ident strings in pkg-plist

[Alexander Leidinger]

Quoting Doug Barton <dougb at FreeBSD.org> (from Sun, 03 Oct 2010  
15:58:00 -0700):

> Changing the list to have a real discussion about this.
>
> On 10/3/2010 3:49 PM, John Hein wrote:
>> I'll mention that
>> it has come in handy for me in the past.  I put it into the category
>> of ident strings in binaries.  It has a similar utility.
>>
>> Because I find it useful in maintaining and using a port/package,
>> I've been one that has added it to pkg-plist in the past.
>
> I'm curious about what your use case for the information is. You can  
> always know if you have the latest version of the plist via cvs,  
> c[v]sup, portsnap, etc. Other than knowing that you have the latest  
> version, what utility does the $Id string in the file itself have?

I see a value in this if:
  - you use a port with non-default options which change the plist
and
  - a change is made to the plist which affects your use case,
    but the revision of the port is not changed (because the change
    only affects the non-default options and as such do not change
    the default package)

Normally you can not detect after a while if the plist in the port is  
what is used in /var/db/pkg or not (the dates in /var/db/pkg may  
change when portupgrade is used).

If this matters and rectifies a new rule to include an ident string  
into the plist or not... personally I wouldn't object if it is added.

Bye,
Alexander.

-- 
This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.
		-- Winston Churchill

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