[aur-general] Merging packages into a split package (was: pkg deletion request)

[Yichao Yu]

On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 12:17 PM, Lukas Fleischer
<archlinux at cryptocrack.de> wrote:
> On Fri, 30 May 2014 at 14:03:00, artux wrote:
>> [...]
>> Suppose I want to move/merge a single pkgbuild to a split build, is that
>> possible? Will the pkgbase change, so the single pkgbuld will
>> "disappear" automatically? Or the other way round, I want to move a pkg
>> from split build to single build?
>> Is there any documentation for this kind of stuff?
>
> The logic is as follows:
>
> * Package bases can be overwritten by their maintainers and by TUs.
>
> * Packages can only be overwritten if they already belong to the package
>   base of the submitted package. That means that you cannot upload a
>   PKGBUILD containing a package which is already part of another package
>   base.
>
> So in order to replace several packages with a split package, you will
> need to:
>
> 1. Upload a (basically empty) meta package with the new package base
>    (unless you want to use a package base that already exists, e.g. the
>    name of the first package to merge).
>
> 2. File a request to merge every package into the new split package.
>
> 3. Upload a proper split package to replace the meta package.
>
> It is a bit unfortunate that this process makes merging a bit more
> complicated and results in packages being unavailable for a short
> transition period (see steps 1 to 3). I didn't come up with something
> better yet. Should we give TUs extra power and allow for uploading
> PKGBUILDs that automatically overwrite (and merge) packages? The
> downside is that this would be quite complicated to implement and we
> would have to ensure that no strange things can happen, e.g. partly
> overwriting another split package by replacing a subset of its packages.
> Trusted Users would also have to have a very close look at the packages
> before merging to ensure that no malicious takeover happens.
>
> Any suggestions are welcome.

One thing to add is that if you own all the other packages, you can
change their pkgname (to sth random) while keeping the same pkgbase.
You can then upload the new package with all the pkgnames and let a TU
to merge the original (not empty and useless) packages to the new one.
This way at least it is not necessary to wait for a TU to make the new
package work.

>
>>
>> Thanks, artoo
>>