pkgsrc/doc/guide/files/plist.xml

<!-- $NetBSD: plist.xml,v 1.14 2007/06/01 11:07:26 rillig Exp $ -->

<chapter id="plist">
  <title>PLIST issues</title>

  <para>The <filename>PLIST</filename> file contains a package's
  <quote>packing list</quote>, i.e. a list of files that belong to
  the package (relative to the <filename>${PREFIX}</filename>
  directory it's been installed in) plus some additional statements
  - see the &man.pkg.create.1; man page for a full list.
  This chapter addresses some issues that need attention when
  dealing with the <filename>PLIST</filename> file (or files, see
  below!).</para>


  <sect1 id="rcs-id">
    <title>RCS ID</title>

    <para>Be sure to add a RCS ID line as the first thing in any
    <filename>PLIST</filename> file you write:</para>

    <programlisting>
@comment &#36;NetBSD&#36;
    </programlisting>
  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="automatic-plist-generation">
    <title>Semi-automatic <filename>PLIST</filename> generation</title>

    <para>You can use the <command>make print-PLIST</command> command
    to output a PLIST that matches any new files since the package
    was extracted.  See <xref linkend="build.helpful-targets"/> for
    more information on this target.</para>
  </sect1>


  <sect1 id="print-PLIST">
    <title>Tweaking output of <command>make print-PLIST</command></title>

    <para>If you have used any of the *-dirs packages, as explained in
    <xref linkend="faq.common-dirs"/>, you may have noticed that
    <command>make print-PLIST</command> outputs a set of
    <varname>@comment</varname>s instead of real
    <varname>@dirrm</varname> lines.  You can also do this for
    specific directories and files, so that the results of that
    command are very close to reality. This helps <emphasis>a
    lot</emphasis> during the update of packages.</para>

    <para>The <varname>PRINT_PLIST_AWK</varname> variable takes a set
    of AWK patterns and actions that are used to filter the output of
    print-PLIST.  You can <emphasis>append</emphasis> any chunk of AWK
    scripting you like to it, but be careful with quoting.</para>

    <para>For example, to get all files inside the
    <filename>libdata/foo</filename> directory removed from the
    resulting PLIST:</para>

    <programlisting>
PRINT_PLIST_AWK+=       /^libdata\/foo/ { next; }
    </programlisting>

    <para>And to get all the <varname>@dirrm</varname> lines referring
    to a specific (shared) directory converted to
    <varname>@comment</varname>s:</para>

    <programlisting>
PRINT_PLIST_AWK+=       /^@dirrm share\/specific/ { print "@comment " $$0; next; }
    </programlisting>
  </sect1>


  <sect1 id="plist.misc">
    <title>Variable substitution in PLIST</title>

    <para>A number of variables are substituted automatically in
    PLISTs when a package is installed on a system. This includes the
    following variables:</para>

    <variablelist>
      <varlistentry>
	<term><varname>${MACHINE_ARCH}</varname>, <varname>${MACHINE_GNU_ARCH}</varname></term>

	<listitem>
	  <para>Some packages like emacs and perl embed information
	  about which architecture they were built on into the
	  pathnames where they install their files. To handle this
	  case, PLIST will be preprocessed before actually used, and
	  the symbol
	  <quote><varname>${MACHINE_ARCH}</varname></quote> will be
	  replaced by what <command>uname -p</command> gives. The
	  same is done if the string
	  <varname>${MACHINE_GNU_ARCH}</varname> is embedded in
	  PLIST somewhere - use this on packages that have GNU
	  autoconf-created configure scripts.</para>

	  <note>
	    <title>Legacy note</title>

	    <para>There used to be a symbol
	    <quote><varname>$ARCH</varname></quote> that
	    was replaced by the output of <command>uname
	    -m</command>, but that's no longer supported and has
	    been removed.</para>
	  </note>
	</listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry>
	<term><varname>${OPSYS}</varname>, <varname>${LOWER_OPSYS}</varname>, <varname>${OS_VERSION}</varname></term>

	<listitem>
	  <para>Some packages want to embed the OS name and version
	  into some paths.  To do this, use these variables in the
	  <filename>PLIST</filename>:
	  </para>

	  <itemizedlist>
	    <listitem>
	      <para><varname>${OPSYS}</varname> - output of <quote><command>uname -s</command></quote></para>
	    </listitem>

	    <listitem>
	      <para><varname>${LOWER_OPSYS}</varname> - lowercase common name (eg. <quote>solaris</quote>)</para>
	    </listitem>

	    <listitem>
	      <para><varname>${OS_VERSION}</varname> - <quote><command>uname -r</command></quote></para>
	    </listitem>
	  </itemizedlist>
	</listitem>
      </varlistentry>
    </variablelist>

