[gentoo-user] python-exec: what is it?

[Alan McKinnon]

There's an interesting conversation going on over at gentoo-dev about
python-exec. One response I got is worthy of reposting here for anyone
looking at all the python-exec updates and wondering what it's all
about. The responder is mgorny:

> One set of questions that were never answered and probably do deserve
> some kind of notification:

I can help you with these. However, I don't know on how much of it
a random user cares.

> 1. What exactly is python-exec anyway?

It's the wrapper script that chooses the proper version of Python
scripts for the currently selected Python version. Say, when you
install 'foomatic' for p2.6, 2.7, 3.2 and 3.3, /usr/bin/foomatic is
linked to python-exec and it determines which one to run.

> 2. Why are there two, in dev-python/ and dev-lang/ ?

The intent is that the one in dev-python/ was not slotted and the one
in dev-lang/ is. This seems like the only sane way to support both
slots without rewriting all the existing deps (which doesn't seem to
work) or risking breaking the system.

> 3. One has a version of -10000, which is *highly* unusual, what is that
> exactly? 1 more than -9999?

It is a plain virtual/compat/meta-package. It is a meaningless version
that is supposed to be larger than anything that was earlier in
dev-python/python-exec and it only pulls in dev-lang/python-exec.

> 4. There is some kind of migration going on between an old and new
> python-exec, but I can't understand it using only standard portage tools.

Yes. The goal is that everything will dep on dev-lang/python-exec:=.
However, we need to somehow keep things that deped on
dev-python/python-exec in the past working.



Posted in the hope some folks might find the answers useful.


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com