Should perl-devel Obsolete perl?

[Ralf Corsepius]

Hi,

Another issue related to the perl-devel split out:

The files having been contained in "perl < *-14", now are 
distributed through "perl+perl-devel"

IMO, perl-devel >= *-14 therefore should 
Obsoletes: perl < 4:5.8.8-14
to guarantee an update/upgrade without functional regressions.

Unfortunately: Such a change has dramatic effects on yum: It causes yum
to iterate through all perl(...) deps.

Ralf

[Robin Norwood]

Ralf Corsepius <rc040203(a)freenet.de&gt; writes:

>  Hi,
>
>  Another issue related to the perl-devel split out:
>
>  The files having been contained in "perl < *-14", now are 
>  distributed through "perl+perl-devel"
>
>  IMO, perl-devel >= *-14 therefore should 
>  Obsoletes: perl < 4:5.8.8-14
>  to guarantee an update/upgrade without functional regressions.
>
>  Unfortunately: Such a change has dramatic effects on yum: It causes yum
>  to iterate through all perl(...) deps. 
This doesn't seem right to me anyway.  perl-devel doesn't obsolete older
versions of perl since it doesn't replace their functionality.
perl+perl-devel does 'obsolete' older versions of perl, but rpm can't
really express that.

-RN

-- 
Robin Norwood
Red Hat, Inc.

"The Sage does nothing, yet nothing remains undone."
-Lao Tzu, Te Tao Ching

[Rafael Garcia-Suarez]

On 06/03/07, Robin Norwood <rnorwood(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  > IMO, perl-devel >= *-14 therefore should
>  > Obsoletes: perl < 4:5.8.8-14
>  > to guarantee an update/upgrade without functional regressions.
>  >
>  > Unfortunately: Such a change has dramatic effects on yum: It causes yum
>  > to iterate through all perl(...) deps.
>
>  This doesn't seem right to me anyway.  perl-devel doesn't obsolete older
>  versions of perl since it doesn't replace their functionality.
>  perl+perl-devel does 'obsolete' older versions of perl, but rpm can't
>  really express that. 
Say that the new perl-devel Conflicts with perl < 4:5.8.8-14 ?

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Tue, 2007-03-06 at 10:43 -0500, Robin Norwood wrote:
>  Ralf Corsepius <rc040203(a)freenet.de&gt; writes:
>  
>  > Hi,
>  >
>  > Another issue related to the perl-devel split out:
>  >
>  > The files having been contained in "perl < *-14", now are 
>  > distributed through "perl+perl-devel"
>  >
>  > IMO, perl-devel >= *-14 therefore should 
>  > Obsoletes: perl < 4:5.8.8-14
>  > to guarantee an update/upgrade without functional regressions.
>  >
>  > Unfortunately: Such a change has dramatic effects on yum: It causes yum
>  > to iterate through all perl(...) deps.
>  
>  This doesn't seem right to me anyway.  perl-devel doesn't obsolete older
>  versions of perl since it doesn't replace their functionality. 
It does. 

Several perl(..) modules formerly having been contained in perl, in
future will be provided by perl-devel (e.g. perl(Extutils::MakeMaker)).

>  perl+perl-devel does 'obsolete' older versions of perl, but
> rpm can't
>  really express that. 
It can - Let perl-devel:
Obsoletes: perl < 4:5.8.8-14


perl will provide "perl-4:5.8.8-14"
and
perl-devel will provide "perl-devel-4:5.8.8-14"

i.e. after and update the "obsoletes" won't have any influence any more.

Ralf