Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] PROPERTIES=set for meta-packages that should behave like package sets

[Zac Medico <zmedico@gentoo.org>]

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Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:56:27 -0700
> Zac Medico <zmedico@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> As I've tried to explain, the an ebuild which exhibits
>> PROPERTIES=set doesn't necessarily have to behave any differently
>> than a meta-package currently does. What we would do is create a
>> configuration that maps the set-property ebuild into set space. For
>> example, `emerge kde-meta` would behave as as normal meta-package
>> currently does, and `emerge @kde-meta` would reference the same
>> package as a set and could thereby trigger different behavior which
>> is appropriate for a set.
> 
> ...and what would that behaviour be? What does a PDEPEND mean for a
> set?

Like virtuals, it makes sense to restrict the dependencies to the
RDEPEND variable as mentioned in glep 37 [1]. I should have
mentioned this earlier since it might not be obvious to some.

>>> Here's an alternate proposal: Repositories can ship sets via files
>>> in sets/*.conf. The format is as described in [1]. In configuration
>>> files, operations applied to a set are applied to anything matching
>>> any spec listed in that set (or any set that set contains, and so
>>> on). On the command line, sets and non-sets cannot be mixed, and
>>> multiple sets cannot be specified.
>>>
>>> [1]: http://paludis.pioto.org/configuration/sets.html
>>>
>> Perhaps can use something like you've got there in addition to the
>> PROPERTIES=set approach.
> 
> Why the need for multiple solutions at all? PROPERTIES=set is too weird
> and involves too much nonsensical behaviour to be useful.

I don't see the PROPERTIES=set approach as being worse than any
other approach for package set definition. It has lots of advantages
because of the way that it fits into the existing ebuild framework
like virtual ebuilds do [1], allowing it to leverage all of the
existing features of the framework (including package.use) and also
allowing it to leverage the tools that have been designed to work
with the framework.

[1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0037.html
- --
Thanks,
Zac
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