[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #47405] pkg update errors out of one package sees dependency error

[Philip Nienhuis]

Update of bug #47405 (project octave):

                 Release:                   4.0.0 => dev                    
        Operating System:       Microsoft Windows => Any                    

    _______________________________________________________

Follow-up Comment #1:

(bug report title could use some polishing :-) )

I'm afraid that for some packages several iterations are needed instead of
just two (e.g., communications depends on signal that depends on control).
It is probably better if pkg.m would set up a dependency tree, descend into it
and infer an optimal "route" for each OF package to upgrade it, rather than
cycle through all OF packages again and again. 
Actually, a case can be made that it should do so when installing packages as
well, esp. with the -forge flag.

In fact similar ideas have been mentioned as a Project Idea here:
http://wiki.octave.org/Projects#Packaging

I think it probably isn't very hard to set up dependency trees for OF
packages; parsing & interpreting the share/octave/octave-packages file would
be a first start and much of that code is present in pkg.m and its companion
functions.
Making pkg.m follow the optimized "route" through the package collection is
probably the hardest part. But again, maybe not.

But admittedly pkg.m is quite a beast; I've tried improving it before (as
regards what to do about shadowing core functions ad matching functions from
other OF packages) and I quickly lost track :-(

(release => dev; OS => any)

    _______________________________________________________

Reply to this item at:

  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?47405>

_______________________________________________
  Message sent via/by Savannah
  http://savannah.gnu.org/