On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 10:35 AM, Alexander Rødseth <rodseth@gmail.com> wrote:
Looking forward, what would it take for AUR to support split packages? Are there any particular or known obstacles, if one were to try to write a patch?
The relevant bug entry is FS#16394 [1]. Also the task it depends on, FS#15043, is quite important [2]. The basic issue is PKGBUILD parsing is really difficult to do. Take a look at the source for pkgsubmit.php [3]. In particular, lines 122-272 are representative of the craziness that takes place when the AUR currently tries to parse a PKGBUILD. IMHO, the only realistic way of ever including split packages in the AUR is the use of a source package metadata file. A dead easy to parse file within a source tarball that can give the AUR all the information it needs without all the bash parsing it currently attempts. I actually did a test a while back of such a file that the AUR could parse. It not only cut out a lot of cruft from the submission logic, but also fixed a few bugs and made split packages feasible. Just as a side note, a recent commit provides a more helpful error message when a user tries to submit a split package [4]. The particular PKGBUILD in the original post was crafted in a way so that error wasn't triggered and that cryptic message was printed. [1] https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/16394 [2] https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/15043 [3] https://projects.archlinux.org/aur.git/tree/web/html/pkgsubmit.php [4] https://projects.archlinux.org/aur.git/commit/?id=789245077d1ded7b2aaf4631bb...