[pacman-dev] [PATCH 2/2] makepkg: add a config file option for the pacman binary to be used

[Dan McGee]

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 4:36 PM, Allan McRae <allan at archlinux.org> wrote:
> Cedric Staniewski wrote:
>>
>> Dan McGee wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 2:51 PM, Cedric Staniewski <cedric at gmx.ca> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Implements FS#13028.
>>>>
>>>> Signed-off-by: Cedric Staniewski <cedric at gmx.ca>
>>>> ---
>>>> Oops... forgot to adjust the documentation. -T support is not required
>>>> anymore for the pacman wrappers.
>>>
>>> I think I'd rather see this as an environment variable- wouldn't that
>>> make more sense, as we wouldn't require it to be specified by the vast
>>> majority of people that just want to use the default?
>>>
>>> PACMAN=${PACMAN:-pacman} or whatever it is.
>>>
>>> -Dan
>>
>> Sorry Dan, but I do not get your point. This patch makes it possible to
>> specify a pacman command in one of the makepkg.conf files, but it is not
>> mandatory because of the reason you mentioned. I already use your line in my
>> patch:
>>
>> +# set pacman command if not defined in config files
>> +PACMAN=${PACMAN:-pacman}
>> +
>>
>> It is, however, not possible to provide a pacman command via environment
>> variable, because I think it makes more sense to store it in a config file.
>> So do you mean it should be possible to use an environment variable as
>> well?
>
> I think Dan wants it to only be available through and environmental variable
> and not in the makepkg.conf.  That should already be possible with your
> patch (as you point out, the line Dan suggested is already there).
>
> I have no real preference but am leaning towards it not being included in
> pacman.conf given the usage is expected to be low.  If we are wrong and it
> becomes very popular to use some wrapper, then we can always add the config
> option later.

My suggestion was as Allan says; only do it in the environment. Of
course, since makepkg.conf is just sourced anyway, then to each his
own, but I'd rather not advertise it there at all.

Why? Things like $BROWSER, $EDITOR, etc. are pretty standard and
accepted variables. There is no reason that on an Arch system, $PACMAN
shouldn't join that list. This would address other things, such as
people always wanting to have it run with a certain command line flag,
or perhaps always use a pacman.static binary, or anything like that.
Maybe I'm making orange juice out of bananas, but yeah.

-Dan