[gentoo-user] format for eix-sync

[gentoo-user] format for eix-sync

[Chuck Robey]

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I was reading in the eix man page about eix-sync, and it gave about a
million options, but nowhere did I see if give a useable format for the
options,  I wanted to have a option line setting
 but I couldn't tell if it was like

PRINT_SLOTS=yes			or
PRINT_SLOTS	yes		or
PRINT_SLOTS="yes"		or
PRINT_SLOTS	"yes"

There are other permutations.  Howcome the man page doesn't give something
as obvious as that?  Darn huge man page, after I initially found the
PRINT_SLOTS defintion, it took me 10 more minutes to find out that it was
supposed to go into /etc/eix-sync.  It gives a great amoount of info, but
maybe it could stand some better organization, to let things get found.
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Re: [gentoo-user] format for eix-sync

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 17 March 2008, Chuck Robey wrote:
> I was reading in the eix man page about eix-sync, and it gave about a
> million options, but nowhere did I see if give a useable format for
> the options,  I wanted to have a option line setting
>  but I couldn't tell if it was like
>
> PRINT_SLOTS=yes			or
> PRINT_SLOTS	yes		or
> PRINT_SLOTS="yes"		or
> PRINT_SLOTS	"yes"
>
> There are other permutations.  Howcome the man page doesn't give
> something as obvious as that?  Darn huge man page, after I initially
> found the PRINT_SLOTS defintion, it took me 10 more minutes to find
> out that it was supposed to go into /etc/eix-sync.  It gives a great
> amoount of info, but maybe it could stand some better organization,
> to let things get found.

The format is none of those :-) It actually looks like this:

alan@nazgul ~/movies $ sudo eix --dump | grep SLOT
DIFF_NO_SLOTS='false'
FORMAT_BEFORE_SLOT_IUSE='\n\t\{(blue)'
FORMAT_AFTER_SLOT_IUSE='()\}'
COLOR_SLOTS='red,1'
COLORED_SLOTS='true'
COLON_SLOTS='false'
UPGRADE_TO_HIGHEST_SLOT='true'
PRINT_SLOTS='true'


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Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

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Re: [gentoo-user] format for eix-sync

[Emil Beinroth]

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On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 04:31:11PM -0400, Chuck Robey wrote:
> I was reading in the eix man page about eix-sync, and it gave about a
> million options, but nowhere did I see if give a useable format for the
> options,

Quoting from the manpage ..

  /etc/eixrc
      Global configuration file. The variables in ~/.eixrc or from the
      environment can override the variables set in this file.
      See ~/.eixrc.
  
  [snip]
  
  ~/.eixrc
      Per-user configuration file. The variables in this file can be
      overridden by environment variables. You can use a shell-like
      syntax to set the following variables.             ^^^^^^^^^^
      ^^^^^^ 

>  I wanted to have a option line setting but I couldn't tell if it was
>  like
> 
> PRINT_SLOTS=yes			or
> PRINT_SLOTS	yes		or
> PRINT_SLOTS="yes"		or
> PRINT_SLOTS	"yes"

As said above, eix uses shell-style configuration files so #1 and #3
should be fine.

> There are other permutations.  Howcome the man page doesn't give something
> as obvious as that?  Darn huge man page, after I initially found the
> PRINT_SLOTS defintion, it took me 10 more minutes to find out that it was
> supposed to go into /etc/eix-sync.

Are you sure? Normally that stuff goes into /etc/eixrc or ~/.eixrc.

> It gives a great amoount of info, but maybe it could stand some better
> organization, to let things get found.

Martin actually acknowledges this problem in the "BUGS" section: "There
are too many features: The documentation and configuration has become
too complicated." So it definitely could.

The *huge* list of variables could be split up into sections, for
example all the "MATCH_*" stuff could go into a section called "Changing
default match-fields". 
But this approach is probably be better suited for formats that support
links, so we can have a nice table of contents. info-pages spring to
mind, but I hear many people don't like those.

Another way to reduce the size and complexity could be to split the
whole thing into multiple documents, one for each tool (eix, update-eix,
eix-diff and so on..).

Any thoughts or suggestions on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers, Emil

-- 
Emil Beinroth
83059 Kolbermoor | Germany

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Re: [gentoo-user] format for eix-sync

[Chuck Robey]

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Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Monday 17 March 2008, Chuck Robey wrote:
>> I was reading in the eix man page about eix-sync, and it gave about a
>> million options, but nowhere did I see if give a useable format for
>> the options,  I wanted to have a option line setting
>>  but I couldn't tell if it was like
>>
>> PRINT_SLOTS=yes			or
>> PRINT_SLOTS	yes		or
>> PRINT_SLOTS="yes"		or
>> PRINT_SLOTS	"yes"
>>
>> There are other permutations.  Howcome the man page doesn't give
>> something as obvious as that?  Darn huge man page, after I initially
>> found the PRINT_SLOTS defintion, it took me 10 more minutes to find
>> out that it was supposed to go into /etc/eix-sync.  It gives a great
>> amoount of info, but maybe it could stand some better organization,
>> to let things get found.
> 
> The format is none of those :-) It actually looks like this:
> 
> alan@nazgul ~/movies $ sudo eix --dump | grep SLOT
> DIFF_NO_SLOTS='false'
> FORMAT_BEFORE_SLOT_IUSE='\n\t\{(blue)'
> FORMAT_AFTER_SLOT_IUSE='()\}'
> COLOR_SLOTS='red,1'
> COLORED_SLOTS='true'
> COLON_SLOTS='false'
> UPGRADE_TO_HIGHEST_SLOT='true'
> PRINT_SLOTS='true'
> 
> 

