[arch-projects] Proposal for additional gcc packages

[Michael Baehr]

On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 15:54:01 -0700, Jason Chu <jason at archlinux.org> wrote:
> This is something I've been kicking around for a bit.  Having other gcc
> packages like gcc-f77 and gcc-java would be helpful, 1) to shut people like
> this up (http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=6376) and 2) for people
> who actually need a f77 compiler (or a java compiler or whatever).
> 
> My idea goes something like this.  Don't touch the gcc package.  Instead,
> make a similar PKGBUILD that just compiles the additional languages.
> Compare that package's file list to the gcc package's file list and cull
> out the duplicates.
> 
> As long as the existing gcc package doesn't store a list of compiled
> languages, then it should work.
> 
> I've already built a gcc-f77 package based around this idea and gcc-java
> will soon follow.  I do lack the skills to properly test the gcc-f77
> package, though it is available here:
> http://xentac.net/~jchu/gcc-f77-3.4.1-2.pkg.tar.gz
> 
> The way I've explained it so far, you may be wondering about gcc upgrades.
> The gcc-f77 package depends on gcc=$pkgver, so if gcc is upgraded before
> gcc-f77, pacman will complain.  In that way, you'll never have conflicting
> package versions installed at the same time.
> 
> The only drawback to this approach that I've found is that you compile gcc
> multiple times.  The only solution to that is make a method to build
> multiple packages from one PKGBUILD.  This goes against the KISS design
> philosophy and would break a lot of stuff for only a few benefits (a few
> packages).
> 
> Jason
> 
> --
> If you understand, things are just as they are.  If you do not understand,
> things are just as they are.
> 
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> 
> 
> 

I think this is one of those situations where the idea of adding
split-off functionality to makepkg (akin to what Debian and many other
distros do) would come in quite handy.  That way you could have one
PKGBUILD which built all of the gcc languages, and then split it off
into gcc, gcc-f77, gcj, etc.  AFAIK someone actually made a patch to
makepkg a while back that added this functionality; it's a pretty
trivial change.

-- 
Michael Baehr - Arch Linux GNUstep Geek