[PATCH libXfont] Add a new 'catalogue' FPE, which takes font paths from symlinks in a dir.

[Kristian Høgsberg]

On 6/22/07, Colin Guthrie <gmane at colin.guthr.ie> wrote:
> Eamon Walsh wrote:
> >> Exactly.  I was planning to use the RPM name as the symlink name, so
> >> that the RPM package name space can provide unique names.
> >
> > What about little stub files instead of symlinks?  Stub files can be
> > shipped in the RPM and you wouldn't have to generate them in the post
> > scriptlet or whatever.  Also, are symlinks portable?
>
> What's wrong with shipping symlinks in the RPM? I thought that worked
> OK? OK you've got to create them in the %install section but I didn't
> realise it wouldn't work.
>
> I have to admit tho' that I probably would have preferred stub files
> too, but that's just a personal preference and I can't really think of
> anything wrong with symlinks :)

I don't know if we're just bike shedding here or if there is a real
problem with symlinks, but suspect the former.  My motivation for
using symlinks was that I was just copying the idea with symlinking
init.d scripts from rcN.d, which seem to work well enough.  Also,
using stub files is more hassle than it's worth; I have to do open;
read; close, ie three syscalls, three failure paths, whereas just
readlink is just one.  And finally, parsing stub files is a little too
close to a new config file format, something I desparately want to
avoid.

I've committed the last version of the symlink patch and am releasing
libXfont 1.2.9 now.

Kristian