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<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">GLEP:</th><td class="field-body">21</td>
</tr>
<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Title:</th><td class="field-body">User-defined Package Sets</td>
</tr>
<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Version:</th><td class="field-body">1.4</td>
</tr>
<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Last-Modified:</th><td class="field-body"><a class="reference" href="http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/xml/htdocs/proj/en/glep/glep-0021.txt?cvsroot=gentoo">2007/04/21 03:13:16</a></td>
</tr>
<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Author:</th><td class="field-body">Tal Peer &lt;coredumb&#32;&#97;t&#32;gentoo.org&gt;,
Alec Warner &lt;antarus&#32;&#97;t&#32;gentoo.org&gt;</td>
</tr>
<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Status:</th><td class="field-body">Deferred</td>
</tr>
<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Type:</th><td class="field-body">Standards Track</td>
</tr>
<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Discussed-To:</th><td class="field-body"><a class="reference" href="mailto:gentoo-portage-dev&#64;lists.gentoo.org">gentoo-portage-dev&#64;lists.gentoo.org</a></td>
</tr>
<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Content-Type:</th><td class="field-body"><a class="reference" href="glep-0002.html">text/x-rst</a></td>
</tr>
<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Created:</th><td class="field-body">22-Feb-2004</td>
</tr>
<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Post-History:</th><td class="field-body">6-Mar-2004, 3-Sep-2006</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr />
<div class="contents topic">
<p class="topic-title first"><a id="contents" name="contents">Contents</a></p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><a class="reference" href="#status" id="id3" name="id3">Status</a></li>
<li><a class="reference" href="#abstract" id="id4" name="id4">Abstract</a></li>
<li><a class="reference" href="#motivation" id="id5" name="id5">Motivation</a></li>
<li><a class="reference" href="#specification" id="id6" name="id6">Specification</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference" href="#using-user-defined-sets-with-emerge" id="id7" name="id7">Using User-defined Sets With Emerge</a></li>
<li><a class="reference" href="#compatibility-with-other-portage-features" id="id8" name="id8">Compatibility With Other Portage Features</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a class="reference" href="#implementation" id="id9" name="id9">Implementation</a></li>
<li><a class="reference" href="#rationale" id="id10" name="id10">Rationale</a></li>
<li><a class="reference" href="#backwards-compatibility" id="id11" name="id11">Backwards Compatibility</a></li>
<li><a class="reference" href="#references" id="id12" name="id12">References</a></li>
<li><a class="reference" href="#copyright" id="id13" name="id13">Copyright</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id3" id="status" name="status">Status</a></h1>
<p>Abandoned. Package set support has been added in portage-2.2, but it
doesn't match the description in this document in many cases, and the
document has several major gaps regarding the behavior and restrictions
of package sets.</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id4" id="abstract" name="abstract">Abstract</a></h1>
<p>In Portage, package sets (formerly known as 'classes' or 'targets')
are mere groups of packages, grouped together to allow easier updating
and handling of them. Currently it is impossible to define sets further
than the two default ones: &quot;system&quot; and &quot;world&quot;.</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id5" id="motivation" name="motivation">Motivation</a></h1>
<p>Over the months, quite a few requests for user-defined sets were
made by users and developers, either by posting bugs, messages to
mailing lists or on IRC. Usually the response is that this is an
awesome idea, but no one ever took the time to actually define it
properly and implement it.</p>
<p>This document offers a specification for the implementation of
user-defined sets using configuration files similar to the current
world/system sets use.</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id6" id="specification" name="specification">Specification</a></h1>
<p>The proposed implementation uses a one file per set approach, meaning
each package set is defined in a single file. All set definition files
will reside in a directory <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">/etc/portage/sets/</span></tt> and each set's name
will be its file name. Therefore, if one defines a set in
/etc/portage/sets/foo-set, the set name will be 'foo-set'. Usual
package naming rules <a class="footnote-reference" href="#name-rules" id="id1" name="id1">[1]</a> also apply to sets.</p>
<p>As it is impossible to create two or more files with identical names
in the same directory, a theoretic conflict between two different sets
sharing the same name is impossible. However, users may define a
package set whose name conflicts with one more or packages (for ambiguity
resolution, see below).</p>
<p>Syntax for the package list file is the same as the world file syntax,
as described in the Portage manpage <a class="footnote-reference" href="#portage-manpage" id="id2" name="id2">[2]</a>, with one
addition: sets may not be 'inherited' by other sets, only packages may
be listed. There is no limitation to the number of packages in a set
or to the number of sets a package may belong to.</p>
<div class="section">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id7" id="using-user-defined-sets-with-emerge" name="using-user-defined-sets-with-emerge">Using User-defined Sets With Emerge</a></h2>
<p>The user-defined sets will be available either directly or using
the --package-set option, As in:</p>
<pre class="literal-block">
# Basically the same:
emerge foo-set
emerge --package-set foo-set
</pre>
<p>The --package-set option is introduced to bypass ambiguities, as
illustrated in the next example:</p>
<pre class="literal-block">
emerge foo                # Where foo is both a set and a one or more
                          # existing packages. This will cause emerge to show
                          # the ambiguity, ask us to be more
                          # specific, and stop.

emerge --package-set foo  # So we specify that what we actually
                          # meant was the package set.

emerge cat-bar/foo        # Or we specify the exact package name.
</pre>
<p>When running emerge with the --pretend option, sets will be
expanded to the packages they are comprised off in the output, as with
the current system-defined sets.</p>
<p>Only one set may be passed to portage at time, and sets can not
be mixed with ordinary packages. Thus, the following snippets are
all invalid and will result in an error  (assuming <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">foo-set</span></tt> and
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">bar-set</span></tt> are defined as sets):</p>
<pre class="literal-block">
emerge foo-set glibc
emerge bar-set system
emerge world foo-set gcc
</pre>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id8" id="compatibility-with-other-portage-features" name="compatibility-with-other-portage-features">Compatibility With Other Portage Features</a></h2>
<ul class="simple">
<li>Dependencies:
Package sets (both system-defined and user-defined) may not be
depended on by ordinary packages and eclasses.</li>
<li>package.mask:
Masking a package set through the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">package.mask</span></tt> file is forbidden.
In order to 'mask' a package set, one should move it away from the
sets directory.</li>
<li>package.use:
USE flags may not be defined for sets in the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">package.use</span></tt> file.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id9" id="implementation" name="implementation">Implementation</a></h1>
<p>The implementation of the package sets concept in Portage should be
mostly done in portage.py, and only the interface parts should be
added to emerge itself, to keep the separation between interface and
logic.</p>
<p>The amount of work needed for implementation is not trivial, but not
huge either.</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id10" id="rationale" name="rationale">Rationale</a></h1>
<p>The one file per set approach makes it easy to list the sets which are
defined on a system by just listing the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">/etc/portage/sets</span></tt>
directory contents. Additionally, it makes the set lookup process more
efficient as it only requires to check if a file exists.</p>
<p>I chose the --package-set option over the --set option for explicitly
telling portage to emerge a set mostly because --set implies setting
an environment variable, or such.</p>
<p>Allowing sets' USE flags to be manipulated through the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">package.use</span></tt>
file would have done more harm than good, for several reasons:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>If a USE flag is turned on (i.e. 'foo') for a set and the same USE
flag is turned off (i.e. '-foo'), for a package which is part of
the set, it is unclear which setting should take precedence.</li>
<li>Similarly, if a USE flag is turned on for a set and the same USE flag
is turned off for a set that is a subset of the original set, it is
unclear which setting should take precedence.</li>
<li>If a USE flag is defined (either off or on) for a set and a package
that belongs in the set is to be emerged, it is unclear whether the
USE flag should be defined when emerging the package in question.</li>
</ul>
<p>Therefore, I have decided it would be better to disallow setting USE
flags for sets.</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id11" id="backwards-compatibility" name="backwards-compatibility">Backwards Compatibility</a></h1>
<p>Backwards compatibility with the current situation, in which only two
system-defined sets exist can be kept in one of two ways:</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li>Leaving the situation as is - the 'world' and 'system' sets are
hard-coded in Portage.</li>
<li>Distributing default 'system' and 'world' files under the
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">/etc/portage/sets/</span></tt> directory.</li>
</ol>
<p>Other than that, there are no other backwards compatibility concerns
involved.</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id12" id="references" name="references">References</a></h1>
