[wpkg-users] Question about depends and chain

[Rainer Meier]

Hi grubi,

grubi wrote:
> 1.) Taking a quick look at the source makes me think that "depends"
> works different
> on profile and on package level. It seems that "depends" on profile
> level works
> similar to "include" on package level meaning only priority has an
> impact on
> installation sequence. Is that correct?

Oh well, I thought the topic is about packages. So All I wrote is about package
dependencies, not about profiles.

A profile which depends on another one simply defines that the other profile is
"included" in the package tree. You're right that on profiles this does not mean
that all packages from profile B are installed necessarily before the packages
defined in profile A if A depends on B.

Dependencies exist between packages, not between profiles.

Currently I also do not see a need to enforce real dependencies between profiles
 because correct installation order of software can be assured by package
dependencies.


> 2.) "include" and "chain" or only supported on package level and not
> on profile level?

Correct. As I wrote above a depends node is added to the profile to include
additional profiles. Well, i agree that the naming is probably not perfect and
needs to be regarded as "legacy" since the depends node has been used since the
early days of WPKG even without specifying real dependencies.


> 3.) I did not find the dokumentation mentioning "include" and "chain" at
> all.
> Can you please be so kind to provide the link?

I am currently not aware that such a document exists on the web but a while ago
I've prepared some XSD files which assists you to validate your XML files.
Decent editors with syntax completion might support the included annotations too
in order to assist you writing your XML file. So I thought it's best to add as
much comments directly to the code/XSD where applicable.

So have a look at:
<http://wpkg.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/wpkg/wpkg/stable/1.1/xsd/packages.xsd?view=log>

or view it directly at
<http://wpkg.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/wpkg/wpkg/stable/1.1/xsd/packages.xsd?revision=71&view=markup>


> I'm trying to understand this in detail as my tool "createReport" should
> cotain
> a compliance check option to show which packaes are missing or out of date
> and therefor I must completely understand how this part works.

Depends on profile level just "includes" the referenced profile while on package
level you can either specify hard dependencies, includes or chains.

br,
Rainer