Option vs. flavor?

Yuri yuri at rawbw.com
Sun Dec 17 18:10:55 UTC 2017


On 12/17/17 06:32, Adam Weinberger wrote:
>
> Ah okay. Then I'd say, make a slave port that just 
> fetches/extracts/installs the data files, and an option in the Geant4 
> master port that defaults to off. Set the slave port to NO_PACKAGE.

Ok, I will do it this way.


> I wouldn't go the flavor route, because the purpose of flavors is to 
> generate multiple packages. The 4.5GB data files shouldn't have a 
> package, so options is the way to go.


I was actually wondering, why the use of flavors is such a bad idea in 
this case? I know that flavors weren't originally intended for this, but 
it might seem that they lend themselves very well to such use.

One can have a virtual flavor, say @withHugeData. It doesn't get built 
by default because it is virtual. At the same time, somebody who needs 
data can always run 'poudriere .... thepkg at withHudeData' and build the 
needed flavor of the package.

What would be the downside of such use, besides it being the use of a 
completely different kind than anticipated?


Yuri



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