On 06/07/2012, at 1:21 AM, Richard Yao wrote:

> On 07/05/2012 10:58 AM, Sean wrote:
>> 
>> On 05/07/2012, at 10:02 PM, Richard Yao wrote:
>>> 
>>> The second is the e-file command, which will query that database for
>>> whatever follows it. For example, if I want to find out which package
>>> installs repoman, I can do `e-file repoman`. I can also do `e-file
>>> /usr/bin/repoman`.
>>> 
>>> if FreeBSD had an equivalent to this command, this command, then I
>>> imagine that calls for Ubuntu/Fedora features should cease. Gentoo users
>>> seem to be happy with e-file.
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 0:55 Fri 06-Jul sean@queen [~] pkg_info -W bash
>> /usr/local/bin/bash was installed by package bash-4.2.28
>> 
>> 0:57 Fri 06-Jul sean@queen [~] pkg_info -W /usr/local/sbin/sendmail 
>> /usr/local/sbin/sendmail was installed by package postfix-2.9.3,1
> 
> Does that tell you about packages that are not installed?
> 

No, but that wasn't part of your description. Or if it was, I missed it and go 
me for publicly putting my foot in my mouth :)

And if it's going down the path of every package/port there's questions (at 
least to me...) - is it all possible ports/packages including options (and 
that's a big 'how?'), or just the defaults? Considering how dynamic ports are 
with options rather than being broken up into pieces, it gets ugly fast - which 
port has /usr/local/bin/ndb_config? ok, yes, mysql*-server, but only if 
WITH_NDB - it's not default. Maybe that should be a mysql*-server-ndb port, but 
it's not, and it's far from alone there ... PHP was at one time the poster 
child for compiling everything in via options rather than using modules and I'm 
very grateful for the maintainers for sorting out that mess as much as they 
have. But it's also another example of non-default options making notable 
changes; what if you're looking for the mod_php setup? Searching for mod_php 
won't work if you just use defaults; it's a non-default option for the php5* 
package. Same with php-fpm. 

It's an effective solution for the default packages and certainly works well on 
that basis, but the current ports aren't always amenable to peeling out the 
required information in a variety of cases. 

This is not to say it's a bad idea - it's not, by any means. Quite the reverse 
really. It's just the boundaries and limits really need to be clear or its 
diving down a rabbit hole... (shuffle/split the ports to make this easier? Does 
pkg-ng make it easier to find this sort of information? Punt on it and say 
caveat emptor?)

Gentoo's ebuilds can be just as dynamic - how does Gentoo deal with it?


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