Ondrej wrote: > Nice thing about this is that there is no database, nothing. Just > plain files, that > can be fixed by hand. > > How would portage improve this?
Portage is just editable text files too. I do not have any experience with Debian so it may also do the following things I describe below. If a Debian approach does things like this too, that would be great :-) Portage vs. spkg: When I look at the instructions for creating a spkg: http://www.sagemath.org/doc/html/prog/node24.html The first thing that catches my eye is "(b) Put your files in that directory." So where do the files come from? I took a spkg at random (readline), extracted it, and tried to find out where to obtain its source code from. Here is all the documentation that the readline spkg contained: "$ cat SPKG.txt Deleted some files from the doc directory from the standard distro, since it took tons of space; didn't delete anything else." I am not sure who last worked on readline because it does not say. If someone gave me the task of updating this spkg, I guess I would start googling to find out were to obtain the source code. In contrast to this, a portage package contains a script (called an ebuild) that automatically downloads the source code needed to build an application from wherever it lives on the Internet, checks the archive's integrity, unarchives it, applies patches, builds it, tests it, and installs it. Beyond this, all packages that the package depends on are checked to make sure they are present and if they are not, each one is installed first using the same mechanism. Here is the ebuild script for readline: ==== readline-5.2_p7.ebuild ==== # Copyright 1999-2007 Gentoo Foundation # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 # $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/sys-libs/readline/readline-5.2_p7.ebuild,v 1.9 2007/12/11 23:59:41 vapier Exp $ inherit eutils multilib toolchain-funcs flag-o-matic # Official patches # See ftp://ftp.cwru.edu/pub/bash/readline-5.1-patches/ PLEVEL=${PV##*_p} MY_PV=${PV/_p*} MY_P=${PN}-${MY_PV} DESCRIPTION="Another cute console display library" HOMEPAGE="http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html"; SRC_URI="mirror://gnu/readline/${MY_P}.tar.gz $(for ((i=1; i<=PLEVEL; i++)); do printf 'ftp://ftp.cwru.edu/pub/bash/readline-%s-patches/readline%s-%03d\n' \ ${MY_PV} ${MY_PV/\.} ${i} printf 'mirror://gnu/bash/readline-%s-patches/readline%s-%03d\n' \ ${MY_PV} ${MY_PV/\.} ${i} done)" LICENSE="GPL-2" SLOT="0" KEYWORDS="alpha amd64 arm hppa ia64 m68k mips ppc ppc64 s390 sh sparc ~sparc-fbsd x86 ~x86-fbsd" IUSE="" # We must be certain that we have a bash that is linked # to its internal readline, else we may get problems. RDEPEND=">=sys-libs/ncurses-5.2-r2" DEPEND="${RDEPEND} >=app-shells/bash-2.05b-r2" S=${WORKDIR}/${MY_P} src_unpack() { unpack ${MY_P}.tar.gz cd "${S}" # Official patches local i for ((i=1; i<=PLEVEL; i++)); do epatch "${DISTDIR}"/${PN}${MY_PV/\.}-$(printf '%03d' ${i}) done epatch "${FILESDIR}"/${PN}-5.0-no_rpath.patch epatch "${FILESDIR}"/${PN}-5.2-rlfe-build.patch #151174 epatch "${FILESDIR}"/${PN}-5.1-rlfe-uclibc.patch epatch "${FILESDIR}"/${PN}-5.1-fbsd-pic.patch ln -s ../.. examples/rlfe/readline # force ncurses linking #71420 sed -i -e 's:^SHLIB_LIBS=:SHLIB_LIBS=-lncurses:' support/shobj-conf || die "sed" } src_compile() { append-flags -D_GNU_SOURCE # the --libdir= is needed because if lib64 is a directory, it will default # to using that... even if CONF_LIBDIR isnt set or we're using a version # of portage without CONF_LIBDIR support. econf --with-curses --libdir=/usr/$(get_libdir) || die emake || die if ! tc-is-cross-compiler; then cd examples/rlfe econf || die emake || die "make rlfe failed" fi } src_install() { emake DESTDIR="${D}" install || die dodir /$(get_libdir) mv "${D}"/usr/$(get_libdir)/*.so* "${D}"/$(get_libdir) chmod a+rx "${D}"/$(get_libdir)/*.so* # Bug #4411 gen_usr_ldscript libreadline.so gen_usr_ldscript libhistory.so if ! tc-is-cross-compiler; then dobin examples/rlfe/rlfe || die fi dodoc CHANGELOG CHANGES README USAGE NEWS docinto ps dodoc doc/*.ps dohtml -r doc } pkg_preinst() { preserve_old_lib /$(get_libdir)/lib{history,readline}.so.4 #29865 } pkg_postinst() { preserve_old_lib_notify /$(get_libdir)/lib{history,readline}.so.4 } ==== All ebuild scripts adhere to a well-defined specification (http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=2&chap=1) so a developer can look at any ebuild script in the portage tree and see the exact same format. For example, a short description of the package is present along with the homepage of the project, the URI from where the source can be downloaded, and flags which indicate which architectures the package will work with. Beyond this, all portage packages have a ChangeLog file which contains all of the work that has been done on the package since it was first put in the tree, who did the work, and when it was done: ==== /usr/portage/sys-libs/readline/ChangeLog === # ChangeLog for sys-libs/readline # Copyright 1999-2007 Gentoo Foundation; Distributed under the GPL v2 # $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/sys-libs/readline/ChangeLog,v 1.108 2007/09/29 05:03:43 jer Exp $ 29 Sep 2007; Jeroen Roovers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> readline-5.2_p7.ebuild: Stable for HPPA (bug #194013). 28 Sep 2007; nixnut <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> readline-5.2_p7.ebuild: Stable on ppc wrt bug 194013 28 Sep 2007; Ra��l Porcel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> readline-5.2_p7.ebuild: alpha/ia64/x86 stable wrt #194013 28 Sep 2007; Ferris McCormick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> readline-5.2_p7.ebuild: Sparc stable --- Bug #194013 28 Sep 2007; Christoph Mende <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> readline-5.2_p7.ebuild: Stable on amd64 wrt bug #194013 28 Sep 2007; Joshua Kinard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> readline-5.2_p7.ebuild: Stable on mips, per #194013. <snip> ---- If someone gave me the task of updating this portage-based package to the latest version, I would have a good idea of where to start even if I had never seen this package before. Anyway, the main thing I like about the portage approach is that it is very systematic. If a Debian approach is systematic like this, that would be great too. From my point of view, simple = a well thought out system :-) Ted --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
