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On 03/18/2010 02:39 PM, Dmitry Bashkatov wrote: |
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> Hello, gentoo devs! I have a little story about USE flags. |
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> Almost every package in gentoo has USE flags. Many of them have clear |
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> meaning. For example: <doc> builds package documentation, <qt> or |
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> <gtk> build GUI frontend. Meaning of this flags is one for all |
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> packages in portage. And this is described in use.desc file. But there |
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> are many USE flags with fuzzy meaning. For example <java> USE flag of |
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> package net-print/cups. What does it mean? Description file says "java |
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> - Adds support for Java". But what kind of support is it? Build Java |
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> bindings or build some optional tools written on Java? <python> flag — |
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> "Adds support/bindings for the Python language" also doesn't asks on |
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> my question about kind of support. Only ways to find out answer are |
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> read ebuild and "./configure --help" or use other sources of |
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> information like google. But this takes time. Very very many time when |
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> installing system first time. Also this work already done by package |
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> maintainer and there is no reason to repeat this for every user. |
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> |
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> My suggestion is to take out all this per package USE flag vagueness |
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> to use.local.desc file, so you can use |
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> $ equery uses net-print/cups |
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> + + java : build java printing web-application |
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> + + python : build python bindings to libcups |
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> This is only example, I really don't know what this flags mean here. =) |
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> Another my suggestion is to extend ebuild format so package maintainer |
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> can easily add use flag description. |
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> |
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> What can you say about this? May be this is my delirium? And may be |
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> only my gentooic brain need this sort of information about USE flags. |
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> |
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|
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This is already supported by metadata.xml local use flags, you can add |
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extended information as local use flag in addition to global use flag. |
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|
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So I take this as a friendly reminder that maintainers should start |
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using the feature. |
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|
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-Samuli |