Re: open issue of *OWN/*GRP variables and installation to DESTDIR

[Alistair Crooks <agc%pkgsrc.org@localhost>]

On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 10:43:23PM +0100, Klaus Heinz wrote:
> if a package uses PKG_DESTDIR_SUPPORT=user-destdir the variables
> ROOT_USER, ROOT_GROUP, BINOWN, BINGRP, GAMEOWN, GAMEGRP, MANOWN, MANGRP,
> SHAREOWN, SHAREGRP, DOCOWN and DOCGRP will be redefined and the original
> value be unavailable for pkgsrc Makefiles (see mk/unprivileged.mk).
> 
> In the case of ROOT_USER and ROOT_GROUP this loss of information was
> solved with REAL_ROOT_USER and REAL_ROOT_GROUP but the issue still
> remains open for all the other variables.
> 
> As an example, a package currently using ${GAMEOWN}:${GAMEGRP} cannot
> be converted to correctly using PKG_DESTDIR_SUPPORT=user-destdir because
> we have no way to tell to which user/group the ownership of files should
> be assigned at installation time.

That is true, and an obvious problem.

But it leads me to wonder if we can't work around it somehow - like a
post-install script which checks for the symbolic owner and group,
creates them if they're not already there, and then changes every file
owned or grouped in such a manner to the correct symbolic owner and
group.

Regards,
Alistair