[gentoo-dev] [GLEP 56] metadata.xml USE flag descriptions [Clarifications]

[gentoo-dev] [GLEP 56] metadata.xml USE flag descriptions [Clarifications]

[Doug Goldstein]

Howdy all,

Further questions regarding use.desc have come up with regard to this 
GLEP. My proposed solution would be a potential amendment to the GLEP to 
state that

<flag name='png' />

Would be allowed. This syntax is not actually disallowed or allowed by 
the current GLEP, but mentioning it would allow a metadata.xml contain 
all the USE flags that appear in IUSE, even the global ones. By using 
the above syntax, it would simply state that there is no additional 
descriptions or details but to just use the use.desc description.

Further more, it would allow us in the future to make that mandatory and 
repoman would only have to check metadata.xml for your USE flag.

Comments, Suggestions, Input are all welcome.

--
Doug Goldstein
Gentoo Developer

Re: [gentoo-dev] [GLEP 56] metadata.xml USE flag descriptions [Clarifications]

[Santiago M. Mola]

On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 7:11 PM, Doug Goldstein <cardoe@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Howdy all,
>
> Further questions regarding use.desc have come up with regard to this GLEP.
> My proposed solution would be a potential amendment to the GLEP to state
> that
>
> <flag name='png' />
>
> Would be allowed. This syntax is not actually disallowed or allowed by the
> current GLEP, but mentioning it would allow a metadata.xml contain all the
> USE flags that appear in IUSE, even the global ones. By using the above
> syntax, it would simply state that there is no additional descriptions or
> details but to just use the use.desc description.
>
> Further more, it would allow us in the future to make that mandatory and
> repoman would only have to check metadata.xml for your USE flag.
>
> Comments, Suggestions, Input are all welcome.
>

What is the benefit?

Regards,
-- 
Santiago M. Mola
Jabber ID: cooldwind@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-dev] [GLEP 56] metadata.xml USE flag descriptions [Clarifications]

[Josh Saddler]

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Doug Goldstein wrote:
> Howdy all,
> 
> Further questions regarding use.desc have come up with regard to this 
> GLEP. My proposed solution would be a potential amendment to the GLEP to 
> state that
> 
> <flag name='png' />

> Comments, Suggestions, Input are all welcome.

If you're going for proper XML, then it should look like this:

<flag name="png"/>

XML doesn't put a space between the attribute and the closing slash -- 
XHTML does. Common mistake. Also, use " for attributes, rather than '.


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Re: [gentoo-dev] [GLEP 56] metadata.xml USE flag descriptions [Clarifications]

[Mark Loeser]

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Josh Saddler <nightmorph@gentoo.org> said:
> If you're going for proper XML, then it should look like this:
>
> <flag name="png"/>
>
> XML doesn't put a space between the attribute and the closing slash -- 
> XHTML does. Common mistake. Also, use " for attributes, rather than '.

Well, if we want to nitpick, adding a space, tab, or newline is
perfectly valid, as is using ' to quote the attribute. :)

http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/#NT-EmptyElemTag
http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/#NT-AttValue

-- 
Mark Loeser
email         -   halcy0n AT gentoo DOT org
email         -   mark AT halcy0n DOT com
web           -   http://www.halcy0n.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] [GLEP 56] metadata.xml USE flag descriptions [Clarifications]

[Doug Goldstein]

Santiago M. Mola wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 7:11 PM, Doug Goldstein <cardoe@gentoo.org> wrote:
>   
>> Howdy all,
>>
>> Further questions regarding use.desc have come up with regard to this GLEP.
>> My proposed solution would be a potential amendment to the GLEP to state
>> that
>>
>> <flag name='png' />
>>
>> Would be allowed. This syntax is not actually disallowed or allowed by the
>> current GLEP, but mentioning it would allow a metadata.xml contain all the
>> USE flags that appear in IUSE, even the global ones. By using the above
>> syntax, it would simply state that there is no additional descriptions or
>> details but to just use the use.desc description.
>>
>> Further more, it would allow us in the future to make that mandatory and
>> repoman would only have to check metadata.xml for your USE flag.
>>
>> Comments, Suggestions, Input are all welcome.
>>
>>     
>
> What is the benefit?
>
> Regards,
>   
There is none really. Allow all use flags to exist in metadata.xml. It's 
really more of a clarification to the GLEP if this is allowed.

Re: [gentoo-dev] [GLEP 56] metadata.xml USE flag descriptions [Clarifications]

[Jan Kundrát]

Josh Saddler wrote:
> XML doesn't put a space between the attribute and the closing slash --
> XHTML does. Common mistake. Also, use " for attributes, rather than '.

Nope, both is perfectly legal in XML (and illegal per the GDP coding
style, which certainly doesn't apply to metadata.xml) :p.

Cheers,
-jkt

Re: [gentoo-dev] [GLEP 56] metadata.xml USE flag descriptions [Clarifications]

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:13:26 -0400
Doug Goldstein <cardoe@gentoo.org> wrote:

> > What is the benefit?

> There is none really. Allow all use flags to exist in metadata.xml.
> It's really more of a clarification to the GLEP if this is allowed.

I personally think that this would facilitate a lot of duplication that
would ultimately amount to bitrot. Of course having, say, repoman
suggest cleanups would be one solution to the problem of bitrot, but
then I still fail to see the advantage over having both an IUSE per
ebuild as well as maintaining <gentoo-x86/profiles/use.desc>.

In my opinion the GLEP needs clarification on this matter. It should
forbid the use of these empty flag tags, and the DTD should reflect
that[1].


Kind regards,
     JeR


[1] Come to think of it, in the recent metadata.xml / no-herd debate,
wasn't having an empty herd tag ever suggested? <herd />

Re: [gentoo-dev] [GLEP 56] metadata.xml USE flag descriptions [Clarifications]

[Doug Goldstein]

Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:13:26 -0400
> Doug Goldstein <cardoe@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>   
>>> What is the benefit?
>>>       
>
>   
>> There is none really. Allow all use flags to exist in metadata.xml.
>> It's really more of a clarification to the GLEP if this is allowed.
>>     
>
>   
<snip>
> [1] Come to think of it, in the recent metadata.xml / no-herd debate,
> wasn't having an empty herd tag ever suggested? <herd />
>
>   
I've been championing that for what feels like 3 years now. The problem 
is it breaks backwards compat with all tools out there..

Re: [gentoo-dev] [GLEP 56] metadata.xml USE flag descriptions [Clarifications]

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 13:11 Wed 13 Aug     , Doug Goldstein wrote:
> Further questions regarding use.desc have come up with regard to this  
> GLEP. My proposed solution would be a potential amendment to the GLEP to  
> state that
>
> <flag name='png' />
>
> Would be allowed. This syntax is not actually disallowed or allowed by  
> the current GLEP, but mentioning it would allow a metadata.xml contain  
> all the USE flags that appear in IUSE, even the global ones. By using  
> the above syntax, it would simply state that there is no additional  
> descriptions or details but to just use the use.desc description.
>
> Further more, it would allow us in the future to make that mandatory and  
> repoman would only have to check metadata.xml for your USE flag.

It seems like this doesn't have much benefit and is a bit confusing to 
me. You now need to know which flags in metadata.xml are global so you 
don't allow descriptions for them. You also need to verify the globals 
between the two places they'll be specified (metadata.xml and use.desc 
for the description) so you don't have things claiming they're global 
but aren't. The benefit here doesn't end up saving anything at all once 
you have a consistency check anyway.

Halcy0n also mentioned that this gets really annoying when USE flags 
inherited from eclasses change. You'd need to edit every metadata.xml of 
all inheriting packages.

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] [GLEP 56] metadata.xml USE flag descriptions [Clarifications]

[Tobias Scherbaum]

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Doug Goldstein wrote:
> > What is the benefit?
> >
> > Regards,
> >   
> There is none really. Allow all use flags to exist in metadata.xml. It's 
> really more of a clarification to the GLEP if this is allowed.

Agreed, it has no benefit at all plus would lead to some kind of useless
duplication of information. Stating <flag name='png' /> in metadata.xml
for global use flags makes basically no difference to IUSE="png", except
that we already have the latter one.

  Tobias

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