Re: [PATCH resend] perl/Makefile.PL: teach makefiles about possible old Error.pm files

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: May 21, 2008, 22:51 UTC
Message-ID: <7vzlqjz2wz.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20080521222150.GA29696@foursquare.net>

Chris Frey <cdfrey@foursquare.net> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> If a previous version of git was installed on a system without a
> proper Error.pm, git will install its own.  But the next time
> git is compiled on that system, that Error.pm will prevent git from
> installing its own copy the second time.  This causes a broken
> git install on such systems.
>
> This patch fixes this bug by tagging git's Error.pm with an
> INSTALLED_BY flag, and checking for it during the compile.

I think this is a wrong direction to go.

We do not currently deal with broken installations, and "stow" is just one easy way to install and keep a stale version. The right solution would be to check if "Error.pm" we find on the system (be it installed by previous incarnation of git or some other packages) works as expected, and refrain from using it if it doesn't.

When the system has a slightly older version of Error.pm, it does not really matter if that old one case from our own Error.pm (because back then the system did not have Error.pm at all), or the user installed a slightly older version of Error.pm from elsewhere.

IOW, I won't be interested in a solution that adds INSTALLED_BY. Even if it is ours, as long as it is fresh enough, there is no reason to replace it with a new copy. Even if it is _not_ ours, if it is stale and does not work as we expect, we might have to install our own on our path.