Subject: Re: Alternatives system, 2nd round
To: Julio M. Merino Vidal <jmmv84@gmail.com>
From: Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 01/21/2005 14:51:43
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, Julio M. Merino Vidal wrote:

> - I've placed the package under pkgtools, but I'm a bit doubtful.
>   Maybe sysutils is a better place?

pkgtools.  Its main purpose is the support of pkgsrc, as it's unlikely
that users will also create alternative wrappers by hand.

> - Should alternatives.mk be moved inside the package's directory
>   instead of living in mk/?

Probably belongs in mk/ given that this will become a decently widespread
tool.

> - I have to add a way so that bulk builds do not generate any of the
>   wrappers.  Why?  Suppose you install a single python implementation
>   and the 'python' wrapper is generated.  Then, while building other
>   packages, it might happen that they find the wrapper instead of the
>   real program (thus causing inconsistencies - expecting one version
>   but finding a different one - during the build).

Bulk builds remove non-dependency packages with pkg_delete before building
each package.  So, as long as pkg_delete can do something useful, or the
fallback logic works correctly, all should be fine.

And we certainly want binpkgs generated by bulk builds to generate
alternatives on pkg_add.  8-)

-- 
-- Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org> <tv@pobox.com>