Russ and Steve: Thank you both for your replies.
I'm going to have to spend some time considering what you have both said, and try to devise a clever way of representing the platform information. In terms of maintainability I don't think I have much of a problem there, since I'm using a Perl script that loads Dpkg::Arch and gets architecture information the same way `dpkg-architecture -L' does, and writes corresponding C code. It does mean I'll have to update code if there are new accepted platforms, but I'm prepared to do so. I don't anticipate it'll happen all too often anyway. I understand the syntax and semantic differences here. I am writing a parser for control files, and I'd like it to accept any valid syntax, but at least warn people if there is invalid semantics, using the information culled from dpkg-architecture. At the very least, such a feature will give developers a warning that they made a typo in an architecture name, which could prevent a disaster further down the road. Thanks again for all of your help with the various issues. I particularly appreciate Russ' patience explaining things to me clearly, and considering my ideas too. Cheers, Jonathan On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 12:56 AM, Steve Langasek<vor...@debian.org> wrote: > On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 07:23:58PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: >> > My question is, does anyone know of cases where a given operating >> > system and architecture does not constitute a valid platform (ie, >> > Architecture in the d/control file sense). > >> armel and lpia are special cases and don't combine with other kernels >> from dpkg's perspective, which explains your count difference. I forget >> off-hand why this is. > > "armel" is a Linux-specific successor to "arm" with a different ABI. > > "lpia" is arguably appropriate to pair with other kernels beside Linux since > the instruction reordering is not Linux-specific, so perhaps excluding lpia > was an oversight. > > -- > Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS > Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. > Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ > slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
