[gentoo-portage-dev] emaint and handling of user editable files

[Christian Hoenig]

Hi, 

Since a long time I wanted to start a project like emaint  ... now there it 
is :-).

Currently we have two kinds of config files for portage:
o user editable (like /etc/portage/package.*)
o not user editable (like /var/lib/portage/world, as it is rewritten all of 
the time and no comments are allowed so far)

Some time ago I have written a python script [1] to check 
o for packages that are installed but not stable (ie they are not contained in 
package.keywords but they are ~ARCH). 
o package.{keywords,unmask} for entries which are redundant (ie because we 
have =x/y-1.0 in it, but x/y-2.0 is installed).

Now I have startet to integrate these two things into emaint and here come my 
problems regarding these files. When using --fix I cannot simply remove the 
corresponding entries from package.{keywords,unmask} as there may be comments 
placed for those entries. In my case this is the date I added the packages to 
package.* like: 
	# 2005.03.06 - 21:53:25
	~app-text/pdfjam-1.20 ~amd64

	# 2005.03.06 - 22:01:18
	~net-wireless/bluez-bluefw-1.0 ~amd64

On the other hand it would be very nice to allow comments in the world file, 
too, as I very often don't remember why I installed a package (a lib which 
for example was just a dependency for lokaly installed stuff).
As I'm writing this I get the idea, that this probalby should not be part of 
the world file but of portage itself with a --comment TEXT parameter :-).

So, finally, how should emaint --fix deal with comments in files?
(a) Only give a recommendation what / how to fix?
(b) Fix if there are no comments contained, otherwise only do (a)?

Thanks for your input!

take care, have fun
/christian


[1] ftp://ftp.hoenig.cc/pxs/