On 04/15/12 16:16, Ryan Hill wrote:
> Right now we have support in some packages for user patches - those being
> patches dropped into /etc/portage/patches/pkgname/ - which are automatically
> applied. Because this feature is implemented by epatch_user() in
> eutils.eclass, it is only available for ebuilds that inherit eutils and
> explicitly call epatch_user or inherit another eclass that calls it in an
> exported phase (eg. base). The end result is a very inconsistent experience,
> where user patches may or may not work not only on a package-by-package
> basis, but ebuild-by-ebuild.
>
> Is there any reason why this couldn't just be done in the package manager,
> making user patches available for all ebuilds without code changes?
>
From a debugging / bug wrangling perspective it's bad because there's no
way for me to see if someone accidentally patched in something
unexpected. (And we do have creative users :) )
It's a neat feature, but I'm moderately opposed to it unless we can get
reporting in place so I can definitely see (e.g. from a logfile or error
message) that there's been some ebuild modifications.
