Re: [Fedora-r-devel-list] Errors in constructing SPEC from local source.
Pierre-Yves Chibon <pingou-E11Oz7VxvVOXCRStZZN3OA(a)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