On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 10:37 PM, Ludovic Courtès <l...@gnu.org> wrote:
> Federico Beffa <be...@ieee.org> skribis:
>
>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 9:49 PM, Ludovic Courtès <l...@gnu.org> wrote:
>>> Federico Beffa <be...@ieee.org> skribis:
>>>
>>>> I've noticed that a derivation is a function of the order of the
>>>> inputs. As an example, the following two input orders give rise to two
>>>> distinct derivations:
>>>>
>>>> A)
>>>>
>>>> (inputs
>>>> `(("texlive" ,texlive)
>>>> ("texinfo" ,texinfo)
>>>> ("m4" ,m4)
>>>> ("libx11" ,libx11))
>>>>
>>>> B)
>>>> (inputs
>>>> `(("texinfo" ,texinfo)
>>>> ("texlive" ,texlive)
>>>> ("m4" ,m4)
>>>> ("libx11" ,libx11))
>>>>
>>>> Is this intentional?
>>>
>>> Yes. There are several places where order matters, most importantly
>>> search paths, and these are computed from the input lists.
>>
>> If order matters, it would probably be more robust to force internally
>> a specific order rather than relying on the (often random) order
>> defined in a package recipe (possibly created by an importer, ...).
>
> Most of the time any order would work, but I can imagine situations
> where the packager could purposefully choose a specific order. So I’d
> rather not do any automatic sorting, if that’s what you have in mind.
Just out of curiosity, could you provide a concrete example where the
order is purposefully specified.
Thanks,
Fede
