixes #11556
Fixes #11654
Fixes #11661
Fixes #11663
Fixes #11664
Fixes #11669
Fixes #11671
Fixes #11807
Fixes #11808
Fixes #11809
Fixes #11815
Fixes #11840
Fixes #11853
Fixes #11860
Fixes #11883
Fixes #11904
Fixes #7388
Fixes #7425
Fixes #7436
Fixes #7544
Fixes #7882
Fixes #7960
Fixes #8255
Fixes #8307
Fixes #8863
Fixes #8927
Fixes #9192
Fixes #9324
bep added a commit that referenced this issue Jan 27, 2024
…d some general spring cleaning

There are some breaking changes in this commit, see #11455.

Closes #11455
Closes #11549

This fixes a set of bugs (see issue list) and it is also paying some technical debt accumulated over the years. We now build with Staticcheck enabled in the CI build.

The performance should be about the same as before for regular sized Hugo sites, but it should perform and scale much better to larger data sets, as objects that uses lots of memory (e.g. rendered Markdown, big JSON files read into maps with transform.Unmarshal etc.) will now get automatically garbage collected if needed. Performance on partial rebuilds when running the server in fast render mode should be the same, but the change detection should be much more accurate.

A list of the notable new features:

* A new dependency tracker that covers (almost) all of Hugo's API and is used to do fine grained partial rebuilds when running the server.
* A new and simpler tree document store which allows fast lookups and prefix-walking in all dimensions (e.g. language) concurrently.
* You can now configure an upper memory limit allowing for much larger data sets and/or running on lower specced PCs.
We have lifted the "no resources in sub folders" restriction for branch bundles (e.g. sections).
Memory Limit
* Hugos will, by default, set aside a quarter of the total system memory, but you can set this via the OS environment variable HUGO_MEMORYLIMIT (in gigabytes). This is backed by a partitioned LRU cache used throughout Hugo. A cache that gets dynamically resized in low memory situations, allowing Go's Garbage Collector to free the memory.

New Dependency Tracker: Hugo has had a rule based coarse grained approach to server rebuilds that has worked mostly pretty well, but there have been some surprises (e.g. stale content). This is now revamped with a new dependency tracker that can quickly calculate the delta given a changed resource (e.g. a content file, template, JS file etc.). This handles transitive relations, e.g. $page -> js.Build -> JS import, or $page1.Content -> render hook -> site.GetPage -> $page2.Title, or $page1.Content -> shortcode -> partial -> site.RegularPages -> $page2.Content -> shortcode ..., and should also handle changes to aggregated values (e.g. site.Lastmod) effectively.

This covers all of Hugo's API with 2 known exceptions (a list that may not be fully exhaustive):

Changes to files loaded with template func os.ReadFile may not be handled correctly. We recommend loading resources with resources.Get
Changes to Hugo objects (e.g. Page) passed in the template context to lang.Translate may not be detected correctly. We recommend having simple i18n templates without too much data context passed in other than simple types such as strings and numbers.
Note that the cachebuster configuration (when A changes then rebuild B) works well with the above, but we recommend that you revise that configuration, as it in most situations should not be needed. One example where it is still needed is with TailwindCSS and using changes to hugo_stats.json to trigger new CSS rebuilds.

Document Store: Previously, a little simplified, we split the document store (where we store pages and resources) in a tree per language. This worked pretty well, but the structure made some operations harder than they needed to be. We have now restructured it into one Radix tree for all languages. Internally the language is considered to be a dimension of that tree, and the tree can be viewed in all dimensions concurrently. This makes some operations re. language simpler (e.g. finding translations is just a slice range), but the idea is that it should also be relatively inexpensive to add more dimensions if needed (e.g. role).

Fixes #10169
Fixes #10364
Fixes #10482
Fixes #10630
Fixes #10656
Fixes #10694
Fixes #10918
Fixes #11262
Fixes #11439
Fixes #11453
Fixes #11457
Fixes #11466
Fixes #11540
Fixes #11551
Fixes #11556
Fixes #11654
Fixes #11661
Fixes #11663
Fixes #11664
Fixes #11669
Fixes #11671
Fixes #11807
Fixes #11808
Fixes #11809
Fixes #11815
Fixes #11840
Fixes #11853
Fixes #11860
Fixes #11883
Fixes #11904
Fixes #7388
Fixes #7425
Fixes #7436
Fixes #7544
Fixes #7882
Fixes #7960
Fixes #8255
Fixes #8307
Fixes #8863
Fixes #8927
Fixes #9192
Fixes #9324
bep added a commit that referenced this issue Jan 27, 2024
…d some general spring cleaning

There are some breaking changes in this commit, see #11455.

