[Pkg-tcltk-devel] gitk requires 'tcl' even when 'tcl8.4' and 'tcl8.5' are installed

[Jonathan Nieder]

Hi Debian tcl/tk developers,

Christophe wrote:

> While trying to install the package "gitk", I was asked to install
> the required package "tcl" and "tk". This is not right in my case,
> because:
>  - I already have both "tcl8.4" and "tcl8.5" installed, so it should
>    be happy with any of them;
>  - this would create a conflict, because "tcl" is actually "tcl
>    8.4.16" and "tcl8.4" is "tcl8.4.19"

See below[*].

> Maybe the dependancy should be changed to require any one of the 3
> package?

This is why we shouldn't support more than one version of the
(threaded) interpreter in a given suite at a time. :)

In an ideal world, I imagine the tcl binary would be in a "tcl"
package and only a separate libtcl package would be versioned.  I'd
be happy to work on that.  Can you imagine problems that would arise
from it?

Regards,
Jonathan

[*] The tcl package I am using has

	tcl8.6 (>= 8.6.0~b1-4)

In particular, the version it depends on is an inequality --- it does
not require any specific tcl patch level.  Christophe, is your tcl
package different?  What happens if you try "apt-get install tcl"?