<table class="docutils footnote" frame="void" id="name-rules" rules="none">
<colgroup><col class="label" /><col /></colgroup>
<tbody valign="top">
<tr><td class="label"><a class="fn-backref" href="#id1" name="name-rules">[1]</a></td><td>Gentoo Linux Development Policy - Ebuild Policy
(<a class="reference" href="http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/policy.xml#doc_chap3">http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/policy.xml#doc_chap3</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table class="docutils footnote" frame="void" id="portage-manpage" rules="none">
<colgroup><col class="label" /><col /></colgroup>
<tbody valign="top">
<tr><td class="label"><a class="fn-backref" href="#id2" name="portage-manpage">[2]</a></td><td><a class="reference" href="http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/portage/man/portage.5?root=gentoo-src">http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/portage/man/portage.5?root=gentoo-src</a></td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id13" id="copyright" name="copyright">Copyright</a></h1>
<p>This document has been placed in the public domain.</p>
</div>

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267	[<b><a href="http://www.gentoo.org/peps">GLEP Index</a></b>]
268	[<b><a href="http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0021.txt">GLEP Source</a></b>]
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270	<table class="rfc2822 docutils field-list" frame="void" rules="none">
271	<col class="field-name" />
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274	<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">GLEP:</th><td class="field-body">21</td>
275	</tr>
276	<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Title:</th><td class="field-body">User-defined Package Sets</td>
277	</tr>
278	<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Version:</th><td class="field-body">1.4</td>
279	</tr>
280	<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Last-Modified:</th><td class="field-body"><a class="reference" href="http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/xml/htdocs/proj/en/glep/glep-0021.txt?cvsroot=gentoo">2007/04/21 03:13:16</a></td>
281	</tr>
282	<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Author:</th><td class="field-body">Tal Peer <coredumb at gentoo.org>,
283	Alec Warner <antarus at gentoo.org></td>
284	</tr>
285	<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Status:</th><td class="field-body">Deferred</td>
286	</tr>
287	<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Type:</th><td class="field-body">Standards Track</td>
288	</tr>
289	<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Discussed-To:</th><td class="field-body"><a class="reference" href="mailto:gentoo-portage-dev@lists.gentoo.org">gentoo-portage-dev@lists.gentoo.org</a></td>
290	</tr>
291	<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Content-Type:</th><td class="field-body"><a class="reference" href="glep-0002.html">text/x-rst</a></td>
292	</tr>
293	<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Created:</th><td class="field-body">22-Feb-2004</td>
294	</tr>
295	<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Post-History:</th><td class="field-body">6-Mar-2004, 3-Sep-2006</td>
296	</tr>
297	</tbody>
298	</table>
299	<hr />
300	<div class="contents topic">
301	<p class="topic-title first"><a id="contents" name="contents">Contents</a></p>
302	<ul class="simple">
303	<li><a class="reference" href="#status" id="id3" name="id3">Status</a></li>
304	<li><a class="reference" href="#abstract" id="id4" name="id4">Abstract</a></li>
305	<li><a class="reference" href="#motivation" id="id5" name="id5">Motivation</a></li>
306	<li><a class="reference" href="#specification" id="id6" name="id6">Specification</a><ul>
307	<li><a class="reference" href="#using-user-defined-sets-with-emerge" id="id7" name="id7">Using User-defined Sets With Emerge</a></li>
308	<li><a class="reference" href="#compatibility-with-other-portage-features" id="id8" name="id8">Compatibility With Other Portage Features</a></li>
309	</ul>
310	</li>
311	<li><a class="reference" href="#implementation" id="id9" name="id9">Implementation</a></li>
312	<li><a class="reference" href="#rationale" id="id10" name="id10">Rationale</a></li>
313	<li><a class="reference" href="#backwards-compatibility" id="id11" name="id11">Backwards Compatibility</a></li>
314	<li><a class="reference" href="#references" id="id12" name="id12">References</a></li>
315	<li><a class="reference" href="#copyright" id="id13" name="id13">Copyright</a></li>
316	</ul>
317	</div>
318	<div class="section">
319	<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id3" id="status" name="status">Status</a></h1>
320	<p>Abandoned. Package set support has been added in portage-2.2, but it