Closes #11455
Closes #11549

This fixes a set of bugs (see issue list) and it is also paying some technical debt accumulated over the years. We now build with Staticcheck enabled in the CI build.

The performance should be about the same as before for regular sized Hugo sites, but it should perform and scale much better to larger data sets, as objects that uses lots of memory (e.g. rendered Markdown, big JSON files read into maps with transform.Unmarshal etc.) will now get automatically garbage collected if needed. Performance on partial rebuilds when running the server in fast render mode should be the same, but the change detection should be much more accurate.

A list of the notable new features:

* A new dependency tracker that covers (almost) all of Hugo's API and is used to do fine grained partial rebuilds when running the server.
* A new and simpler tree document store which allows fast lookups and prefix-walking in all dimensions (e.g. language) concurrently.
* You can now configure an upper memory limit allowing for much larger data sets and/or running on lower specced PCs.
We have lifted the "no resources in sub folders" restriction for branch bundles (e.g. sections).
Memory Limit
* Hugos will, by default, set aside a quarter of the total system memory, but you can set this via the OS environment variable HUGO_MEMORYLIMIT (in gigabytes). This is backed by a partitioned LRU cache used throughout Hugo. A cache that gets dynamically resized in low memory situations, allowing Go's Garbage Collector to free the memory.

New Dependency Tracker: Hugo has had a rule based coarse grained approach to server rebuilds that has worked mostly pretty well, but there have been some surprises (e.g. stale content). This is now revamped with a new dependency tracker that can quickly calculate the delta given a changed resource (e.g. a content file, template, JS file etc.). This handles transitive relations, e.g. $page -> js.Build -> JS import, or $page1.Content -> render hook -> site.GetPage -> $page2.Title, or $page1.Content -> shortcode -> partial -> site.RegularPages -> $page2.Content -> shortcode ..., and should also handle changes to aggregated values (e.g. site.Lastmod) effectively.

This covers all of Hugo's API with 2 known exceptions (a list that may not be fully exhaustive):

Changes to files loaded with template func os.ReadFile may not be handled correctly. We recommend loading resources with resources.Get
Changes to Hugo objects (e.g. Page) passed in the template context to lang.Translate may not be detected correctly. We recommend having simple i18n templates without too much data context passed in other than simple types such as strings and numbers.
Note that the cachebuster configuration (when A changes then rebuild B) works well with the above, but we recommend that you revise that configuration, as it in most situations should not be needed. One example where it is still needed is with TailwindCSS and using changes to hugo_stats.json to trigger new CSS rebuilds.

Document Store: Previously, a little simplified, we split the document store (where we store pages and resources) in a tree per language. This worked pretty well, but the structure made some operations harder than they needed to be. We have now restructured it into one Radix tree for all languages. Internally the language is considered to be a dimension of that tree, and the tree can be viewed in all dimensions concurrently. This makes some operations re. language simpler (e.g. finding translations is just a slice range), but the idea is that it should also be relatively inexpensive to add more dimensions if needed (e.g. role).

Fixes #10169
Fixes #10364
Fixes #10482
Fixes #10630
Fixes #10656
Fixes #10694
Fixes #10918
Fixes #11262
Fixes #11439
Fixes #11453
Fixes #11457
Fixes #11466
Fixes #11540
Fixes #11551
Fixes #11556
Fixes #11654
Fixes #11661
Fixes #11663
Fixes #11664
Fixes #11669
Fixes #11671
Fixes #11807
Fixes #11808
Fixes #11809
Fixes #11815
Fixes #11840
Fixes #11853
Fixes #11860
Fixes #11883
Fixes #11904
Fixes #7388
Fixes #7425
Fixes #7436
Fixes #7544
Fixes #7882
Fixes #7960
Fixes #8255
Fixes #8307
Fixes #8863
Fixes #8927
Fixes #9192
Fixes #9324
@bep bep modified the milestones: v0.122.0, v0.123.0 Jan 27, 2024
@bep bep closed this as completed in e39c0f4 Jan 28, 2024
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