ports need a uniq identifier, do you have any suggestion?

[Baptiste Daroussin]

On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 07:36:15AM +0100, Matthew Seaman wrote:
> On 11/06/2012 05:30, Baptiste Daroussin wrote:
> > In the ports tree we lack a unique identifier, while we could live without it
> > until now, it is more than needed for 2 upcoming features: pkgng and stage
> > directory support.
> > 
> > unique means something that will always be the same what ever the options are
> > and what ever the runtime they use are. But also means unique in term of in the
> > whole ports no other package will share its identifier.
> > 
> > currently the only equivalent of this in the ports tree is the origin of a
> > package, which will no more be unique with the upcoming sub package support
> > (coming along with stage directory) aka 1 origin to produce n package.
> > 
> > UNIQUENAME and LATEST_LINK fails in that area because they both can change
> > according to the runtime: py27- for example which will become py30- if you
> > change the default python.
> > LATEST_LINK by default also append the PKGNAMEPREFIX which some ports can be
> > really creative with.
> > 
> > should we introduce something new, should we fix one of the above? do you have
> > any suggestion?
> 
> I was looking at this.  You'ld think from the name that UNIQUENAME is
> the appropriate variable here.  Yet by my calculations there are 1439
> ports using non-unique UNIQUENAME variables.  Fixing that seems like
> common sense to me: why call it unique if it isn't?
> 
> UNIQUENAME importance being because the default location for a port's
> OPTIONSFILE is derived from it, and non-uniqueness can lead to ports
> fighting over control of that file?  Which is bad when unintentional,
> but can be useful for some related ports to share the same options settings.

Well this is the right thing to do but looking at bsd.port.mk and the changes
needed I get bored and gave up :(
> 
> Does pkgng really need LATEST_LINK at all?  As far as I recall, that
> only exists so that the user can say:

Well no pkgng doesn't need it at all except for pkg itself for the bootstrap :)
> 
>     # pkg_add -r firefox
> 
> without having to look up the version number of the firefox port.  But
> pkg(1) pretty much already lets you do that, maybe with the aid of '-x'
> or '-X' options.  Come the pkgng revolution, LATEST_LINK should be one
> of the first against the wall.
> 
> I don't see the problem with port prefixes changing UNIQUENAME.  Isn't
> py27-foo conceptually a different port to py30-foo ?  Yes, they are
> built from the same port ORIGIN, but you already intend dropping the
> one-to-one correspondence between port ORIGINS and packages with the
> introduction of sub-ports.

Maybe they are different packages, but they have the same options, and from
pkgng we should be able to detect it as the same package just a different
runtime which is what they are.
> 
> 	Cheers,
> 
> 	Matthew
> 
> -- 
> Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
>                                                   Flat 3
> PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey     Ramsgate
> JID: matthew at infracaninophile.co.uk               Kent, CT11 9PW
> 
> 
> 


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