Should there be BuildRequires for perl/libtool/auto*?

[Michael Schwendt]

On Sun, 4 Jan 2004 20:32:28 +0100, Matthias Saou wrote:

> Warren Togami wrote :
> 
> > If you require a specific version of any package, then you MUST include 
> > an Epoch in that dependency.  If the Epoch is blank, then make it "0".
> 
> Why? Can you give a good reason to introduce "0" in every versionned
> dependency? I can only think of reasons _not_ to :
> - Keep things shorter, clearer thus easier to understand
> - Not confuse the user with the arbitrary number that the epoch is when he
>   gets a message like "Failed dependencies, requires foo >= 1.20"
> 
> Epochs are only used in corner-cases, why make them appear in the general
> case at all?
> 
> I still don't think introducing a zero epoch everywhere is sensible nor
> useful.

With chosing the term "corner-cases" you remove every base for discussion.
You acknowledge that an explicit zero epoch can be useful, but at the same
time you pin it down to corner-cases which you don't specify. Suppose
someone wants to avoid problems with any such corner-cases. I'm not an RPM
expert, but I'm aware of problems like this:

# cat /etc/redhat-release 
Red Hat Linux release 8.0 (Psyche)

Suppose we've got a library sub-package "libfoo" which is created as
part of a "foo" src.rpm:

# rpm -qp --qf "%{epoch}:%{version}\n" libfoo-2.0-0.i386.rpm 
(none):2.0

In a new release, upstream decides to split off a library, starting with
an unstable pre-1.0 release:

# rpm -qp --qf "%{epoch}:%{version}\n" libfoo-0.8-0.i386.rpm 
1:0.8

# rpm -ivh libfoo-2.0-0.i386.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:libfoo                 ########################################### [100%]
# rpm -Uvh libfoo-0.8-0.i386.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:libfoo                 ########################################### [100%]
# rpm -Uvh libfoo-2.0-0.1.i386.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:libfoo                 ########################################### [100%]

[...]

Explicit Epoch 0 makes a difference:

# rpm -q --qf "%{epoch}:%{version}\n" libfoo
1:0.8

# rpm -qp --qf "%{epoch}:%{version}\n" libfoo-2.0-1.i386.rpm 
0:2.0

# rpm -Uvh libfoo-2.0-1.i386.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
        package libfoo-0.8-0 (which is newer than libfoo-2.0-1) is already installed

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