Ingolf Steinbach:
> > > 2) One pkg for each language. This would lead to many new
> > >    directories in pkgsrc. Not suitable.
> > >
> > > 3) Some mechanism to use only one pkgsrc directory for the
> > >    i18n stuff which can generate different packages by using
> > >    an environment or mk.conf variable, e.g.
> > >    Directory: pkgsrc/misc/kdei18n
> > >    Can generate kdei18n-de-2.0, kdei18n-fr-2.0 etc.
> > >
> > > At the moment, I'd like 3), but I on't know if this is
> > > possible by using pkgsrc/mk/* at the moment (without too
> > > much tricks). Maybe there are much better solutions?

Frederick Bruckman:
> "2)" and "3)" are bad. They force a compile-time decision for what
> should be a run-time decision, and they'd make it ten times as hard to
> update and debug the NetBSD package.

I do not believe that it is only a run-time decision. Of
course, you decide which language to use at run time. But
you might want to select at compile-time which languages
you want to provide for the run-time selection.

For example, I would not want to install, say, Japanese
i18n files on my notebook with relatively small disk
space. Not that I don't like Japanese, but I'd prefer
to install only those languages which I am sure will
be used.

Maybe there could be some general mechanism for i18n
in pkgsrc:

- use a make variable to select the languages you
  wish to install (this could default to "all" if not
  set)
- any package which provides some i18n support selects
  the languages using this make variable

Thus, you would not need extra i18n packages -- their
functionality is contained in the "real" package.

To do this with the current pkgsrc/mk, probably many
tricks would be needed, so I agree with you that it
would make package debugging much harder. But I believe
that this does not necessarily hold if some generic
mechanism as for example the one described above would
be implemented in pkgsrc.

Regards
    Ingolf
-- 

Ingolf Steinbach        Balin@IRCnet         ICQ#60829470
PGP: 0x7B3B5661  213C 828E 0C92 16B5  05D0 4D5B A324 EC04