First time packager questions

First time packager questions

[Ralph Hempel]

I am shortly going to ITP my first package (Lua) and have a few
questions:

0. Should I use cygport to build my package? I've got a clean
    source tree and I've made changes in a separate tree to make
    it easier to generate diffs.

    Also, I've designed my own make scripts to build everything
    correctly in a separate output tree, ie I don't build in the
    source tree.

    The make scripts even generate a staged version of the final
    installation directories to make tarball generation easy.

1. Should my build make just a .dll file to link against, or should
    I also provide a .a library for static linking?

    It's easy to get mixed up with static and dynamic linking so
    I'd rather provide one "standard" way to do this.

2. If I'm planning on adding a few "standard" Lua libraries like
    LuaSQL, LuaFileSystem, and LuaSocket, should they be separate
    ITPs?

    I'd rather build all the libraries at once and provide them in
    the build system, since it's a real pain for a typical user to
    build these libraries under Cygwin.

3. I'm currently using Cygwin 1.7 and gcc-4 to build and test
    this out, but should I do it for 1.5 as well?

    I could go back and use Cygwin 1.5 and the standard gcc but
    if 1.7 will be out soon, then I'd rather make a clean break.

Cheers, Ralph

Re: First time packager questions

[Yaakov (Cygwin Ports)]

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Ralph Hempel wrote:
> I am shortly going to ITP my first package (Lua) and have a few
> questions:
> 
> 0. Should I use cygport to build my package? I've got a clean
>    source tree and I've made changes in a separate tree to make
>    it easier to generate diffs.

If you want to package lua, you may find this useful:

http://cygwin-ports.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cygwin-ports/ports/trunk/lang/lua5.1/

>    Also, I've designed my own make scripts to build everything
>    correctly in a separate output tree, ie I don't build in the
>    source tree.

cygport provides lndirs() for use in those packages that weren't meant
for out-of-tree builds.

> 1. Should my build make just a .dll file to link against, or should
>    I also provide a .a library for static linking?

A DLL is a necessity on Cygwin for most libraries; whether to make a
static library also depends on the package.  Ports' lua package provides
both.

> 2. If I'm planning on adding a few "standard" Lua libraries like
>    LuaSQL, LuaFileSystem, and LuaSocket, should they be separate
>    ITPs?

Yes.

> 3. I'm currently using Cygwin 1.7 and gcc-4 to build and test
>    this out, but should I do it for 1.5 as well?

gcc-4.3 is not yet finalized; it should not be used for building
packages going into the distro.


Yaakov
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Re: First time packager questions

[Brian Dessent]

Ralph Hempel wrote:

> 1. Should my build make just a .dll file to link against, or should
>     I also provide a .a library for static linking?

You need to provide an import library for the DLL regardless of whether
you decide to also support a static version of the library.

"Yaakov (Cygwin Ports)" wrote:

> > 3. I'm currently using Cygwin 1.7 and gcc-4 to build and test
> >    this out, but should I do it for 1.5 as well?
> 
> gcc-4.3 is not yet finalized; it should not be used for building
> packages going into the distro.

And obviously it should go without saying that you can't upload packages
built using 1.7 to the main distro either.

Brian

Re: First time packager questions

[Ralph Hempel]

Yaakov (Cygwin Ports) wrote:

>> 0. Should I use cygport to build my package? I've got a clean
>>    source tree and I've made changes in a separate tree to make
>>    it easier to generate diffs.
> 
> If you want to package lua, you may find this useful:
> 
> http://cygwin-ports.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cygwin-ports/ports/trunk/lang/lua5.1/

Hmmm - I never thought to look there, apparently you've
done a lot of the work already :-)

And looking at the ports list, it seems that all the libs I
was hoping to port over are already there!

Is there any value at all in building a package targeted for
the "official" Cygwin setup?

And do you need some help in getting the Lua stuff in ports
updated to the latest versions?

Ralph

PS. A brief answer here is OK, and then I'll move the discussin
     to cygwin-ports if it turns out that's where we're going

Re: First time packager questions

[Yaakov (Cygwin Ports)]

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Ralph Hempel wrote:
> Hmmm - I never thought to look there, apparently you've
> done a lot of the work already :-)
> 
> And looking at the ports list, it seems that all the libs I
> was hoping to port over are already there!

I'm not exactly sure what you're looking to do with lua, but there are a
number of packages there.

> Is there any value at all in building a package targeted for
> the "official" Cygwin setup?

Absolutely.  The only reason lua isn't in the distro is because neither
I or anyone else have taken the time to get it in.

> And do you need some help in getting the Lua stuff in ports
> updated to the latest versions?

I've been focusing on the X11 upgrade recently.  I'm aware that lua
itself was bumped to 5.1.4; when you manage this many packages, it
doesn't take long for things to pile up.  Fortunately cygport makes it
much easier.

> PS. A brief answer here is OK, and then I'll move the discussin
>     to cygwin-ports if it turns out that's where we're going

Perhaps that would be best for now.


Yaakov

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