If you say

pagespec_match_list($page, $spec, list => \@pages)

with a small list @pages and a vague pagespec $spec, $page ends up depending on (every page that matches) $spec. For instance, if you already have a list of subpages of the sandbox, and you want to filter it to only the discussion pages, you can do that like

pagespec_match_list("sandbox", "*/discussion",
    list => ["sandbox/discussion", "sandbox/things", "sandbox/stuff"])

but then a change to any discussion page will refresh the sandbox.

The trails depend on everything bug was a particularly bad case of this, with the widest possible pagespec internal(*) matched against a small list (the trail).

In principle it would be nice if pagespec_match_list could detect this situation and make sandbox depend on only those subpages instead.

Perhaps if the list parameter is given, p_m_l should add a by-name (simple) dependency on each page in that list, instead of a dependency on the pagespec? Or perhaps it should be documented that plugins can pass deptype => 0 to take responsibility for their own dependency handling, and then do whatever they need?

Uses of pagespec_match_list with a non-trivial list, in-tree, after trails depend on everything is fixed:

• brokenlinks: really does need to depend on the whole pagespec, but that could be done separately

• inline: the inliner already depends on the inlined pages so no extra dependency is needed

• pagestats: same as brokenlinks

My album plugin is in the same situation as inline.

--smcv