commit: 404efa97cacae79622134c15cdc8715b7464b39b
Author: Ulrich Müller <ulm <AT> gentoo <DOT> org>
AuthorDate: Sun Jun 15 11:18:03 2025 +0000
Commit: Ulrich Müller <ulm <AT> gentoo <DOT> org>
CommitDate: Sun Jun 15 11:18:03 2025 +0000
URL: https://gitweb.gentoo.org/proj/pms.git/commit/?id=404efa97
Appendix: Use description lists for historical curiosities
This is more consistent with the rest of the document where individual
features rarely have their own subsections. Besides, it saves one page
in the PDF version.
Signed-off-by: Ulrich Müller <ulm <AT> gentoo.org>
appendices.tex | 28 +++++++++++++++++-----------
1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
diff --git a/appendices.tex b/appendices.tex
index fd6ba34..8607608 100644
--- a/appendices.tex
+++ b/appendices.tex
@@ -32,7 +32,8 @@ The items described in this section are included for
information only. Unless ot
were deprecated or abandoned long before EAPI was introduced. Ebuilds must not
use these features,
and package managers should not be changed to support them.
-\subsection{If-else USE blocks}
+\begin{description}
+\item[If-else USE blocks]
Historically, Portage supported if-else use conditionals, as shown by
listing~\ref{lst:if-else-use-listing}. The block before the colon would be
taken if the condition
was met, and the block after the colon would be taken if the condition was not
met.
@@ -50,27 +51,30 @@ DEPEND="
\end{verbatim}
\end{listing}
-\subsection{CVS versions}
+\item[CVS versions]
Portage has very crude support for CVS packages. The package \t{foo} could
contain a file named
\t{foo-cvs.1.2.3.ebuild}. This version would order \emph{higher} than any
non-CVS version (including
\t{foo-2.ebuild}). This feature has not seen real world use and breaks
versioned dependencies, so
it must not be used.
-\subsection{use.defaults}
+\item[use.defaults]
The \t{use.defaults} file in the profile directory was used to implement
`autouse'---switching USE
flags on or off depending upon which packages are installed. It was deprecated
long ago and finally
removed in 2009.
+\end{description}
+
\section{Retroactive changes}
In some exceptional cases, changes to the specification have been approved by
the Gentoo Council
without introducing a new EAPI\@. This section lists such retroactive changes.
-\subsection{Bash version}
+\begin{description}
+\item[Bash version]
EAPIs 0, 1 and~2 originally specified GNU Bash version 3.0. This was
retroactively updated to
version 3.2 (see table~\ref{tab:bash-version}) in November 2009.
-\subsection{Old-style virtuals}
+\item[Old-style virtuals]
Historically, virtuals were special packages rather than regular ebuilds. An
ebuild could specify in
the \t{PROVIDE} metadata that it supplied certain virtuals, and the package
manager had to bear this
in mind when handling dependencies.
@@ -82,7 +86,7 @@ GLEP~37~\cite{glep37} and finally removed in 2011.
requirements to pull in a `provider'. This does not require any special
handling from the package
manager.}
-\subsection{EAPI parsing}
+\item[EAPI parsing]
The method to specify the EAPI of an ebuild used to be a shell variable
assignment, and the package
manager had to source the ebuild in order to determine the EAPI\@. Therefore
any ebuild using
a future EAPI would still have to be sourceable by old package managers, which
imposed restrictions
@@ -94,12 +98,12 @@ The current syntax of the \t{EAPI} assignment statement
(see section~\ref{sec:ea
the package manager to obtain the EAPI from the ebuild by a regular expression
match and without
sourcing it, was introduced in May 2012.
-\subsection{Package names}
+\item[Package names]
Previously, package names were only required not to end in a hyphen followed
by one or more digits.
In October 2012 this was tightened to the specification in
section~\ref{sec:package-names}, namely
that they must not end in a hyphen followed by anything resembling a package
version.
-\subsection{Asterisk in dependency specification}
+\item[Asterisk in dependency specification]
In the \t{=} dependency operator specified in section~\ref{sec:dep-operator},
an asterisk used to
induce string prefix comparison instead of the normal version comparison
logic. That could lead to
surprising results, e.\,g.\ \t{=dev-lang/perl-5.2*} matching
\t{dev-lang/perl-5.22.0}. Moreover,
@@ -108,13 +112,13 @@ implementation in package managers deviated from what was
specified.
String prefix matching was effective in EAPIs 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and~5. It was
retroactively dropped
in favour of the current behaviour in October 2015.
-\subsection{Empty dependency groups}
+\item[Empty dependency groups]
The dependency specification format (see section~\ref{sec:dependency-spec})
originally permitted
all-of, any-of, exactly-one-of, at-most-one-of and use-conditional groups with
zero sub-elements.
However, such empty groups were neither supported by all package managers nor
used in ebuilds.
They were dropped from the specification in October 2017.
-\subsection{econf -{}-disable-static option}
+\item[econf -{}-disable-static option]
The \t{-{}-disable-static} option in \t{econf} (see
section~\ref{sec:build-commands}) was intended
to disable only static Libtool archive building. The original check for either
\t{-{}-disable-static} or \t{-{}-enable-static} occuring in \t{configure
-{}-help} output produced
@@ -124,12 +128,14 @@ The test mentioned above was effective in EAPI~8. It was
updated in November 202
\t{-{}-enable-static} and \t{-{}-enable-shared}, and in addition checks for a
proper end of these
option strings.
-\subsection{econf matches configure -{}-help output better}
+\item[econf matches configure -{}-help output better]
The simple string matching used for \t{configure -{}-help} output caused false
positives for options
like \t{-{}-with-sysroot}. It was effective in EAPIs 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, and was
updated in April 2023
to check for a proper end of string for all option names beginning with
\t{with-}, \t{disable-} or
\t{enable-}.
+\end{description}
+
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