On Tue, Jul 05, 2005 at 10:36:49AM -0700, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: > Goswin von Brederlow wrote: > > Or a "Package-Type: application | lib | data | doc | dev | common | > > dummy". A yes/no field is hard to extend to more cases. > While I do find the above idea very useful, how does it help with the > circular dependency issue? Could there be another tag > ``In-Case-Of-Circular-Dependecy-Install-Me-First: True'' ? This would > help in the case of *known* circular dependencies, and it leaves the > thinking up to a human (or perhaps an autobuilder that has attempted > various means of installing the circularly dependent packages, and > determined a working method) instead of leaving it up to the client > system to guess. The discussion that prompted the above is that many circular dependancies are caused by -data pacakges depending on -bin packages of tools to utilise that data, so that the data packages are not left lying around on the system if the tools are removed. The above addresses _those_ circular dependancies, because it gives more data to the tools about what's independantly less useful than the current 'libs' section, (as used by deborphan for this purpose). (As far as this set is concerned, I feel that Depends _should_ mean "This doesn't work at all without that" rather than "This is useless without that". And data, as far as I'm concerned, works by its very existance, even if the right tool is not immediately at hand.) There's another, more difficult class of circular dependancies which involves parallel-installable shared library packages depending on a common binary, which depends on one of the parallel-installable shared libraries. Or something like that, anyway. ^_^ The above doesn't address this second class at all, as far as I can see, but some kind of solution seems to have been come up with, at least for fontconfig. -- ----------------------------------------------------------- Paul "TBBle" Hampson, MCSE 8th year CompSci/Asian Studies student, ANU The Boss, Bubblesworth Pty Ltd (ABN: 51 095 284 361) Paul.Hampson@Anu.edu.au "No survivors? Then where do the stories come from I wonder?" -- Capt. Jack Sparrow, "Pirates of the Caribbean" This email is licensed to the recipient for non-commercial use, duplication and distribution. -----------------------------------------------------------
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