[Fedora-packaging] Re: Draft: Perl packages don't need -devel for .h headers

[Tom 'spot' Callaway]

On Tue, 2007-02-06 at 13:13 +0100, Axel Thimm wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 06, 2007 at 09:58:27AM +0200, Ville Skyttä wrote:
> > On Tuesday 06 February 2007 06:29, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
> > > >>>>> "TC" == Tom 'spot' Callaway <tcallawa at redhat.com> writes:
> > >
> > > TC> Since perl is special, perl packages are exempt from the
> > > TC> requirement for -devel packages for .h header files.
> > >
> > > I'm definitely for for this, although I wish someone who truly
> > > understands why arch-specific Perl modules need a .h file could
> > > explain it to us.  For all I know it doesn't actually need to be
> > > packaged.
> > 
> > They're installed for the usual reasons - something requires them, usually at 
> > build time.  See for example perl-DBI and perl-DBD-MySQL; the latter needs 
> > DBI's *.h to build, ditto probably all other perl-DBD-*.
> > 
> > Rather than blanket approval for the status quo, I think it would be better to 
> > first discuss whether -devel packages for some perl modules should be 
> > introduced instead.
> 
> Does anyone know about how many perl packages we're talking about? If
> it's a small number I'd go with Ville and have them properly split out
> their *-devel. It's much cleaner that way. If it involves major
> surgery then we'd have to let this pass though, but I assume it will
> affect only a few.
> 
> The packages I've seen carrying *.h files are mostly not suited
> becoming perl- prefixed anyway (in a monolithic package) as they are
> carrying more than modules.

Well, here's a big one:

perl.

Perl has a healthy number of .h files:

/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/Encode/encode.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/EXTERN.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/INTERN.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/XSUB.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/av.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/cc_runtime.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/config.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/cop.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/cv.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/dosish.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/embed.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/embedvar.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/fakesdio.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/fakethr.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/form.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/gv.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/handy.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/hv.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/intrpvar.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/iperlsys.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/keywords.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/malloc_ctl.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/mg.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/nostdio.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/op.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/opcode.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/opnames.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/pad.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/patchlevel.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/perl.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/perlapi.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/perlio.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/perliol.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/perlsdio.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/perlsfio.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/perlvars.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/perly.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/pp.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/pp_proto.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/proto.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/reentr.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/regcomp.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/regexp.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/regnodes.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/scope.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/sv.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/thrdvar.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/thread.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/uconfig.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/unixish.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/utf8.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/utfebcdic.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/util.h
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/warnings.h

My concern is that if we make a perl-devel here, some things that had
perl as an unstated BuildRequires will suddenly stop building until they
add perl-devel.

Not fatal, but rather intrusive. Thoughts?

~spot