On Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:53:04 +0800
Patrick Lauer <patrick@g.o> wrote:

> On 04/15/12 16:16, Ryan Hill wrote:
> > Right now we have support in some packages for user patches - those being
> > patches dropped into /etc/portage/patches/pkgname/ - which are automatically
> > applied.  Because this feature is implemented by epatch_user() in
> > eutils.eclass, it is only available for ebuilds that inherit eutils and
> > explicitly call epatch_user or inherit another eclass that calls it in an
> > exported phase (eg. base).  The end result is a very inconsistent experience,
> > where user patches may or may not work not only on a package-by-package
> > basis, but ebuild-by-ebuild.
> > 
> > Is there any reason why this couldn't just be done in the package manager,
> > making user patches available for all ebuilds without code changes?
> > 
> 
> From a debugging / bug wrangling perspective it's bad because there's no
> way for me to see if someone accidentally patched in something
> unexpected. (And we do have creative users :) )
> 
> It's a neat feature, but I'm moderately opposed to it unless we can get
> reporting in place so I can definitely see (e.g. from a logfile or error
> message) that there's been some ebuild modifications.

For an advanced user it's already just a matter of adding

    post_src_prepare() {
        epatch_user
    }

to '/etc/portage/bashrc' and screw thing up, right?

eutils.eclass:epatch_user() could be more noisy (ewarn?) when
applies user patches. That way you could easier see something
odd happening in build.log.

-- 

  Sergei