321	doesn't match the description in this document in many cases, and the
322	document has several major gaps regarding the behavior and restrictions
323	of package sets.</p>
324	</div>
325	<div class="section">
326	<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id4" id="abstract" name="abstract">Abstract</a></h1>
327	<p>In Portage, package sets (formerly known as 'classes' or 'targets')
328	are mere groups of packages, grouped together to allow easier updating
329	and handling of them. Currently it is impossible to define sets further
330	than the two default ones: "system" and "world".</p>
331	</div>
332	<div class="section">
333	<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id5" id="motivation" name="motivation">Motivation</a></h1>
334	<p>Over the months, quite a few requests for user-defined sets were
335	made by users and developers, either by posting bugs, messages to
336	mailing lists or on IRC. Usually the response is that this is an
337	awesome idea, but no one ever took the time to actually define it
338	properly and implement it.</p>
339	<p>This document offers a specification for the implementation of
340	user-defined sets using configuration files similar to the current
341	world/system sets use.</p>
342	</div>
343	<div class="section">
344	<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id6" id="specification" name="specification">Specification</a></h1>
345	<p>The proposed implementation uses a one file per set approach, meaning
346	each package set is defined in a single file. All set definition files
347	will reside in a directory <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">/etc/portage/sets/</span></tt> and each set's name
348	will be its file name. Therefore, if one defines a set in
349	/etc/portage/sets/foo-set, the set name will be 'foo-set'. Usual
350	package naming rules <a class="footnote-reference" href="#name-rules" id="id1" name="id1">[1]</a> also apply to sets.</p>
351	<p>As it is impossible to create two or more files with identical names
352	in the same directory, a theoretic conflict between two different sets
353	sharing the same name is impossible. However, users may define a
354	package set whose name conflicts with one more or packages (for ambiguity
355	resolution, see below).</p>
356	<p>Syntax for the package list file is the same as the world file syntax,
357	as described in the Portage manpage <a class="footnote-reference" href="#portage-manpage" id="id2" name="id2">[2]</a>, with one
358	addition: sets may not be 'inherited' by other sets, only packages may
359	be listed. There is no limitation to the number of packages in a set
360	or to the number of sets a package may belong to.</p>
361	<div class="section">
362	<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id7" id="using-user-defined-sets-with-emerge" name="using-user-defined-sets-with-emerge">Using User-defined Sets With Emerge</a></h2>
363	<p>The user-defined sets will be available either directly or using
364	the --package-set option, As in:</p>
365	<pre class="literal-block">
366	# Basically the same:
367	emerge foo-set
368	emerge --package-set foo-set
369	</pre>
370	<p>The --package-set option is introduced to bypass ambiguities, as
371	illustrated in the next example:</p>
372	<pre class="literal-block">
373	emerge foo # Where foo is both a set and a one or more
374	# existing packages. This will cause emerge to show
375	# the ambiguity, ask us to be more
376	# specific, and stop.
377
378	emerge --package-set foo # So we specify that what we actually
379	# meant was the package set.
380
381	emerge cat-bar/foo # Or we specify the exact package name.
382	</pre>
383	<p>When running emerge with the --pretend option, sets will be
384	expanded to the packages they are comprised off in the output, as with
385	the current system-defined sets.</p>
386	<p>Only one set may be passed to portage at time, and sets can not
387	be mixed with ordinary packages. Thus, the following snippets are
388	all invalid and will result in an error (assuming <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">foo-set</span></tt> and
389	<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">bar-set</span></tt> are defined as sets):</p>
390	<pre class="literal-block">
391	emerge foo-set glibc
392	emerge bar-set system
393	emerge world foo-set gcc
394	</pre>
395	</div>
396	<div class="section">
397	<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id8" id="compatibility-with-other-portage-features" name="compatibility-with-other-portage-features">Compatibility With Other Portage Features</a></h2>
398	<ul class="simple">
399	<li>Dependencies:
400	Package sets (both system-defined and user-defined) may not be
401	depended on by ordinary packages and eclasses.</li>
402	<li>package.mask:
403	Masking a package set through the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">package.mask</span></tt> file is forbidden.
