Querying the database

[Nikita Karetnikov]

I'm looking for a way to query the database as advertised in the Shake paper:

"Our approach to analysing the database is to define queries
which allow end users to answer specific questions about their build
system. Some of the most useful queries include:
• Why was a particular file rebuilt? [...]
• If I modify a file, what will rebuild? [...]
• What is the most expensive file to modify? [...]"

How exactly do I do that?

[Neil Mitchell]

Hi Nikita,

General approach is to run --profile, and look at the resulting
report.html. See http://shakebuild.com/profiling#html-profile-reports
and the profiling demo at
https://cdn.rawgit.com/ndmitchell/shake/35fbe03c8d3bafeae17b58af89497ff3fdd54b22/html/demo.html

All these questions can be answered by entering appropriate queries in
the resulting profile, but it's not always trivial. There is a plan to
add more direct "answer a question" query for the common things (e.g.
https://github.com/ndmitchell/shake/issues/148 and
https://github.com/ndmitchell/shake/issues/414).

Thanks, Neil