Re: [gentoo-dev] Don't require assignment of empty variables in ebuilds?

[Michał Górny]

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 18:38:05 +0200
Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> wrote:

> >>>>> On Wed, 25 Jul 2012, Mike Frysinger wrote:
>
> >> Our current policy [1] requires that ebuilds must assign the seven
> >> variables DESCRIPTION, HOMEPAGE, SRC_URI, LICENSE, SLOT, KEYWORDS,
> >> and IUSE, even if their value is empty.
> >>
> >> Could we drop this requirement? Repoman already enforces that
> >> DESCRIPTION, HOMEPAGE, LICENSE, SLOT, and KEYWORDS are non-empty
> >> (with some exceptions for virtuals). I don't see why we need to
> >> distinguish the "empty value" and "not assigned" cases.
>
> > i think we should clarify and say that when an eclass provides
> > these, the ebuild need not. completely missing DESCRIPTION/HOMEPAGE
> > should be a warning (and maybe KEYWORDS), and LICENSE should be an
> > error. there are plenty of examples of SRC_URI not being set and
> > that's fine (live ebuilds, ebuilds that only install out of
> > $FILESDIR, virtuals, etc...).
>
> I think we have to distinguish between PMS and tree policy here.
> The package manager should be able to handle any empty or missing
> variables (except for DESCRIPTION and SLOT). Otherwise we'd have to
> complicate the spec with additional case distinctions, e.g. for
> virtuals.

PMS should be able to handle empty DESCRIPTION (i.e. for hand-written
dirty test ebuilds). And an empty SLOT has its meaning.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny