Re: portability of dpkg decreasing?
On Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 02:12:59PM +0100, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> Previously Andreas Schuldei wrote:
> > from a few changes in the dpkg package I get the feeling that
> > portability is not any more one of the highest prioritys (which I
> > thought was one of Wicherts prioritys, at least)?
>
> Interesting how you say that after patches have been merged to support
> HP-UX, FreeBSD patches are coming in now and someone is working on AIX
> support as well.
Perhaps one of the big commercial Unices will finally throw away their
horrible packages systems... Nah, probably not.
I'm a bit surprised there hasn't been a port to Solaris. Solaris' package
tools are the worst I've ever had to deal with.
> > There is for example the va_copy thing, but also now (in cvs) the
> > libintl.h dependency. this last has not been there for long.
>
> libintl.h disappearing seems to be a bug in the gettext package,
> that uses intl.h but ships with libgnuintl.h. So please file a
> bug there (severity serious at least I'ld say since dropping libintl.h
> will break things miserably).
The va_copy issue was simply an inadequate test. I stole one from glib, I
think, and the problem was resolved.
On FreeBSD, intl will be in libintl, from gettext, not in libc, so programs
that fail to check for -lintl require extra work.
For maximum portability, it might be good to include libintl into dpkg, like
some of the GNU sources do. Then, have configure try libc and libintl, and fall
back on the included sources, if it can't locate intl functions.
> > The configure test for both is in place, but is not evaluated or the
> > absence is not resolved in any productiv way. the build just fails.
>
> Guess what, utsl@quic.net submitted a patch for that while working
> on FreeBSD support.
>
> > Or is portability really not so improtant any more?
>
> You really should look a bit harder before making such statements.
Portability is hard to get right. Usually, it's a constant struggle, and you
just have to keep sending patches.
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