[pacman-dev] Matching split packages to PKGBUILDs

[Xyne]

I was under the impression that the naming convention for split
packages was $pkgbase-$pkgname. I've used this scheme in bauerbill to
determine the corresponding PKGBUILD of split packages in
$repo.abs.tar.gz. This works for all packages in the kernel26 PKGBUILD,
for example, but someone has discovered that this does not work with
dhclient.

Is there simply no official rule for this or should dhclient actually
be names "dhcp-client"? I'm hoping for that latter with the expectation
that the name was not changed because the package was named "dhclient"
before the advent of split packages. Should I file a bug report and
request that the package be renamed "dhcp-client" and provide
"dhclient"?

If not, how can I sanely determine the corresponding PKGBUILD for
packages such as dhclient which do not follow any naming convention
that would identify the matching PKGBUILD? Would it be possible to
include symlinks or duplicate PKGBUILDs in $repo.abs.tar.gz to enable
applications to determine this?

I know that some of you feel that the sole purpose of makepkg is to
build packages and consequently have no regard for anything else one
might want to do with PKGBUILDs, but this is very unfortunate as it
severely limits the development of complementary tools. While I see the
superficial simplicity of using bash for PKGBUILDs and the convenience
of split PKGBUILDs, I really think this is going in the wrong
direction. There is a difference between simplicity and laziness, and
the trade-off of versatility and elegance is a considerable disadvantage
of this direction, as previous discussions here have shown.


Regards,
Your friendly yet frustrated contributor.