Bug#812215: consider spliting systemd-tmpfiles into separate package

[Josh Triplett]

On Mon, Feb 01, 2016 at 04:47:34PM +0100, Ondřej Surý wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2016, at 16:41, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > Implementing the various operation letters makes up half the problem.
> > The other half involves handling the various tmpfiles.d directories and
> > the precedence between them.  That includes the usual "override files
> > with the same filename" mechanism, but also:
> > 
> > > All configuration files are sorted by their filename in lexicographic
> > > order, regardless of which of the directories they reside in. If
> > > multiple files specify the same path, the entry in the file with the
> > > lexicographically earliest name will be applied. All other conflicting
> > > entries will be logged as errors. When two lines are prefix and suffix
> > > of each other, then the prefix is always processed first, the suffix
> > > later. Lines that take globs are applied after those accepting no
> > > globs. If multiple operations shall be applied on the same file, (such
> > > as ACL, xattr, file attribute adjustments), these are always done in
> > > the same fixed order. Otherwise, the files/directories are processed
> > > in the order they are listed.
> > 
> > That logic seems relatively straightforward (though fiddly) to implement
> > in a language with associative arrays, such as bash or Python, but not
> > in a language without them, such as POSIX sh.
> 
> While it would be ideal to a 1:1 perfect implementation, I would be a
> just happy with a simple constrained implementation that would work in
> "most" cases. + document that properly in manpage and README.Debian in
> that package.
> 
> But of course I would not prevent anybody to do a full implementation :)

Any limitations in the portable version would end up constraining what
software not targeting "linux-any" could use.  So I have an interest in
making the implementation as complete as possible. :)