[pacman-dev] Splitting packages in makepkg

[Jan Mette]

Am Montag 16 Juni 2008 17:38:44 schrieb Xavier:
> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 3:20 PM, Allan McRae <mcrae_allan at hotmail.com> 
wrote:
> > So with a split package, the package part could be:
> >
> > #1) KDEmod style
> >
> > package_base() {
> >  #do base install
> > }
> >
> > package_gui() {
> >  #override pkgname etc
> >  # do gui install
> > }
> >
> >
> > #2) Modified KDEmod style
> >
> > package() {
> >  # do base install
> > }
> >
> >
> > package_gui() {
> >  #override pkgname etc
> >  # do gui install
> > }
> >
> >
> > #3) case statement way
> >
> > package() {
> >  case "$1" in
> >    "base" )
> >      # do install stuff
> >    ;;
> >    "gui" )
> >      # override pkgname etc
> >      # do install stuff
> >    ;;
> >  esac
> > }
> >
> >
> > ... Now the KDEmod team chose option #1.  My question is:  Was that
> > because it was the best way or was it just because it worked? ...
> >
> >
>
> What bothers me here is that the only question is asked directly to
> the kdemod team. I am not sure they all follow this mailing list.
> Maybe you should just ask them privately (have a look at the people
> who contributed to that bug report).
> But personally, I find that option #1 looks nicer ;)
>
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Hi there,

i just registered at this ML - my first ML experience ever, so please be nice
to me :)

To answer Allans question about "our way" of building splitted packages...

When Dunkelstern and me realized that we cannot maintain over 200 splitted
packages with the standard arch makepkg, i sat down and created a first
prototype of a PKGBUILD for splitted packages. It was basically the same as
what you can see now in our PKGBUILDs, except the splitinstall array - i just
created multiple install functions, every one of these with an additional
array that holds the directories to "make install" in...
Dunkelstern took that idea, added the splitinstall array, created a patch for
makepkg, and after some testing and additional patching we had we basically
needed...

For us, it was (and still is) the best way to create splitted packages without
a lot of hassle and/or applying big patches to makepkg (which also have to be
maintained, we didnt expect that this will be a topic here) - and this
solution works good for us since we created this stuff, and has decreased 
our workload a lot...

About the other 2 solutions Allan wrote about:

#2 looks almost the same like our stuff, except that is seems to implement
the "base package" stuff statically... We did not want that because with our
solution we have no limits and can split stuff like we want... (My english is
not that good, maybe i am sounding a bit too generic here)... Its like that:
If you already have the possibility to create a "base package", why do you 
need to create an extra (static) package() function? Our solution already does
that by itself, and you can give the install functions any name you want...

#3 Seems to move more of the "splitting logic" into the PKGBUILD itself, which
isnt so nice imho... Also the case stuff decreases readability in my
opinion... With our solution we have just one additional for-loop and an array
of the directories to make install in, which is also very clear and
readable...

So, to come to an end here: I definitely see a some room for improvements
regarding our solution, but i also like the flexibility and freedom of it, as
you can define nearly everything as you like...

And in case you are asking yourself what could be improved:

- pkg/ gets deleted after the installation of every sub-package, so
re-packaging does not work
- the "-i" option to install packages directly after the build does not work 
with splitted packages

(i am currently working on a patch for problem #2)

These are the only things that could be improved from my point of view...
We are using this stuff since a long time now, and i can say that we are very
happy with this solution :)

Greetings

Jan (funkyou)

PS: Again, sorry for my poor english