Am I the only one confused at why there is a distinction between these?
These look to be functional equivalent, with the major differences I can determine are;
These look to be functional equivalent, with the major differences I can determine are;
- _data has less files so allows uploading add-ons faster.
- But uploading a zip and then decompressing the zip is even faster.
- _output has a _metadata.json which contains per-file hashes, which looks to be used to detect content changes.
- This avoid parsing & round-tripping costs, and allows templates to be edited as HTML files.
- Could be replaced with similar metadata.json hash but for just parts of the json for _data
- When installing an add-on, the web installer doesn't event prompt to import _output. This makes starting development of an existing add-on on a new setup annoying as you need to use the right (inconsistent) command-line incantations.
- This goes a long way to leave a confusing mess on what is the canonical copy between _output/DB/_data instances.