404	In order to 'mask' a package set, one should move it away from the
405	sets directory.</li>
406	<li>package.use:
407	USE flags may not be defined for sets in the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">package.use</span></tt> file.</li>
408	</ul>
409	</div>
410	</div>
411	<div class="section">
412	<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id9" id="implementation" name="implementation">Implementation</a></h1>
413	<p>The implementation of the package sets concept in Portage should be
414	mostly done in portage.py, and only the interface parts should be
415	added to emerge itself, to keep the separation between interface and
416	logic.</p>
417	<p>The amount of work needed for implementation is not trivial, but not
418	huge either.</p>
419	</div>
420	<div class="section">
421	<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id10" id="rationale" name="rationale">Rationale</a></h1>
422	<p>The one file per set approach makes it easy to list the sets which are
423	defined on a system by just listing the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">/etc/portage/sets</span></tt>
424	directory contents. Additionally, it makes the set lookup process more
425	efficient as it only requires to check if a file exists.</p>
426	<p>I chose the --package-set option over the --set option for explicitly
427	telling portage to emerge a set mostly because --set implies setting
428	an environment variable, or such.</p>
429	<p>Allowing sets' USE flags to be manipulated through the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">package.use</span></tt>
430	file would have done more harm than good, for several reasons:</p>
431	<ul class="simple">
432	<li>If a USE flag is turned on (i.e. 'foo') for a set and the same USE
433	flag is turned off (i.e. '-foo'), for a package which is part of
434	the set, it is unclear which setting should take precedence.</li>
435	<li>Similarly, if a USE flag is turned on for a set and the same USE flag
436	is turned off for a set that is a subset of the original set, it is
437	unclear which setting should take precedence.</li>
438	<li>If a USE flag is defined (either off or on) for a set and a package
439	that belongs in the set is to be emerged, it is unclear whether the
440	USE flag should be defined when emerging the package in question.</li>
441	</ul>
442	<p>Therefore, I have decided it would be better to disallow setting USE
443	flags for sets.</p>
444	</div>
445	<div class="section">
446	<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id11" id="backwards-compatibility" name="backwards-compatibility">Backwards Compatibility</a></h1>
447	<p>Backwards compatibility with the current situation, in which only two
448	system-defined sets exist can be kept in one of two ways:</p>
449	<ol class="arabic simple">
450	<li>Leaving the situation as is - the 'world' and 'system' sets are
451	hard-coded in Portage.</li>
452	<li>Distributing default 'system' and 'world' files under the
453	<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">/etc/portage/sets/</span></tt> directory.</li>
454	</ol>
455	<p>Other than that, there are no other backwards compatibility concerns
456	involved.</p>
457	</div>
458	<div class="section">
459	<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id12" id="references" name="references">References</a></h1>
460	<table class="docutils footnote" frame="void" id="name-rules" rules="none">
461	<colgroup><col class="label" /><col /></colgroup>
462	<tbody valign="top">
463	<tr><td class="label"><a class="fn-backref" href="#id1" name="name-rules">[1]</a></td><td>Gentoo Linux Development Policy - Ebuild Policy
464	(<a class="reference" href="http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/policy.xml#doc_chap3">http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/policy.xml#doc_chap3</a>)</td></tr>
465	</tbody>
466	</table>
467	<table class="docutils footnote" frame="void" id="portage-manpage" rules="none">
468	<colgroup><col class="label" /><col /></colgroup>
469	<tbody valign="top">
470	<tr><td class="label"><a class="fn-backref" href="#id2" name="portage-manpage">[2]</a></td><td><a class="reference" href="http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/portage/man/portage.5?root=gentoo-src">http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/portage/man/portage.5?root=gentoo-src</a></td></tr>
471	</tbody>
472	</table>
473	</div>
474	<div class="section">
475	<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id13" id="copyright" name="copyright">Copyright</a></h1>
476	<p>This document has been placed in the public domain.</p>
477	</div>
478
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