On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 at 14:12, Pierre Neidhardt <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > I think this is a more general question: Guix currently lacks a way to > > > search > > > files in substitutes. It would be nice to have this feature :D > > It's actually more than just a /gnu/store cache: it should be able to find > files > in non-installed packages.
I agree that it is not always easy to know that pdflatex is provided by texlive or recsel is provided by recutils, etc. And it should be nice to search files in substitutes, e.g., to know which package to install. However, for this purpose I am not sure that the substitutes are the right layer. And a field "provide" should be added to the package record. I do not know if it makes sense. Or maybe something with "properties". I mean, there is less package providing multiple binaries (as texlive) than package providing the binary of its name. Do you have another usage in mind? When writing packages? Especially about the TeX package? All the best, simon
