Re: New ispell packages - proposals
On Tue, 29 Aug 1995, James A. Robinson wrote:
>
> > Each dictionary package provides an Ispell_Dictionary virtual package.
> > Now then, the problem is that of circular dependencies again. Ideally,
> > ispell should depend on an Ispell_Dictionary, but then the dictionaries
> > should depend on ispell. Chicken or egg situation... It is my
> > understanding that we don't have a mechanism for handling these mutually
> > dependent packages, or do we?
>
> I thought Virtual Packages were designed to handle cases like this. I
> had assumed it would go something like:
>
> ispell:
> Virtual-Recommended: ispell-dictionary
>
> ibritish:
> Depends: ispell
> Virtual-Provides: ispell-dictionary
I was thinking of making ispell depend on a dictionary, not recommending
one. Recommending will certainly solve the dpkg problem, but will leave
the user with the possible situation of having ispell binaries with no
dictionaries.
I have always taken the recommended line to be just that, ie.
functionality of a package does not depend on the recommended packages
being installed.
Kenny.
Reply to: