Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: using array variables in qt4-r2.eclass

[Davide Pesavento]

On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Alexis Ballier <aballier@g.o> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:26:58 +0200
> Davide Pesavento <pesa@g.o> wrote:
>
>> > [...]
>> >> +     # backward compatibility for non-array variables
>> >> +     if [[ -n ${DOCS} ]] && [[ "$(declare -p DOCS 2>/dev/null
>> >> 2>&1)" != "declare -a"* ]]; then
>> >> +             dodoc ${DOCS} || die "dodoc failed"
>> >> +     fi
>> >> +     if [[ -n ${HTML_DOCS} ]] && [[ "$(declare -p HTML_DOCS
>> >> 2>/dev/null 2>&1)" != "declare -a"* ]]; then
>> >> +             dohtml -r ${HTML_DOCS} || die "dohtml failed"
>> >> +     fi
>> >>  }
>> >
>> > maybe issue an eqawarn in that case telling people to convert to
>> > arrays; some time later make this an ewarn telling non-array support
>> > will be removed and again later make this a die :)
>> > (if you take that route i would expect you to start converting
>> > packages to use arrays)
>> >
>>
>> We have no intention of deprecating non-array variables in qt4-r2
>> eclass.
>
> why ? having two codepaths for the same thing, one being inferior,
> sounds like a good reason to deprecate the inferior one :)
>
> A.
>

Maintaining these two codepaths has practically zero cost, while
forcing every ebuild using qt4-r2 to switch to arrays would waste
developers' time which is better spent elsewhere.

Furthermore, the non-array variant is not necessarily inferior,
because it allows you to use bash globbing, brace expansion, etc...

Thanks,
Pesa