Re: [gentoo-dev] RFD: EAPI specification in ebuilds

[Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org>]

>>>>> On Sun, 18 Mar 2012, Ralph Sennhauser wrote:

> If we want to keep .ebuild but avoid the compat issue another
> variant would be "EAPI in header comment and one-time change of
> ebuild location" or more formal:

> 6 EAPI in header comment and one-time change of ebuild location:

> - add a directory $CATEGORY/$PN/ebuilds to ebuild repositories.
> - all files in $CATEGORY/$PN/ebuilds are ebuilds and are using a
>   well defined first line to denote the EAPI.
> - For practical reasons the header should be a bash comment. PMs
>   shouldn't have to remove or skip first line from file for further
>   processing of ebuilds supporting bash comments.
> - the .ebuild extension can be kept but could be changed if ever
>   desired. This due to the filename only having meaning if the
>   EAPI of the file is known.

Similar ideas have been discussed before, in 2007 and 2009:
<http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/msg_fe3f0b9d050ead86aed9b42ce7ec93b0.xml>
<http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/msg_2e41942be33d8595cf7152aa91417fbe.xml>

> Comparing this with GLEP 55 then this allows us to keep .ebuild in
> return of some overhead with roughly the same pros and cons
> otherwise, right?

From a technical point of view, it's the same pros and cons. There are
however non-technical aspects for all these propositions. For example,
we would have to live with ebuilds in different directories for a long
transition period (as we would have to live with two file extensions
for a long time if we changed that).

Ulrich