Question on Directory Ownership

[Michael Schwendt]

On Thu, 5 Feb 2009 15:18:55 +0100 (CET), Nicolas wrote:

> 
> 
> Le Jeu 5 février 2009 15:09, Tom \"spot\" Callaway a écrit :
> 
> > So, this is outside the scope of the example, which assumes (for
> > better
> > or worse), that %{_datadir}/Foo is owned by something that both Emu
> > and
> > Llama depend on. If no such package existed, then yes, there should be
> > another entry to cover the ownership of %{_datadir}/Foo.
> 
> But can this entry be added even though such a package *may* exist?

Yes. Unless it's a directory of high importance, such as root-level
directories in the filesystem package (and similar base pkgs) [1], or there
is a package that contains the only consumer of files in that directory.

One day we need to examine our metadata and find out how many dependencies
on directory paths there are already.

Adding _package_ dependencies just for directory ownership is not the
right thing to do. You need to think twice about a dependency. Do you need
only the directory to be present with proper permissions and ownership? Or
would it be more correct to add "a mother package" which provides not only
the directory, but also additional files or even the consumer of those
files? (e.g. a plug-in in a plug-in home directory needs the program that
uses these plug-ins)

[1] There are a few pitfalls related to having multiple packages own the
same directory: You don't want to own a directory, which in another pkg is
a symlink to a directory. You want directory ownership and permissions to
match other packages, which own the same dir. For dirs with mode other
than 0755 and ownership other than root:root, the alarm bell should ring
and ask for a close look and a comment in the spec file.