Re: [gentoo-dev] A wishlist

[Chris Houser <chouser@gentoo.org>]

Dan Armak wrote:                      [Sun Oct 14 2001,  6:47:59PM EDT]         
> Another item: an automated dependency checker.
> 
> It would build a file->package database from /var/db/pkg and update it 
> whenever a request for a non-registered file is made.

This is done, although not well documented:
    gentoo-src/portage/bin/pdb

> It would run ldd on all dynamic exes in CONTENTS of a requested package, find 
> which packages the linked libraries were from and list the packages.

This isn't hard -- I wrote a little perl script to do this, but lost it
in my reiserfs fiasco.  I will try to write it again -- maybe in python
this time.

> With an interface to portage.py, it could caculate the DEPEND of the ebuild 
> and list missed deps.

It could assist it calculating the DEPEND, but there's no good way for
it to figure out version numbers, I think.  It could list missing deps,
and the ebuild author would have to make judgement calls about which
version to require.

> Also, maybe this Subterfuge can make a list of programs called by the ebuild 
> during emerge (make, gcc, ld, perl, whatever) and look those up too.

Hm! Interesting idea.  We've been discussing having emerge do everything
accept the merge itself as a non-root user to prevent 'make install'
accidents.  But if subterfuge could help with this step, perhaps it
would be a better solution.

--Chouser