[csw-maintainers] Changing the package description for Perl modules

[Philip Brown]

On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 3:30 PM, Peter Bonivart <bonivart at opencsw.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:44 PM, Philip Brown <phil at bolthole.com> wrote:
>> seems to me it is mostly only important at package creation time.
>> catalog is only for "binary package install" purposes.
>
> No, this is not for maintainers, it's for users. When you want to
> install something, perl modules in this case, you search for what you
> know, in this case the modules name. It doesn't always match well with
> our package/catalog names.

Going with the "its for users" argument, can get way out of hand. You
have to put a reasonably tight limit on it somewhere, or else you end
up with 10 megabyte catalog files, which is just silly.
That being said...

> I think it should go into the package description as originally
> suggested, then it ends up into the descriptions file and is
> searchable for users in an easy way. Most module names are 10 chars or
> less so it shouldn't be a big problem.

I agree, with the following clarification:

I/we were being rather loose with the use of "package description". i
was shortcutting it and referring to it implicitly as "the 2nd half of
the NAME field",
ie:

NAME=softname - description here

Given that that shows up in regular "/usr/bin/pkginfo" output, i was
being a little protective of it :-)

But if the argument is, "lets put it in the existing DESC field", so
that it goes in the descriptions file, and is thus still searchable
client-side relatively easily... then thats ok by me.
A reminder to folks who are not aware:

What goes in the "descriptions" file, is the second half of the NAME field....
*unless* DESC is present, in which case, that takes precedence.


> And the 9th field of the catalog is already taken, right? ;-)

right :) Although the docs need to be updated. if you remind me where
our docs on catalog format are, I'll update it, if need be.