[pacman-dev] $ARCH suffix on packages

[Roman Kyrylych]

2006/10/11, VMiklos <vmiklos at frugalware.org>:
> On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 09:48:21AM -0500, Aaron Griffin <aaronmgriffin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What is gained by having this suffix?
>
> all my reasons are already mentioned here, so i just would like to sum
> up them:
>
> 1) protecting users from installing x86_64 packages on i686, or so

Heh? $ARCH suffix is just a part of filename. Only arch=(...) in
.PKGINFO really should matter (and "protect"). Or I'm missing
something?

> 2) being able to use a common cache for different architectures

Well, if you talk about /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ - then yes. But for
what it's needed? Anyway if user uses x86_64 then all packages
installed on his system are for x86_64, and those that are i686 only
(binary games or flash plugin for example) simply don't have their
x86_64 couterparts.

> 3) regarding the "it's not necessary, pacman can extract that info from
> .PKGINFO": the situation is the same with pkgver/pkgrel, too. why do we
> have them in the package name? i think because of 1) and 2)

No, it's not because 1) and 2). It's because it's needed for keeping
multiple versions of package in /var/cache/pacman/pkg/. (i suppose
pacman won't use cvs for that ;-) )

> (oh and a 4) is about prodecting developers to mess up the packages, but
> the no1 is the user so this should not be a reason)

-- 
Roman Kyrylych (Роман Кирилич)