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List Archive: gentoo-dev
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To: gentoo-dev@g.o
From: Joe Peterson <lavajoe@g.o>
Subject: Re: [RFC] PROPERTIES=virtual for meta-packages (clarification of definition)
Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:38:32 -0600
Marius Mauch wrote:
> If it's only used to indicate that the package doesn't install any
> files I'd suggest to use 'empty' or 'nocontents' instead. 'virtual'
> somehow implies that it's only applicable to packages in the 'virtual'
> category, which isn't the case with the given definition (as you said).

I like "virtual", since it really gets at the spirit of what the ebuild does.
"empty" sounds like it does nothing at all, and "nocontents" sounds that way to,
to me.

An analogy to "virtual" is a virtual method in OO programming - it sits at a
high level, does nothing in itself, but causes underlying methods to perform the
work.

						-Joe


Replies:
Re: [RFC] PROPERTIES=virtual for meta-packages (clarification of definition)
-- Ciaran McCreesh
References:
[RFC] PROPERTIES=virtual for meta-packages (clarification of definition)
-- Zac Medico
Re: [RFC] PROPERTIES=virtual for meta-packages (clarification of definition)
-- Marius Mauch
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Updated Jun 17, 2009

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