Rob Browning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I think that we should have some sort of install procedure (a la > install-info) for emacs .el files.
We keep going down this route again and again - info, elisp, menu, mime. Maybe we should generalize this? Let's provide a system where packages could register themselves as clients of a service. Other programs could register themselves as providers of a service. They would provide hook scipts which would get run for each client in the service. The system could also provide mechanisms to help the servers - for example "Give me a list of all the foo arguments in the bar service. For elisp files, it might work like this. $ register-service --help register-service --install service package [param=value ...] register-service --remove service package In the dpkg postinst: register-service --install elisp dpkg file=/usr/lib/dpkg/dpkg-dev.el In the dpkg prerm: register-service --remove elisp dpkg $ provide-service --help provide-service --install-hook service package hookfile provide-service --remove-hook service package provide-service --list-clients service ... In the emacs postinst: provide-service --install-hook elisp emacs /usr/lib/emacs/install-hook /usr/lib/emacs/install-hook can then simply build up a list in /etc/emacs.el of all the files that need to run. Easy enough with perl. When a provider first installed a hook, the system would immediately run the hookfile for all clients that already registered. Then whenever a new client registered, it would run the hookfile. The hookfile would be run with the same arguments that the client registered with. Any arbitrary information can be stored in the service registry. There could be simpler interfaces to this registry for packages which don't want to bother with storing information themselves - things like --list-clients. This system isn't very hard to implement. Much of the code can probably be ripped out of menu. I think it would solve lots of cases. Comments? Guy -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
