Re: A case for Pre-Depends?
On Tue, Oct 17, 2000 at 03:21:57PM -0700, Yves Arrouye wrote:
> OK, I have this package, libicu16, which contains libraries only. The
> libraries are not really useful w/o the data contained in the icu package,
> but it is reasonable to expect later libraries to work w/ the same data,
> hence the separation. Also, the icu package has binaries which depend on
> libicu16.
>
> Right now I have libicu16 suggests icu, but I'd really would like to express
> something like:
>
> Package: libicu16
> Depends: icu (>= 1.6.0.1)
>
> since if one drops icu, libicu16 isn't very useful. but then I also have:
>
> Package: icu
> Depends: libicu16 (>= 1.6.0.1)
>
> Is Pre-Depends a help for me here? Should icu Pre-Depends on libicu16, or
> the opposite?
No. This is a general problem which has yet to be solved. It is not
really the responsibility of the library package to say "I am only
useful for package X". And a Pre-Depends won't be useful. Just have
icu depending on the library package and leave it at that. Note also
that libicu16 should probably be called libicu1.6 instead.
The general solution will probably be of the form:
apt-get install icu
--> apt version 3.6.0.5 logs the fact that libicu16 is pulled in as an
icu dependency
[sometime later]
apt-get --purge remove icu
--> apt notes that now libicu16 is no longer needed for anything and
was only installed to satisfy a dependency, so prompts to suggest
its removal
Julian
--
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Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, QMW, Univ. of London. J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk
Debian GNU/Linux Developer, see http://www.debian.org/~jdg
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