On Mon, 08 Mar 2004 21:22:36 +0100, Stefan van der Eijk wrote:
Due to the fact that -devel packages have no *automatic* dependencies added to them, there is no significant dependency structure in them. This makes getting the right BuildRequires for the packages nearly impossible. This issue and the solution Mandrake chose to implement are documented here:
http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/RpmDevelDependencies
Fetching dependencies from pkgconfig templates is missing on that page. Pkgconfig has an own dependency chain. When a -devel package gets installed and contains support for pkgconfig,
pkg-config --list-all
should not fail due to a broken chain of dependencies. The package should require every [-devel] package needed to complete the dependencies listed in the pkgconfig file.
I agree with you. But don't you agree that the functionality that the devel() depedencies provides is already a lot better than letting the packager decide what the dependencies will be (by specifying them in the .spec file). Of course a packager can still specify them if he wants to.
Perhaps we can explore the possibilities that a pkg-config related dependency scheme can bring, perhaps complementing the devel() dependencies. The trick will be to find a way to find the pkgconfig capabilites a package Requires *and* what pkgconfig capabilites a package Provides.
regards,
Stefan van der Eijk
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