Priority Resolving _[Examples] #

Background #

Since dt-cli syncs your dotfiles on a per-group basis, you don't want to run through all of the groups when only a single file is modified in your dotfile library. For example, when you updated your shell init script, you might run the following command:

$ dt-cli shell
 INFO  dt_core::syncing > Local group: [shell]

Nevertheless, sometimes you have to run a full sync, which involves all of your defined groups in your config file. It may look like this:

$ dt-cli
 INFO  dt_core::syncing > Local group: [gdb]
 INFO  dt_core::syncing > Local group: [ssh]
 INFO  dt_core::syncing > Local group: [gpg]
 INFO  dt_core::syncing > Local group: [systemd]
 INFO  dt_core::syncing > Local group: [dt]
 INFO  dt_core::syncing > Local group: [nvim]
 INFO  dt_core::syncing > Local group: [fontconfig]
 INFO  dt_core::syncing > Local group: [shell]
 INFO  dt_core::syncing > Local group: [gui]
 INFO  dt_core::syncing > Local group: [xdg_config_home]
 INFO  dt_core::syncing > Local group: [misc]

Some groups may contain overlapping source items, in the above example, group xdg_config_home contains fontconfig and dt's base directories. It's neither friendly nor efficient for dt-cli to sync the same item twice or even more times: it's slow, and the final result depends on the order of the definitions of the groups.

Scope #

dt-cli solves this problem by defining an extra attribute scope for each group.

A group's scope decides the priority of it being synced. There are 3 predefined scopes, namely Dropin, App and General. The names are pretty much self-explanatory:

• General groups have the lowest priority. They are typically meant for the parent directories of your dotfile library.
• Dropin groups have the highest priority. They are typically meant for those items that come from external sources as drop-in replacements, such as files from a system directory that is managed by your system's package manager.
• App groups have medium priority. As the name implies, it is meant for some specific application, for example, a group containing your config files for GUI applications, or a group containing your shell/editor preferences/init scripts, etc..