[wpkg-users] Virtual package?

[Kai Pastor]

Am 31.10.2014 um 08:58 schrieb heiko.helmle at horiba.com:
> AFAIK DPKG doesn't have "real" virtual packages. It's just an empty
> package that just contains metadata (depends, recommends, suggests...)

dpkg does have virtual packages by means of the "Provides" field, i.e. 
actual packages declare the name of a virtual package they provide 
(https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html#s-virtual).

For example, both "JRE6" and "JRE7" may provide the virtual package 
"JRE". Depending packages may tell a preference by or-connection 
priorities, such as "JRE7 | JRE".

It is not really easy to solve this with wpkg. Empty packages require 
extra work, and they cannot be really empty if you want them to 
uninstall (i.e. be removed from local wpkg.xml) cleanly.

So virtual packages would need two changes to wpkg:
- Introducing the "provides" element.
- Introducing logical conditions on dependencies.

Kai