Re: [gentoo-dev] About the 'eapi' file in profile directories

[Joshua Kinard <kumba@gentoo.org>]

On 7/31/2021 18:47, Sam James wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 31 Jul 2021, at 23:42, Joshua Kinard <kumba@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I can't find much documentation on the 'eapi' file found in many of the
>> profile directories.  Several of the ones in
>> profiles/arch/{amd64,sparc,mips} all report '5', and this aligns with the
>> mips 17.0 profile under default/linux.  Since EAPI 5 is deprecated, should
>> this file be edited to be at least EAPI 6 or 7, or is it a relic of the past
>> and really just needs to be tossed out?
>>
>> If EAPI support is really needed in the profiles, it seems like there has to
>> be a better mechanism to codify it in a more central location versus
>> scattering ~390 of the things across the base profiles directory.
>>
>> Thoughts?
> 
> As far as I know, the only real documentation on this is in PMS [0]. Not much
> changed in EAPIs 6, 7, or 8 for profiles and I think we're rather conservative
> (a number of years) about increasing the baseline because it makes old
> upgrades even more difficult.
> 
> I think there may be a guideline about that somewhere but I can't think where
> it Is right now. There's a reference to it in the devmanual [1] when explaining
> EAPI 8 - that page may have other useful information too.
> 
> TL;DR: We don't get much out of it and either the EAPIs are too new to use
> in profiles or they didn't change anything relevant.
> 
> [0] https://dev.gentoo.org/~ulm/pms/head/pms.html#x1-450005.2.2
> [1] https://devmanual.gentoo.org/ebuild-writing/eapi/#eapi-8-tree-layout
> 
> best,
> sam

Yeah, I found one mention in the Wiki[1], but not under "Profiles" in the
devmanual[2].  The Wiki description doesn't say why that file is needed in
every single subdirectory.

[1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Profile_(Portage)#Profile_structure
[2] https://devmanual.gentoo.org/profiles/index.html

That said, the PMS reference actually provides the clearest explanation.  I
think that language should be in the devmanual at [2], as it also explains
the lack of inheritance.

The other devmanual reference only refers to a specific instance of that
file at the base of the profiles directory.

Okay, mystery solved.  We'll have to someday revisit why this file can't be
inherited, which would allow us to reduce the number of copies in the tree.

Thanks!,

-- 
Joshua Kinard
Gentoo/MIPS
kumba@gentoo.org
rsa6144/5C63F4E3F5C6C943 2015-04-27
177C 1972 1FB8 F254 BAD0 3E72 5C63 F4E3 F5C6 C943

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