My thoughts on package-delete (was Re: Fighting with packages!)
>>>> "sb" == SL Baur <steve(a)xemacs.org>
writes:
>>> Currently, you need to know exactly which info/ and etc/
>>> files get installed by the package to actually remove it.
>>> The lisp/ directory at least has subdirectories for each of
>>> the packages.
sb> Right.
sb> For the first implementation I planned on being very simple
sb> minded about it. We know the list of files to install by
sb> doing and saving a `tar tf' of the package we're installing.
sb> This MANIFEST needs to be saved somewhere after installation.
How about _before_ the installation? I have in mind conflicts among
files in etc/, especially in cases where for some reason the package
contents change by addition or deletion of libraries. This could also
affect files in subdirectories of lisp/, although we can catch that
via shadow detection.
sb> We could save either the list of files or a machine-generated
sb> deletion shell script. The former would be more flexible.
Deletion is rare. Let's have flexibility; either way the machine can
generate the script at little cost.
sb> This won't completely work for de-installation because we need
sb> things to work somewhat even if the MANIFEST files get
sb> misplaced[1].
sb> Footnotes:
sb> [1] Do we really?
If not, we should forget about running source packages in-place, I think.
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