On 10/15/2014 05:36 AM, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 7:42 AM, Andreas K. Huettel > <dilfri...@gentoo.org> wrote: >>> In order to solve bug #503802 [1], I would like to add a >>> virtual/podofo-build package to pull in app-text/podofo and >>> dev-libs/boost. Then packages like app-text/calibre can put >>> virtual/podofo-build in DEPEND and app-text/podofo in RDEPEND. >> >> This sounds a bit like a one-time solution for a problem that occurs more >> frequently... It would be nice to have a more generic solution. :| > > If A depends on B, and in order to build A you need C, but in order to > run B you do not need C, does it make sense to specify C as a > dependency of B, rather than as a dependency of A? > > The risk I would see is whether that relationship holds 100% of the > time. What if somebody comes up with an alternative to boost that is > not 100% compatible, but it works for calibre (but not other packages > that DEPEND on podofo)? > > I can see how this approach would work for something like > split-headers. However, when you get into things like build systems > it seems like this could be problematic. However, I haven't been > thinking about this for 3 years... :)
Here's where virtuals are more flexible than the BADEPEND suggested in bug 392239. If we later find that virtual/podofo-build works for calibre but not some other reverse-dependency of podofo, then we can always create a different virtual to put in DEPEND of said reverse-dependency. -- Thanks, Zac