Re: multi-variant packages and bulk builds

[Alan Barrett <apb%cequrux.com@localhost>]

On Sat, 06 Sep 2008, Aleksey Cheusov wrote:
> > In pkgsrc there are a number of packages (category/package) that can
> > be built with different PKGNAME depending on a value of some special
> > variables. For example, www/ap2-* packages, */py-* and many others.
> 
> Based on suggestion (VARIANTS variable) described above, I've update
> pkg_src_summary program.  Now it can generate summary for all variants
> of multi-variant packages and even more. See below ====.

I haven't really been following this discussion, btu I have a related
problem involving "make replace" with such packages.  It's easiest to
explain using an example.

Say I have installed python-2.4 and python-2.5.

Then I install some addon module for both of them:

        cd pkgsrc/devel/py-pexpect
        make clean ; make PYTHON_VERSION_DEFAULT=24 install
        make clean ; make PYTHON_VERSION_DEFAULT=25 install

Some time later, possibly after some cvs updates, I ask
pkg_rolling-replace to rebuild them both:

        sudo pkg_admin set rebuild=YES py\*-pexpect-\*
        cd pkgsrc
        pkg_rolling-replace

Internally, pkg_rolling-replace does something like this:

        # try to replace py24-pexpect-*
        cd pkgsrc/devel/pexpect
        make clean ; make replace ; make clean
        # try to replace py25-pexpect-*
        cd pkgsrc/devel/pexpect
        make clean ; make replace ; make clean

but it's not passing PYTHON_VERSION_DEFAULT into the build, so instead
of rebuilding both packages, it ends up rebuilding one of the packages
twice, and displaying several error messages.

To fix this, I think the package itself should somehow encode the
fact that, when trying to "replace" it, you need to pass the correct
value for PYTHON_VERSION_DEFAULT.  If a future version of the pkgsrc
infrastructure stored "VARIANTS=PYTHON_VERSION_DEFAULT=24" in the
+BUILD_INFO file, then a future version of pkg_rolling-replace could do
the right thing.

--apb (Alan Barrett)