Package Rebuilding

[Todd Zullinger]

James Kosin wrote:
> When you build a new package (say for postgresql) and you are
> leaping version number, say from 7.x to 8.x, How do you go about
> updating the other dependencies (other packages that require a
> library in 7.x) that doesn't exist in the new package?  Without
> completely scrubbing the other packages and rebuilding them
> afterwards that is.

If there are packages that truly require postgresql 7.x, then you will
need to rebuild them if you update to postgresql 8.x.  If these
packages have a bogus requirement on postgresql 7.x and they really
don't need it, then file bugs.

Odds are though that the requirements are on the postgresql libraries
and they really are needed.

> Maybe another way:  Can you specify the postgresql path while
> building new rpms for the dependent packages, so they see the new
> package libraries instead of the old?  Without either forcing the
> install of the new package, or uninstalling all the dependent
> packages then rebuilding.

You could possibly build the new packages with a different name, like
postgresql8.  You would also probably need to change the location that
the libraries and perhaps even binaries were installed as well.  This
may or may not be an easy task.  I've not built or looked at the
postgresql sources myself.

Fedora does ship some libraries and programs like this.  Two examples
I can think of are gnupg and gnupg2, and db4 and compat-db.  There
generally need to be pretty good reasons to do this though, and simply
avoiding rebuilding dependent applications isn't good enough for
Fedora. ;)

-- 
Todd        OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not fat. I am a nutritional overachiever.

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