Re: Proposal: Automatic query servicing for dpkg installation scripts
Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
>
>On Tue, 19 May 1998, Oliver Elphick wrote:
>
>> I'm sure there are a lot of problems I haven't thought of; if the whole
>> thing is impractical, tell me now! On the other hand, if it can be fully
>> worked out, all packages should use it to do interactive queries on
>> installation.
>
>Just off hand, I don't think this provides enough room for future growth.
>It would be nicer if your script could handle the format the COAS uses
>instead of creating a new incompatible format. This would help us migrate
>to a COAS like tool.
>
>If COAS is truely what it claims the implementing a program to pull
>information from the database for use in a script should be fairly
>simple..
Well, having looked at COAS, it seems not to dictate any particular data
format; it has to cope with a large number of independently developed
packages, each with its own format. To add a new one means writing a
module which plugs into COAS to handle the new package. Once COAS is
available, this can easily be done.
However, I'm not sure if COAS is a viable option for something that must
be present with the base system - it requires Python and the Qt library -
and as long as it depends on Qt, we can't include it in main. There was
talk of using gtk instead, but I don't know what has come of it.
=====
I have found another package, in experimental, that addresses the same
issues that I was attempting to address. It is dtxtdb. It does not,
though, allow the questions to be held in the database, which seems to me
to be a desirable thing -- for a start, it would make internationalisation
of scripts far easier. On the other hand, it has some other features that
look desirable.
=====
Whichever package is chosen, I think that this is an issue that ought to
be addressed soon and it is an important policy issue, because the use
of such a tool ought to be required.
--
Oliver Elphick Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
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