On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 02:04:44 -1000, Warren Togami wrote:
MODULE_COMPAT was designed to allow for distinctions of more than
just
the version (which is all python-abi does). This is necessary for perl
and not python because it is possible to rebuild perl in different ways
that breaks ABI compat, while python is almost entirely noarch. This
happened with the perl package IIRC in the RH8-RH9-RHEL3 timeframe.
Since then however perl has not broken ABI (?), so it seems that we have
this seemingly overcomplicated construct. But if we do break ABI again
like in FC5 because we recompile the same version of FC4 perl with some
new flag, MODULE_COMPAT can enforce exact deps and prevent incompatible
FC4 packages from being installed on FC5.
Chip put a lot of thought into designing this.
I've thought the perl(:WITH_FOO) virtual provides define the Perl ABI
requirements and not perl(:MODULE_COMPAT_...).