[Slackbuilds-users] OPTIONAL field [was: qemu/spice-gtk and usbredir]

[Andrzej Telszewski]

On 25/10/16 03:12, Christoph Willing wrote:
>> Exactly, it's for the build tools. They can store externally what
>> optional packages have been chosen and work according to that.
>>
> Could you give a small example of how you see that working? It seems
> like there would be yet another layer of configuration needed (albeit as
> part of the build tool setup, I guess) to distinguish between all the
> possible optional packages and those that a user may want to actually use.
>
> I'm not trying to be contrary (I mentioned previously that I already use
> additional .info fields myself); just interested.
>
> chris

It would require a deeper thought, because there are potentially more 
interesting things to take into account.

But my first idea is that, the automated tool would offer you / ask you 
what optional packages do you want. It would then remember your choice, 
and could also track any possible changes to the upstream OPTIONAL 
field, and if there was a change, ask you again.

Of course you could just edit some config file to contain all the 
optional packages, but what we're talking about here is to let the 
machine assist you in doing so, and tracking for possible 
misconfiguration (e.g. the tool can detect that you have a package 
flagged as optional, but upstream has changed .info and removed that 
package from OPTIONAL field).

-- 
Best regards,
Andrzej Telszewski