Wow, GREAT.  Slots are such a great idea, thjey need more publicity.
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Re: [gentoo-user] format for eix-sync

[Chuck Robey]

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Emil Beinroth wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 04:31:11PM -0400, Chuck Robey wrote:
>> I was reading in the eix man page about eix-sync, and it gave about a
>> million options, but nowhere did I see if give a useable format for the
>> options,
> 
> Quoting from the manpage ..
> 
>   /etc/eixrc
>       Global configuration file. The variables in ~/.eixrc or from the
>       environment can override the variables set in this file.
>       See ~/.eixrc.
>   
>   [snip]
>   
>   ~/.eixrc
>       Per-user configuration file. The variables in this file can be
>       overridden by environment variables. You can use a shell-like
>       syntax to set the following variables.             ^^^^^^^^^^
>       ^^^^^^ 
> 

Oh, I see.  The system which I ssh'ed to, where _I DID_ check /etc/eixrc
and foound it empty had no package for eix installed, and I didn't know
then it was an added package.  I didn't miss that, but, as I have said
before (enough to where I know I'm getting to be boring) that examples,
eithout having the syntax explained (and the man page doesn't) is a very
bad habit of Unix, because it seems that every programmer assumes you're
only going to be using their own task when they give you an example, so
when you don't do exactly what tey say, you're just SOL.  God, I have had
enough of that (sorry, as you probably can tell my now, that's a real hot
button of mine by now).

>>  I wanted to have a option line setting but I couldn't tell if it was
>>  like
>>
>> PRINT_SLOTS=yes			or
>> PRINT_SLOTS	yes		or
>> PRINT_SLOTS="yes"		or
>> PRINT_SLOTS	"yes"
> 
> As said above, eix uses shell-style configuration files so #1 and #3
> should be fine.
> 
>> There are other permutations.  Howcome the man page doesn't give something
>> as obvious as that?  Darn huge man page, after I initially found the
>> PRINT_SLOTS defintion, it took me 10 more minutes to find out that it was
>> supposed to go into /etc/eix-sync.
> 
> Are you sure? Normally that stuff goes into /etc/eixrc or ~/.eixrc.

Well, I had no ~/.eixrc.

> 
>> It gives a great amoount of info, but maybe it could stand some better
>> organization, to let things get found.
> 
> Martin actually acknowledges this problem in the "BUGS" section: "There
> are too many features: The documentation and configuration has become
> too complicated." So it definitely could.

Well, that's not really an insurmountable problem.  It makes writing the
man page hard, but if it's well written, it can still be read.  Look at the
grep man page.  L:ong time back (LONG time, I mean V.7 days), at first
there was only a grep writeup, not a man page.  It gave two very well
detailed examples, but realizing how grep was set up, the writeup was the
next thing to useless, and I couldn't make any use of it until I finally
located a man page for it that gave all the options.  You need to give at
least a bare summary of what each and every flag does, THEN an example can
be a really useful thing, but alone it sucks..  It's a real problem that it
seems to be the current way for programmers to get out of having to really
document things.

Hey, I'm not perfect, I don't like writing docs either.  The only
typesetter I do well with is troff, and when things changed to xml, I can't
write things up anymore.  I can do some nice things with troff (even write
macros) but that doesn't get me too far ennymore.

> 
> The *huge* list of variables could be split up into sections, for
> example all the "MATCH_*" stuff could go into a section called "Changing
> default match-fields". 
> But this approach is probably be better suited for formats that support
> links, so we can have a nice table of contents. info-pages spring to
> mind, but I hear many people don't like those.
> 
> Another way to reduce the size and complexity could be to split the
> whole thing into multiple documents, one for each tool (eix, update-eix,
> eix-diff and so on..).
> 
> Any thoughts or suggestions on this topic would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Cheers, Emil
> 

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Re: [gentoo-user] format for eix-sync

[Alan McKinnon]

On Tuesday 18 March 2008, Chuck Robey wrote:
> > The format is none of those :-) It actually looks like this:
> >
> > alan@nazgul ~/movies $ sudo eix --dump | grep SLOT
> > DIFF_NO_SLOTS='false'
> > FORMAT_BEFORE_SLOT_IUSE='\n\t\{(blue)'
> > FORMAT_AFTER_SLOT_IUSE='()\}'
> > COLOR_SLOTS='red,1'
> > COLORED_SLOTS='true'
> > COLON_SLOTS='false'
> > UPGRADE_TO_HIGHEST_SLOT='true'
> > PRINT_SLOTS='true'
>
> Wow, GREAT.  Slots are such a great idea, thjey need more publicity.

Yeah they are very useful where appropriate. Trouble with SLOTS is, you 
need to control their use very closely otherwise everyone and their dog 
decides to use them all over the place especially where not 
appropriate. And few people know how to use them correctly - for a 
classic example have a look at the mess that was eselect gcc...

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alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

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