Re: [gentoo-user] Bringing mdocml to Gentoo, MANPATH woes

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 01/04/2017 10:21 AM, Wolfgang Mueller wrote:
>
> I post this on the -user list because it seems to me that I have issues
> relating to several distinct components. If this is better discussed
> somewhere else, I would appreciate some pointers :)

Try the -dev list for the MANPATH thing.


>
> You can find the ebuild (and corresponding files) here:
> https://github.com/vehk/pramantha/tree/mdocml-wip/sys-apps/mdocml
>

I have some unrelated comments.

> IUSE="+sqlite +manpager"

I think "cron" might be a better global USE flag than "sqlite". Users
will think "oh, of course I want the apropos/whatis database to be
updated nightly" with USE=cron. Unless they happen to know that those
databases are implemented in sqlite, they'll probably just guess at the
meaning of USE=sqlite.

I would also suggest dropping the "+" defaults unless doing so severely
cripples the package. The whole point of USE flags is that I can set
them and all ebuilds will use them -- that stops working if developers
make their own preferences default in ebuilds.


> src_configure() {
> 	cp "${FILESDIR}/configure.local" .

You need "|| die" after that cp.


> ./configure

Same here. If that's a "typical" configure script, the "econf" function
might be easier.


> install -Dm644 LICENSE "${D}/usr/share/licenses/${PN}/LICENSE"

There's no need to install the LICENSE file, and it's actually our
policy not to, since the text of every license is part of the ::gentoo tree.


> pkg_postinst() {
> 	if use sqlite; then
> 		einfo "Creating mandoc.db database files."
> 		makewhatis

This might be more appropriate in pkg_config(), because it modifies a
file that doesn't belong to the package manager, namely mandoc.db. That
could also solve your MANPATH issue by dumb luck; I'm not sure what the
environment will look like during emerge --config.