Attn: Maintainers of things which might depend on xorg-x11-xkbdata

[Mike A. Harris]

Gianluca Sforna wrote:
> On 7/10/06, Jesse Keating <jkeating at redhat.com> wrote:
>> On Monday 10 July 2006 05:19, Gianluca Sforna wrote:
>> > So, for example, right now I need to add a BR for the file
>> > /usr/include/X11/StringDefs.h
>> >
>> > what BR: line should I use?
>>
>> Whats wrong with BR'ing the file?
> 
> Well, that's just what I've done and it seems to work; adding that
> pushed in the correct package in both FC4 and FC5.
> I imagine there could be problems only if in the future the other
> required files (I don't think that was the only needed include file)
> will be found in another package.
> 
> Thanks a lot

For the specific case you've given above, buildrequiring the
file explicitly is definitely wrong.  If you do not already
know which package owns a header file, you should find the file,
then query rpm to find out which -devel package provides the
file, and depend on that package.

If for whatever reason /usr/include/X11/StringDefs.h was to move
to /usr/include64/X11/StringDefs.h or /usr/include/Xt/StringDefs.h
or some other unforseen change, depending on the explicit path
to the file will break.

Having said that, there are some times in rpm packaging where it
is desireable to have a file based dependency, however they also
can cause some problems and so it is often better to find another
way of solving a given problem, and only use a file dep if there
is no other way, or if all other possibilities are even uglier
solutions.


-- 
Mike A. Harris  *  Open Source Advocate  *  http://mharris.ca
                       Proud Canadian.