Re: Packaging _still_ wasteful for many large packages
On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 01:11:05AM +0000, Stephen Stafford wrote:
> I maintain rhyme. The GDBM files rhyme uses (apparently) aren't actualy cross
> platform, so probably should NOT go in /usr/share. I have to admit to not
> having tested this. (yes, remiss of me)
>From memory, GDBM files aren't cross-platform.
> When I have time (will be two or three weeks at least) I'll build it for all
> available architectures I have accounts for as a split package and see how it
> does. If it turns out that they are truly not platform independent then I'll
> have to find somewhere else to put them. Does anyone have any suggestions?
> /usr/lib/rhyme perhaps?
I'd say that's the best place for them, if they aren't expected to change
during normal operation of the program.
> As an aside, I note that the sizes for ia64 and alpha are significantly
> different to all other architectures. Is this something that's normal?
That suggests to my naive mind that the files aren't, in fact,
arch-independent, but it could be possible if (for instance) the native
integer format on the arch used to create the database is used for sizing,
but the type size information is carried in the database for reference by
other platforms.
A trivial test of gdbm would be to write a program which just opens a
database, looks for a key, if it finds it prints it's value, and if not
stores a random value in there. Run it on two separate architectures, swap
DB files, and run again. See if it retrieves the values correctly.
- Matt
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