Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 09:49:40 -0800 From: Jordan Hubbard <jkh@winston.osd.bsdi.com> To: Brian Kraemer <kraemer@u.washington.edu> Cc: freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Ports updating... Good ways? Message-ID: <17287.981654580@winston.osd.bsdi.com> In-Reply-To: Message from Brian Kraemer <kraemer@u.washington.edu> of "Thu, 08 Feb 2001 09:28:47 PST." <Pine.A41.4.21.0102080920510.79438-100000@mead4.u.washington.edu>
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[cc line trimmed to just include -ports; this is clearly applicable to ONLY that mailing list] > What about extending "make" so that it is possible to do the following: > > $ cd /usr/ports/foo/bar > $ make update > > "make" would then automatically deal with updating dependencies for that > specific port, remove the old version and build the new one. Well, this is a cool concept on the face of it but it needs more infrastructure work to actually function. Let's say I install the "gtkwooba" port which depends on gtk, libtools, glib and libwooba. Then I come back over a year later and do a "make update" in gtkwooba. It's pretty much a surety that just about everything it depends on has been updated, so I have to upgrade gtk, libtools, glib and libwooba too. Because of the other things which depend on them and the manner in which they're constructed, however, these four items fall into different categories: gtk: older version cannot be removed, new version must go alongside libtools, glib: older versions can be replaced by new version with full backwards compatibility libwooba: no other dependencies, can be replaced by new version with no other concerns Now there may also be a safe way to achieve the upgrades in all cases, depending on the skill and dedication of the people maintaining the ports, but the ports collection doesn't currently have enough descriptive metadata to be *sure* of that or to know when it can safely pkg_delete an older version. That's why more sophisticated package management systems than our own have keywords like "replaces", "augments" and "occludes" in their metadata, each followed by a list of previous versions for which that keyword applies. If it replaces a version, it's backwards compatible with that version. If it augments a version, it's strictly an upgrade kit (e.g. just the deltas) and if it occludes a version, it means you have to have both installed if there are remaining dependencies on the old version. Reference counts also help for knowing when the last dependency on something drops away and you can remove it too. :) Anyway, "make update" is basically a feature which is awaiting a Ports Hero to come along and add the necessary intelligence to actually automate it properly. :) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message
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