[Fedora-packaging] purpose of ruby(abi), python(abi), etc

[Garrett Holmstrom]

On 2012-12-19 5:12, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> Vít Ondruch (vondruch at redhat.com) said:
>> Can somebody enlighten me, what is the purpose of ruby(abi) (replace
>> by python(abi) if you wish) virtual provide? Especially, why Ruby
>> packaging guidelines mandate "Requires: ruby(abi) = 1.9.1", i.e.
>> versioned require? And why in Python packages, python(abi) is
>> automatically generated?
>
> In the python case, it's because that python extension modules
> install in a version-specific directory ($libdir/python2.7, for example.)
> This makes them explicitly tied to that version of python.

There's also the fact that the ABI for the bytecode that gets generated 
at build time is specific to each x.y series of python releases.

--
Garrett Holmstrom