RFD: C/C++ template packages
 

Hi,

Fedora carries some "C/C++" "template"/"header-only" packages (Packages
which contain C/C++-headers only).


Typically, these packages are being built "BuildArch: noarch".

== These packages are supposed to be arch-independent.

In reality, many of these packages often are wrapper headers, trying to
wrap to something highly OS-/arch-dependent, from system-headers and
compiler built-ins defines.


I.e. though these packages are supposed to be arch-independent, there is
no guarantee nor check whether these packages actually are arch-independent.



I am proposing to:

Proposal:

All "C/C++-template/header-only packages" must be built using an
"arch'ed BuildArch", with the resulting binary packages implemented as

"Arch: noarch"-subpackages.


Benefits:

- This would assure such packages would be built on all architectures
Fedora supports and not only the architecture noarch-packages are being
built.


- This would exercise potentially existing configuration-scripts on all
architectures and would allow to exercise test-scripts rsp. coding
examples (which can be regarded as compilation-checks) on all Fedora
supported architectures.



Comments, opinions?


Ralf
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RFD: C/C++ template packages
 

On 2012-10-15 11:05, Ralf Corsepius wrote:

Hi,

Fedora carries some "C/C++" "template"/"header-only" packages
(Packages which contain C/C++-headers only).

Typically, these packages are being built "BuildArch: noarch".

== These packages are supposed to be arch-independent.

In reality, many of these packages often are wrapper headers, trying
to wrap to something highly OS-/arch-dependent, from system-headers
and compiler built-ins defines.

I.e. though these packages are supposed to be arch-independent, there
is no guarantee nor check whether these packages actually are
arch-independent.


I am proposing to:

Proposal:

All "C/C++-template/header-only packages" must be built using an
"arch'ed BuildArch", with the resulting binary packages implemented
as

"Arch: noarch"-subpackages.


Benefits:

- This would assure such packages would be built on all architectures
Fedora supports and not only the architecture noarch-packages are
being built.

- This would exercise potentially existing configuration-scripts on
all architectures and would allow to exercise test-scripts rsp.
coding

examples (which can be regarded as compilation-checks) on all Fedora
supported architectures.


Comments, opinions?


If the packages do turn out to be arch-specific (e.g. different
constants for different architectures), the use of noarch subpackages
would cause the build to fail, which _would_ be a good thing. To fix
that, the packager would either have to use tricks like the ones often
found to provide multi-arch support for library-config scripts, or
making the packages arch-specific, which would probably result in
multi-arch conflicts unless the install paths were made arch-specific
too.


So I think this is a good plan except I wouldn't make the use of noarch
subpackages a MUST - it would be OK to have them arch-specific as long
as they didn't have multi-arch conflicts (so for example i386 and x86_64
could be installed in parallel).


Paul.
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