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On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 3:53 PM, walt <w41ter@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> |
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> I don't understand 'introspection' enough to know why we need it, but |
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> apparently we do, so don't use the -introspection useflag like I did. |
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> |
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> The trouble I introduced a few weeks ago when I disabled introspection |
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> was subtle enough that I didn't realize until yesterday that I even had |
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> a problem. |
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> |
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> Portage had been doing mildly insane things that other people were not |
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> seeing, so as a test I removed the -introspection useflag and spent the |
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> entire day rebuilding packages. My portage problem appears to be |
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> fixed. I hope. |
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> |
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> If anyone can splain what introspection does I'd be grateful. |
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|
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Alan did a fine job explaining what introspection is in general. In Gentoo, |
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the introspection flag is only used by GObject based libraries; all the |
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languages that natively supports introspection does it inconditionally, and |
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(as far as I am aware) GObject is the only C object oriented library that |
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provides introspection. |
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|
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Some years ago, you could get away without activating it, but nowadays is |
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for all practical purposes mandatory. At least this is the case for GNOME |
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3; but I would not be surprised if it's also the case for basically any |
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GObject based software; that covers all GTK+ 2 and 3 applications. The |
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instrospection infrastructure is not only used (as Alan mentioned) to "look |
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inside" a compiled class; it's also part of the automatic binding |
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generation for other programming languages used by all GObject libraries |
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(or at lest that's what I understand, please correct me if I'm wrong). |
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Therefore, if you use Inkscape, for example, you'll need introspection |
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since Inkscape is wrote in C++ using the gtk-- bindings. |
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|
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In general, I would recommend not to set USE="-*" (an opinion shared by |
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basically all Gentoo devs and most rational people), and let the default |
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use flags to do their magic. But everyone is free to break their systems as |
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they please. |
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|
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Regards. |
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-- |
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Canek Peláez Valdés |
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Profesor de asignatura, Facultad de Ciencias |
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Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México |
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