[Fedora-r-devel-list] Errors in constructing SPEC from local source.
Allen S. Rout
asr at ufl.edu
Tue Apr 12 21:34:47 UTC 2011
Pierre-Yves Chibon <pingou-E11Oz7VxvVOXCRStZZN3OA at public.gmane.org>
writes:
> On Tue, 2011-04-12 at 16:57 -0400, Allen S. Rout wrote:
>>
>> I have the opinion that the current manner of failing doesn't
>> communicate what's going on very well. Would you consider documenting
>> this requirement in the usage message, or even failing with an
>> informative message?
>
> As in print the error message in the console rather than in the build
> file ? Or do you have something else in mind ?
Well, the error message is something along the lines of "Blank URL
field". This doesn't lead me to assume "I should specify a repo, for
this file that I have locally".
On the one hand, for the -source case, you could specify a file:/// URL
(and source0) if the user doesn't give one.
If you don't like that, you could detect "Oh, they set a source but no
repo", and give a diagnostic like "Must set a repo; please use one of
--[... yadda yadda "
>> I also think that there are other sources of packages than the various
>> repos. It seems incorrect to me to insist that we name one.
>
> For this I had few ideas but I do not know how far I went with them:
> - One idea was to be able to add repositories on the ~/.R2spec.
> Now that I am thinking about it, I guess something like:
> [repository]
> bioc = http://bioconductor.org
> cran = http://cran.r-project.org
> mine = http://pingoured.fr
> where one could then call R2spec/R2rpm with --repo=mine or --repo=bioc
> or something like this.
>
> - Another idea might be to just specify the repository via an argument
> --URL="http://pingoured.fr"
I understand your repo-centric perspective, but I would encourage you to
let people build from files without forcing them to invent a repo. But
this is an aesthetic call; If you permit an escape valve like --URL, and
an error message to point to its use, then the usability concerns are
well answered.
> R2spec was designed to easily create spec file which would then be
> reviewed and corrected by human. It has evolved to include rpm building
> but I have the feeling that it might need a good redesign, maybe a
> version 3.0.0 ;-)
The version I got from EPEL was 3.0.3.. ?
I would be delighted to help if you are interested in it. My previous
wave of changes did not meet with your approval, and I inferred that
this meant you look at the problem differently than I do. I am not
offended by this, it's your project. But I did stop trying to
contribute.
I definitely look at the problem from the perspective of "Automatic
production of entire dependency chains". If you think that is a
worthwhile direction to go, I would be happy to help get there.
- Allen S. Rout
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