IRC channel logs

<zacts>howdy world

<rekado_>would it be acceptable for the CUPS package to create symlinks to the files created by the cups-filters package?

<rekado_>it's not only filters that the cups-filters package adds but also backends, configurations and so on.

<rekado_>filters are called dependent on the mime configuration (if the provided path is absolute), so I can avoid some of the trouble, but it seems that I have to actually link a few files across packages.

<rekado_>(the CUPS package depends on cups-filters)

<rekado_>is it at all possible for a package to read files from any of its input packages?

<rekado_>I want CUPS to create a symlink from out/backend/name to /gnu/store/xxx-cups-filters/backend/name

<taylanub>rekado_: yes, that's pretty standard .. gimme a sec

<rekado_>so far it's failing for me, saying that the file cannot be found.

<taylanub>in a phase procedure, if it takes a keyword argument 'inputs', then it gets an alist of the inputs, where you can assoc-ref "cups-filters" to get /gnu/store/xxx-cups-filters

<rekado_>I have that already. I do get the path to the filter. But when I pass that to (symlink oldpath newpath) it fails, saying that the file at oldpath does not exist.

<taylanub>creating a symlink doesn't require the target to exist ... maybe the parent directory of the symlink doesn't exist?

<rekado_>ah, good point. I guess this may be it. Will check again.

<taylanub>are you sure about the argument order? ln(1) has it reverse: ln symlink-path original-file-path

<taylanub>(no wait, I'm confused ...)

<rekado_>the docs say -- Scheme Procedure: symlink oldpath newpath

<rekado_>where newpath is the name of the symlink and oldpath is the file that it points to

<taylanub>yeah never mind, it's also that way with ln(1)

<rekado_>hmm, still get "ERROR: In procedure symlink: No such file or directory"

<rekado_>[symlink "/gnu/store/yds84ghqyygjhnyqd0s33sl57wyqrl3d-cups-filters-1.0.61/backend/parallel" ...]

<rekado_>that's the last line of the backtrace. The file does exist. Can it be seen at build time?

<taylanub>that's irrelevant because you can create a symlink to a file that doesn't exist. do all directories in 'newpath' exist?

<rekado_>they should.

<rekado_>this is an additional phase after 'install

<rekado_>the target directory exists (it contains files in a default installation)

<taylanub>currently it's the only reason for that error I can think of, that not all directories up to the filename in 'newpath' exist.

<rekado_>ok

<rekado_>taylanub: works now. Wrong absolute target path. Thanks!

<taylanub>np :)

<Tsutsukakushi>um

<Tsutsukakushi>should guix have a manual

<Tsutsukakushi>man fuix just say >No manual entry for guix

<davexunit>Tsutsukakushi: you need to run 'info guix'

<davexunit>GNU software typically uses info manuals rather than man pages.

<Tsutsukakushi>why isn't info one of the default packages?

<Tsutsukakushi>most has both

<Tsutsukakushi>at least what i've seen

<davexunit>well, I personally read info manuals in emacs.

<Tsutsukakushi>which package is info part of?

<davexunit>maybe info should get added to %base-packages, but you can just as easily add it yourself.

<Tsutsukakushi>guix package -i info says no package found

<davexunit>what is the output of 'guix package -A info'?

<Tsutsukakushi>you can change the pager for man too

<Tsutsukakushi>xan't see anything taht could be the right one

<Tsutsukakushi>it's on a different computer

<Tsutsukakushi>mp3info, shared-mime-info, texinfo xdpyinfo, xdriinfo, xvinfo, xwininfo

<davexunit>I don't have an up-to-date guix available to me right now, but there's surely an info reader available. I just always use emacs as my info reader instead of a cli program.

<Tsutsukakushi>having both info and man would be a good thing

<davexunit>well, maybe. man pages aren't very good.

<davexunit>if there is an easy enough way to generate man pages from our texinfo manual, then I guess we could do it.

<Tsutsukakushi>oh

<davexunit>but the format is fundamentally different.

<Tsutsukakushi>it's texinfo

<davexunit>I don't know if texinfo will provide you a reader.

<Tsutsukakushi>i like man format

<Tsutsukakushi>it's clear

<Tsutsukakushi>and less is a good as a default pager

<mark_weaver>Tsutsukakushi: the standalone 'info' reader is part of the 'texinfo' package.

<mark_weaver>but the info-reader in emacs is much better