Re: Self Referencing depends

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

The meaning of self-referencing dependencies is as follows:

 A (version x) --Depends-> A (no version specified)
 A (version x) --Depends-> A (satisfied by x)
 A (version x) --Provides-> A (version x)
   Useless, but should be allowed and ignored.

 A (version x) --Depends-> A (not satisfied by x)
   Dependency cannot be satisfied; this is definitely a bug.
   Behaviour should be sane (no coredumps, etc) but may be arbitrary
   (installation program may ignore it, complain, whatever).

 A (version x) --Conflicts-> A (no version specified)
   Ignored as regards A itself, but may be affected by Provides in
   other packages.

 A (version x) --Conflicts-> A (version spec y)
   Ignored as regards A itself; currently no meaning because Provides
   are not versioned, but they will be and then it will have the
   obvious meaning.

 A (version x) --Provides-> A (not version x)
   Currently not supported (syntax error), but in future will allow
   differently-versioned dependencies to be satisfied.  When this is
   possible it should be used only with great care. 

I believe that dpkg's behaviour conforms to this specification, and
that always-broken self-referential dependencies are ignored.

Deity should conform to this specification too.  If that means
changing its dependency calculation code then it should be changed.

Ian.


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