[gentoo-portage-dev] Portage choosing wrong version?

["Paul Smith" <pausmith@nortelnetworks.com>]

Hi all.  I have a strange situation and I'm wondering if anyone can help
me understand it or give me tips on how to better understand it.

I'm using Portage (2.0.49) to manage a set of locally-constructed
ebuilds; these are not in the Gentoo system.

I'm installing them through a "collection" ebuild, which contains
nothing but a DEPENDS line, say collection-1.0.ebuild:

    DEPENDS=" ~category/foo-1.0 ~category/bar-1.0 ~category/baz-1.0 "

In my packages file I say:

    * ~category/collection-1.0


Also the bar-1.0 and baz-1.0 packages depend on foo and they both say
so, like this:

    DEPENDS=" category/foo "


Now, I also have a foo-1.1, bar-1.1, and baz-1.1.  The bar-1.1 and baz-1.1
packages depend on foo-1.1 and they both say so, like this:

    DEPENDS=" ~category/foo-1.1 "

However, I want to install the older 1.0 versions right now, not the
newer ones.


Now if none of these packages are installed and I run "emerge system",
something very bizarre happens: emerge _FIRST_ installs the latest
category/foo-1.1 package, then it tries to build the other packages,
which fail because they won't work with newer versions of foo!

Then, if I run "emerge -p system" I see that emerge will, later on,
replace the foo-1.1 it just installed with foo-1.0.


Doesn't Portage have enough smarts to realize that if the collection
package depends on a specific version and other packages depend on any
version, that it should just install the specific version to satisfy the
dependency relationship?

If not, this is very bad!  How can I work with this?  Surely I don't
have to go back to every old version and update all their DEPENDS lines
every time I come out with a new package which is not backward
compatible?


And, is there any command I can run or option I can use to get a more
detailed description of exactly how emerge is resolving dependency
relationships?


Thanks!

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Paul D. Smith <psmith@nortelnetworks.com>   HASMAT: HA Software Mthds & Tools
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
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   These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.

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