Re: [gentoo-dev] automated extended information gathering

[Marius Mauch <genone@gentoo.org>]

On Sat, 7 Jul 2007 17:43:44 -0400
Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:

> often times when i get a bug report about certain packages, there's 
> information about that package that i usually ask for ... i wonder if
> this can be automated
> 
> perhaps extend the syntax of profiles/info_pkgs:
> <atom> [command to pass to system()]
> sys-libs/glibc /lib/libc.so.6
> 
> then when people run `emerge --verbose --info`, for every atom
> matched as installed, it'd automatically run the listed command and
> display the output
> 
> useful ?  security issue waiting to explode ?  crazy wacky monkey ?

I see several problems with that approach:
1) adding a secondary purpose to info_pkgs, history has shown that we
should avoid such things (think packages file)
2) as a consequence of 1), I assume people would add packages to
info_pkgs only for the new purpose, cluttering regular --info output
with irrelevant information
3) sounds more like something that should only trigger in `emerge
--info foo`
4) likely not backwards compatible
5) considering 3), I'd rather see such information be specified by
ebuilds somehow, not a global file (think about overlays). Maybe by
installing a script in a specific location or so.

Marius

-- 
Marius Mauch <genone@gentoo.org>
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