Re: [gentoo-dev] Making user patches globally available

[Michał Górny]

On Sun, 15 Apr 2012 02:16:41 -0600
Ryan Hill <dirtyepic@g.o> 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.

That's why we should work on spreading the use of base eclass or one of
similar eclasses rather than reinventing the wheel. On the other hand,
taking into consideration that base.eclass is a pretty roughly shaped
wheel we could consider creating a new base eclass for that.

> 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?

It should have been done there in the first place. But it hasn't,
and this has some advantages. For example, thanks to complete control
over the moment where epatch_user() is called, autotools-utils is able
to smartly do autoreconf when needed. If user patches were forced to be
PM-only feature, there would be no good way of doing that.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny