On 2021-12-16 19:53 +1000 Allan McRae via arch-dev-public wrote:
Assuming that dependent library is not used elsewhere in the package, and the extra library had a provide of its library version, then this would add an extra dependency.
There are several options: 1) disable autodeps - these really do not need used everywhere... 2) split the package 3) move the binary into /usr/lib/<pkgname> and add a symlink to /usr/bin. Then (assuming BIN_DIR=usr/bin is the usual search path), the dependency would not be added.
Saying that, I am against optional dependencies that are genuinely needed for a binary to run. I think these should be used for features that could be dynamically loaded if the optional dependency is present. I prefer package splitting if that is not the case.
I thought it was a supported use case but I agree with you that it's better to split.
You can have multiple packages that provide the same command, but there may be rare cases where two conflicting packages provide unrelated commands with the same name, or a restricted version of a command that may not support the full argument set. It's worth considering how to handle such cases now before settling on a syntax.
Do you have an example? I don't like adding complexity for "what if" cases that may never occur.
Nope, only a vague memory of some package conflict several years ago with two identically named commands that did completely different things. I think it was eventually solved by renaming one and telling upstream that the name was already used for a common executable. So yeah, it's not really an issue.
For the case you described, cmd:foo is provided by two packages, foo1 and foo2. foo2 has a subset of the functionality. Then you could depend on cmd:foo if either works, or foo1 if you need the full functionality.
Ok
For optdeps, what I mean is if the normal dependency would be "lib:libgpgme.so.11", how will you parse the normal optdep syntax of "pkgname: reason"? "lib:libfoo.so.13: required for the command foo". Won't using the same delimiter in two different contexts be problematic?
From memory, the space in "<pkgname>: <reason>" is important for optdepends. I need to check, but I don't think the PKGBUILD linter will let PKGBUILDs with optdepends without the space build. And pacman will not split the string without it. So this should be fine.
I wasn't sure that the space was enforced. If it is, then there's no issue. Coming back to your initial question:
Any opinions on this would be greatly appreciated. Is this a better system than the current one? Is adding automatic dependencies against the spirit of makepkg where everything is in the PKGBUILD?
It seems better to me. Less tedious and error-prone. Regards, Xyne