Re: Archive unification progress

[Stepan Kasal]

Hi,

On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 09:22:25AM +1100, Tom Howard wrote:
> > So I think it might be convenient to think about files as about packages,

> I agree but unfortunately have a counter example (which is a shame as
> package files would be so handy).  As you might have seen I've just
> added a number of macros that add custom Makefile targets, such as rpm
> creation.  AX_RPM depends on AX_INSTALL_FILES to create a list of file
> that are installed and where they are installed.  If someone creates a
> AX_DEB_PKG macro, then this would also most probably benefit from using
> AX_INSTALL_FILES.  Which package is AX_INSTALL_FILES placed in then?  If
> both, how are they kept in sync and what happens when someone used both
> AX_RPM and AX_DEB_PKG?

I see two possible solutions:
1) Put all three macros in one package, so that if someone patches one of
them, he will also think about the others.

2) Put them to three separate packages.  If AX_INSTALL_FILES is changed you
have to check all packages which use it...  No, this is not managebale.
So you probably have to introduce versioning and AX_RPM or AX_DEB_PKG would
require one particular version of AX_INSTALL_FILES.

Well, but all this has _nothing_to_do_ with the fact that packages are
implied as files or not.  You can implement 1) by putting all three macros
to one file, or 2) by breaking them to individual files.

If you are concerned about authorship, you can add a comment that this was
written by Mr. B, and this by Mrs. A.  (The header would say ``written by
Mr. B and Mrs. A''.)

So where is the problem?

Stepan