On Sun, Nov 09, 2003 at 03:30:31AM +0100, Max Horn wrote:
> >AFAIK this is simply the ability to generate fink from fink.in and the 
> >like
> >without installing it
> 
> Well fink needs a working Fink installation. It is possible to do some 
> hacking and get it to work in a partial pseudo installation (we do this 
> for the package database, which is driven by fink on a Linux server), 
> but that only allows access to a fraction of fink's capabilities.
> 
> I am not sure how (if?) you suggest we could run fink w/o having a Fink 
> installation around. Personally I see no point in it, either. Anybody 
> who wants to develop or test fink will have fink installed.

Sorry to have not been clear, I intend to build up a dummy fink installation
for testing purposes.  Because fink is already fully relocatable (ie. /sw isn't
hard wired) this should be pretty straightforward.  It'll probably consist 
of a config file (which is already there in t/basepath/etc/fink.conf) and a 
small dist tree containing whatever we need to test things.  No point
laying it all out upfront, it'll build up with whatever is needed at the 
time.  I've done this sort of thing before (look at ExtUtils::MakeMaker).

The ideal process is edit, build, test, install.  In order to do this you
need some sort of testing data.  A dummy install.  Some static data you can
beat on and don't care about mangling if you make a mistake.  Edit, build, 
install, test means you have to install your untested code and *then* test
it against your live fink installation.  This means you find out that your
patch wrecks the fink database *after* its already done so to your running
fink.


> >  So, in essense,
> >seperating the build and install phases and making it automatable.
> 
> You mean more automatic than "./inject.pl" ? Telepathy controlled 
> maybe? 8-). Seriously, would you please explain what that would mean?

I'm just a bit confused.  I forgot inject.pl can be run independently of
bootstrap.pl.  inject.pl should work.

Like I said, I'm the wrong person to be normalizing the build process as
I don't really know anything about it.  I just know what the end result
has to be for it to be testable.


> But note that to be able to actually use fink as a whole, it has to be 
> installed into a working "Fink" installation, i.e. with all its 
> environment setup. You'd have to do some hacking to be able to use it 
> w/o installing it.

Hmm, circular build dependencies.  Well, I'm not really ready to start
testing the fink command line tool yet so I'm not going to give myself
a headache over that one.  I'll stick to checking the individual functions
now and worry about the more complex problem of testing fink end-to-end
later.


-- 
Michael G Schwern        [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.pobox.com/~schwern/
WOOHOO!  I'm going to Disneyland!
        http://www.goats.com/archive/980805.html


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