ABI confusion: freebsd:12:x86:64 or ABI: freebsd:12:amd64?

[Matthew Seaman]

On 03/10/2017 12:08, Kurt Jaeger wrote:
> Hi!
> 
>> When using "poudriere", it seems ABI is freebsd:12:x86:64.
> 
> Where do you get that value from ? If I access a repo,
> I access e.g.
> 
> https://repo.opsec.eu/${ABI}
> 
> and ABI maps to
> 
> FreeBSD:12:amd64
> 

There's history here.  Originally in pkg(8) the ABI value looked like:

   freebsd:11:x86:64

then about 4 years ago the ABI value was switched to look like:

   FreeBSD:11:amd64

which is how it has remained to this day.  I believe the motivation for
this change was to bring the setting into line with the arch value used
elsewhere in the system.  The old value was still available as ALTABI --
mostly implemented as a transitional thing so we didn't unnecessarily
cause too much grief by breaking loads of poudriere setups with local
repositories.  Oh, and the ALTABI value is still used internally to
pkg(8) in a few places IIRC.

The idea was that ALTABI would become redundant over time and could
eventually be deleted.  However, it seems that a new use has been found
for it to do with packaged base and managing major version upgrades, so
it will apparently be sticking around for the foreseeable future.

	Cheers,

	Matthew