Hi, On Sat, 2008-07-05 at 17:09:48 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > Bug#163666 against debian-policy points out that arch-specific build > dependencies are unclearly specified in Policy currently in the presence > of alternatives. The current wording says: > > All fields that specify build-time relationships (`Build-Depends', > `Build-Depends-Indep', `Build-Conflicts' and `Build-Conflicts-Indep') > may be restricted to a certain set of architectures. This is > indicated in brackets after each individual package name and the > optional version specification. The brackets enclose a list of > Debian architecture names separated by whitespace. Exclamation marks > may be prepended to each of the names. (It is not permitted for some > names to be prepended with exclamation marks while others aren't.) If > the current Debian host architecture is not in this list and there > are no exclamation marks in the list, or it is in the list with a > prepended exclamation mark, the package name and the associated > version specification are ignored completely for the purposes of > defining the relationships. > > The problem is that "ignored completely" is not well-specified in the > presence of alternatives.
> What does dpkg actually implement? In particular, how are the following > cases handled? It will discard any part that's not relevant for the current architecture, and then the left relationships checked. Your usage of satisfied confused me a bit, as I'd expect it to also depend on the availability of those packages on that given architecture. Anyway in your examples: > - Is "foo [i386] | bar" satisfied on any alpha system, or are all non-i386 > systems required to have bar? On alpha that'd become: "bar". > - Does "foo [i386] | bar [!i386]" work correctly (require foo on all i386 > systems and bar on all other systems)? On i386: "foo". On !i386: "bar". > - Similarly, does "foo [i386] | bar [amd64] | baz [!i386 !amd64]" work > correctly (require foo on i386, bar on amd64, and baz everywhere else)? Yes. > - What does "foo [i386] | bar [amd64]" mean on a powerpc system? Is it > always satisfied or never satisfied? On powerpc it should disappear, no dependency to check, so it would be satisfied. > - Is "foo [!i386] | bar [!amd64]" satisfied on any i386 system, or are > i386 systems required to have bar installed? Does this reduce to "foo | > bar" on powerpc systems or to something else? On i386: "bar". On amd64: "foo". On the rest: "foo | bar". > These may all be different variations of the same question or may be > different questions depending on how this is implemented internally. If > you have any ideas as to how to word what dpkg does, they would be > gratefully accepted. I guess explaining that non-relevant dependencies are discarded makes it easier to understand? regards, guillem -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
