Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: empty directories in ${D}

[William Hubbs]

On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 05:15:28PM +0200, Fabian Groffen wrote:
> On 29-03-2018 16:47:51 +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> > W dniu czw, 29.03.2018 o godzinie 09∶39 -0500, użytkownik William Hubbs
> > napisał:
> > > All,
> > >
> > > I just happened to notice the following warning from portage when
> > > bumping dhcpcd.
> > >
> > > > One or more empty directories installed to /var:
> > > >  /var/lib/dhcpcd
> > > > If those directories need to be preserved, please make sure to create
> > > > or mark them for keeping using 'keepdir'. Future versions of Portage
> > > > will strip empty directories from installation image.
> > >
> > > If we are going to require emptty  directories to be marked with
> > > keepdir, I think we should hard fail the emerge rather than quietly
> > > strip the empty directories. If we just strip the directories, this
> > > will, more than likely, lead to broken packages. In the case of dhcpcd,
> > > the upstream build system installs the /var/lib/dhcpcd directory, then
> > > dhcpcd writes to the directory.
> > >
> >
> > Are you saying that dozens of packages should suddenly start failing
> > for users so that developers would feel more obliged to fix them?
> > Provided that the packages are still maintained, and it won't be
> > 'hey, we just made it impossible to install this package, maybe someone
> > will fix it one day'.
>
> I agree, packages shouldn't suddenly start failing.  Not during install,
> not during runtime either.  For changes like this EAPIs were invented.

Fabian has the right idea I think.

If we quietly strip away empty directories installed by upstream build
systems, there is a possibility we will cause runtime breakage. If we are
going to have breakage, then yes, I would rather it be at emerge time to
force us to fix it before runtime breakage hits users.

Thanks,

William