    <para>For a complete list of values which are replaced by
    default, please look in <filename>bsd.pkg.mk</filename> (and
    search for <varname>PLIST_SUBST</varname>).</para>

    <para>If you want to change other variables not listed above, you
    can add variables and their expansions to this variable in the
    following way, similar to <varname>MESSAGE_SUBST</varname> (see <xref
    linkend="components.optional"/>):</para>

    <programlisting>
PLIST_SUBST+=   SOMEVAR="somevalue"
    </programlisting>

    <para>This replaces all occurrences of <quote>${SOMEVAR}</quote>
    in the <filename>PLIST</filename> with
    <quote>somevalue</quote>.</para>
  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="manpage-compression">
    <title>Man page compression</title>

    <para>Man pages should be installed in compressed form if
    <varname>MANZ</varname> is set (in <filename>bsd.own.mk</filename>),
    and uncompressed otherwise. To handle this in the
    <filename>PLIST</filename> file, the suffix <quote>.gz</quote> is
    appended/removed automatically for man pages according to
    <varname>MANZ</varname> and <varname>MANCOMPRESSED</varname> being set
    or not, see above for details. This modification of the
    <filename>PLIST</filename> file is done on a copy of it, not
    <filename>PLIST</filename> itself.</para>
  </sect1>


  <sect1 id="using-PLIST_SRC">
    <title>Changing PLIST source with <varname>PLIST_SRC</varname></title>

    <para>To use one or more files as source for the <filename>PLIST</filename> used
    in generating the binary package, set the variable
    <varname>PLIST_SRC</varname> to the names of that file(s).
    The files are later concatenated using &man.cat.1;, and the order of things is
    important. The default for <varname>PLIST_SRC</varname> is
    <filename>${PKGDIR}/PLIST</filename>.</para>
  </sect1>


  <sect1 id="platform-specific-plist">
    <title>Platform-specific and differing PLISTs</title>

    <para>Some packages decide to install a different set of files based on
    the operating system being used. These differences can be
    automatically handled by using the following files:</para>

    <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
	<para><filename>PLIST.common</filename></para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para><filename>PLIST.${OPSYS}</filename></para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para><filename>PLIST.${MACHINE_ARCH}</filename></para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para><filename>PLIST.${OPSYS}-${MACHINE_ARCH}</filename></para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para><filename>PLIST.common_end</filename></para>
      </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>
  </sect1>


  <sect1 id="faq.common-dirs">
    <title>Sharing directories between packages</title>

    <para>A <quote>shared directory</quote> is a directory where
    multiple (and unrelated) packages install files.  These
    directories are problematic because you have to add special tricks
    in the PLIST to conditionally remove them, or have some
    centralized package handle them.</para>

    <para>Within pkgsrc, you'll find both approaches.  If a directory
    is shared by a few unrelated packages, it's often not worth to add
    an extra package to remove it.  Therefore, one simply does:</para>

    <programlisting>
@unexec ${RMDIR} %D/path/to/shared/directory 2>/dev/null || ${TRUE}
    </programlisting>

    <para>in the PLISTs of all affected packages, instead of the
    regular "@dirrm" line.</para>

    <para>However, if the directory is shared across many packages, two
    different solutions are available:</para>

    <orderedlist>
      <listitem>
	<para>If the packages have a common dependency, the directory
	can be removed in that.  For example, see
	<filename role="pkg">textproc/scrollkeeper</filename>, which
	removes the shared directory
	<filename>share/omf</filename>.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>If the packages using the directory are not related at
	all (they have no common dependencies), a *-dirs package is
	used.</para>
      </listitem>
    </orderedlist>

    <para>From now on, we'll discuss the second solution.  To get an
    idea of the *-dirs packages available, issue:</para>

    <programlisting>
&cprompt; cd .../pkgsrc
&cprompt; ls -d */*-dirs
    </programlisting>

    <para>Their use from other packages is very simple.  The
    <varname>USE_DIRS</varname> variable takes a list of package names
    (without the <quote>-dirs</quote> part) together with the required
    version number (always pick the latest one when writing new
    packages).</para>

    <para>For example, if a package installs files under
    <filename>share/applications</filename>, it should have the
    following line in it:</para>

    <programlisting>
USE_DIRS+=      xdg-1.1
    </programlisting>

    <para>After regenerating the PLIST using <command>make
    print-PLIST</command>, you should get the right (commented out)
    lines.</para>

    <para>Note that even if your package is using
    <filename>$X11BASE</filename>, it must not depend on the
    *-x11-dirs packages.  Just specify the name without that part and
    pkgsrc (in particular, <filename>mk/dirs.mk</filename>) will take
    care of it.</para>
  </sect1>

</chapter>