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Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 11:09:48 -0500 (EST)
From: Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu>
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To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: octave-forge dependency?
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On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Chris Taylor wrote:

> Two things: Firstly, the OP _doesn't_ want his configure scripts picking
> up tetex, ergo tetex must not be in the path.
> [snip]

As you noted, for tetex to not be in the PATH, it needs to not be
installed.

> The only way to stop this behaviour is to
> a) completely trash the cygwin path, and thus lose 99% of the functionality
> b) install tetex elsewhere (/usr/local/octave-tetex/*hierarchy_here* for
> example).

There's a third way -- read on.

> Neither of these are brilliant solutions, and the latter would actually
> require hacking the cygwin package in order for it to install there, and
> still work (it would probably require tetex to be recompiled). Though
> you could perhaps persuade octave not to install the normal tetex using
> the setup database that tracks what is and isn't installed... (Not
> entirely clear on how that works at the moment though - Igor might be
> able to clear that up?)

The setup database is not sophisticated enough to track package
alternatives.  All it does is record which *packages* are installed.
It's possible to, as you say, hack it when your proposed octave-tetex
package is installed to record that the version of tetex is some
improbably high number, but since the only thing that programmatically
modifies the database is setup itself, this would have to be done by hand.
I don't think it's even possible to do this cleanly in a postinstall
script.

> It may be worth having an either or dependancy for octave..

Setup does not support this kind of dependencies.

> None of this is all that straightforward, but it would mean people
> weren't forced to install tetex..

The third alternative I mentioned is to split out the "legend" command
into a separate package, and have *that* package depend on tetex-bin.
This way, people who want to use octave without tetex (and thus without
"legend") can install the base octave-forge package, and those who do want
to use "legend" can install "octave-legend" with all the gory consequences
(i.e., dragging in tetex-bin).

However...

Chuck, since all "legend" needs is kpsexpand, why not simply make setup
convinced that tetex-bin *is* installed (hack installed.db by hand)?
That way, "legend" will even pick up the kpsexpand from MikTeX, and setup
will never try to install tetex-bin automatically...  This will solve your
particular problem right now, but can't be expected of each and every user
of octave-forge, of course.

HTH,
	Igor
-- 
				http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/
      |\      _,,,---,,_		pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu
ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_		igor AT watson DOT ibm DOT com
     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		Igor Pechtchanski, Ph.D.
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

If there's any real truth it's that the entire multidimensional infinity
of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs. /DA

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