Re: SYSTEM package contradictions

The package documentation describes the correct behavior.  The 
implementation only describes what got implemented, and not even 
correctly. :)

On Sunday, June 2, 2002, at 07:00PM, The Anarcat wrote:

> The SYSTEM package documentation is contradictory to its
> implementation. The doc in sysinstall pretends that the
>
> "SYSTEM package provides the following features:
>       OSNAME (FreeBSD for us)
>       OSVERSION: `uname -s` version `uname -r`
>       PLATFORM (i386, alpha, sparc64, IA64, ...)
>       CPU (386, 486, Pentium, Athlon, ...; MMX, 3DNow, SSE, ...)
>       libh version (comparable to /var/db/port.mkversion)
> "
>
> The current implementation gives me:
>
>  Features:
>         i386             3.0       386       0
>      FreeBSD      4.5-STABLE         0       0
>
> on my machine. A few questions:
>
> 1- shouldn't the feature names be (eg) "OSNAME" instead of "FreeBSD"?
> In the case of the "CPU" feature, the feature names could become
> arbitrarly esoteric and obstruct the feature namespace.
>
> I suggest using (eg, again) "OSNAME" instead.
>
> 2- there are features missing: the OSVERSION, CPU and libh version.
>
> I could probably implement dummy feature entries in the DB along with
> #warnings.
>
> [cf. Database.cc:733
>      features->push_back( new Feature( architecture_feature, 
> architecture_feature_version, architecture_feature_serial, 0 ) );
>      features->push_back( new Feature( buf.sysname, buf.release, 0, 0 
> ) );
> ]
>
> 3- I don't understand what use is OSVERSION. From the doc, my
> OSVERSION string would be something like:
> FreeBSD lenny.anarcat.ath.cx 4.5-STABLE FreeBSD 4.5-STABLE #6: Sun May 
> 26 18:16:45 EDT 2002     
> [email protected]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/LENNY  i386 version 
> 4.5-STABLE
>
> I don't think it's necessary.
>
> 4- what is the format of the "standard revision" feature element? x.y?
> x.y,z? And in any case, how should be interpreted the version of the
> FreeBSD (or OSNAME) feature?
>
> 5- libh version? That's 0.2.2 right now? Should this be harmonized
> with the zip archive attributes?
>
> The way I see it, the SYSTEM package should provide the features:
>
> Name		Version		Serial		Snapshot
> OSVERSION	4.5		[1]		[1]
> OSNAME		FreeBSD		0		0
> PLATFORM	i386		0		0
> CPU		i586		0		0
> LIBH_VERS	0.2.2		0		200206022150 [2]
>
> [1]  there's been discussions on how to handle versionning of the
> FreeBSD source tree, but this is a tricky situation. I guess that with
> tree-based releases, only the snapshot date could be used. I'm not
> sure how to use those 2 columns.
> [2]  this is not really formatted this way, but gives an idea
>
> I'm not sure this is appropriate since "Version" maybe shouldn't
> support arbitrary strings...
>
> A.
>
> -- 
> Imagination is more important than knowledge
>                         - Albert Einstein
> <mime-attachment>
--
Jordan K. Hubbard
Engineering Manager, BSD technology group
Apple Computer


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