optional dependencies

allucid · 2006-07-17 09:22:10

Are there any plans for implementing optional dependencies? These are dependencies that are not required for a package to work but they will be used if installed.

For example, I do not need arts installed with K3B.

Ryujin · 2006-07-17 14:10:33

You can get a more slackware style install by usind the "d" option in pacman, this will make pacman ignore the dependencies and only install the package(s) you specify
pacman -Sd k3b

baze · 2006-07-17 14:17:04

i think he is talking about the "suggest" in debian packages. for example xarchiver doesn't need rar, zip or arj installed to work, but it is suggested to have those packages, because then you get more functionality.
it's not ignoring required dependencies (what -d does).

Snowman · 2006-07-17 17:13:06

The way optional dependencies are currently handled is through post-installation messages saying: "If you want support for X, install libfoo". IMO, it's agood way to do that as it's simple and does the job.

allucid · 2006-07-17 18:27:50

Snowman wrote:

The way optional dependencies are currently handled is through post-installation messages saying: "If you want support for X, install libfoo". IMO, it's agood way to do that as it's simple and does the job.

Hm, I suppose. I don't think they are used enough, though. I would prefer that everything that was optional was listed as such. I guess that would require re-writing a lot of packages...so nevermind. :?

What I want doesn't appear to be plausible.

Snowman · 2006-07-17 21:13:51

The problem is that your assumption, that an app will use a lib if it's installed, is wrong. Most apps, I would say, to be able to use the lib will need to be compiled with that support built-in. However, it will usually link itself to the library and will refuse to run if the library isn't installed. So the depends isn't optional anymore. That's the reason behind the amarok-base and amarok-mysql packages.
Debian has optional depends but also it seperates packages in small pieces. So the optional depends could be docs or devel packages.
BTW, the k3b/arts example is a bad one for optional depends because k3b doesn't depnds on arts. It depends on kdelibs that in turns depends on arts. It's more of a dependency chain problem than optional depends.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-07-17 09:22:10

optional dependencies

#2 2006-07-17 14:10:33

Re: optional dependencies

#3 2006-07-17 14:17:04

Re: optional dependencies

#4 2006-07-17 17:13:06

Re: optional dependencies

#5 2006-07-17 18:27:50

Re: optional dependencies

#6 2006-07-17 21:13:51

Re: optional dependencies

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