On Thu, Mar 07, 2002 at 02:19:25PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > On Thu, Mar 07, 2002 at 10:49:48AM +1100, Donovan Baarda wrote: > > On Wed, Mar 06, 2002 at 10:38:22AM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote: > > Currently, you have the following options; > > 3) Use "Depends: python (>=2.1)", and tell everyone they must run > > "dpkg-reconfigure <yourpackage>" after every default python upgrade. > > Uh, no, you don't have this option. This is only okay if you're distributing > a script that's fully expected to work without changes in future versions of > python.
That's why I qualified it with; "... Note that if python is upgraded to a version that doesn't work for your package, this alternative will not flag the problem. Instead you will get bug-reports from end users. You can indicate an upper version limit if you want to package to break beyond a certain version." I see now I stuffed up my grammar a bit though :-) It should read something like; "Note that if the default python is upgraded to a version that is incompatible with your package, the incompatibility will not be indicated by these dependancies, and your package will cause problems. This can be avoided by instead specifying a range of known-to-work python versions with 'Depends: python (>=2.1), python (<<2.3)'." I think you might have been refering to the fact that dpkg has no way to "tell everyone they must run "dpkg-reconfigure <yourpackage>" after every default python upgrade". This is the big flaw... it _must_ be done to recompile the modules, and it can only be done by end-users, who must remember to do it, as there will be no prompts. So yeah, option 3) is flawed to the point of being broken, but it's currently the only one that avoids package upgrades to just fix dependancies. BTW, I was recently looking at a comparison of rpm and deb packaging, and noticed that rpm's support "triggers". These are scripts that are executed when some other package changes. This would be a useful feature to implement re-compiles when python changes. It also supports "ghost files" which are files not included in a package, but created by it, which would be a nice way to register *.py[co] files with dpkg. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ABO: finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for more info, including pgp key ----------------------------------------------------------------------
