On 01/16/2012 02:54 AM, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr." wrote:
> People frequently break their systems by exporting weird variables like
> SYSTEM from /etc/make.conf (USE variable "grouping").
>
> Example here: <http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=6915550#6915550>
>
> What do you think about adding list of variables in make.conf to emerge
> --info ? I know we can always ask for the make.conf, but it either
> requires asking for a large amount of info up front, or increases the
> number of round-trips (emerge --info looks normal, ask for make.conf).
Sensitive variables fall into at least 2 categories:
(1) Variables that the user may have a valid reason to set, though
the value needs to be valid if it is set. An example might be the
COLUMNS variable, which can trigger bug 394091 [1].
(2) Variables which may case a build to fail and there is no valid
reason for the user to set them in the context of a particular
ebuild. An example might be the SYSTEM variables, which can trigger
bug 372519 [2].
For case (2) it makes sense for ebuilds to explicitly unset or export -n
the relevant variables, since those variables only serve to allow the
users to hurt themselves.
[1] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=394091
[2] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=372519
--
Thanks,
Zac
