[oe] Why PREFERRED_VERSION setting of <distro>.conf overrules local.conf setting ?

[Koen Kooi]

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On 10-08-10 01:15, Graham Gower wrote:
> On 10 August 2010 04:31, Frans Meulenbroeks <fransmeulenbroeks at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2010/8/9 Chris Larson <clarson at kergoth.com>:
>>> On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 6:26 AM, Hauser, Wolfgang (external) <
>>> Wolfgang.Hauser.external at eads.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> I want to change some used versions of packages, so I added a
>>>> PREFERRED_VERSION_<package>="xxx" for the packages I want to have a
>>>> special(newer) version to be used.
>>>>
>>>> But e. g. for busybox the version defined in the used <distro>.conf is
>>>> used instead of my setting in local.conf.
>>>>
>>>> Should local.conf not overrule <distro/machine>.conf ??
>>>
>>>
>>> Conceptually, local should override everything, as it's the "most specific"
>>> information available, but from a technical standpoint, we can't parse the
>>> machine and distro configs until local.conf is parsed, as that's usually
>>> where the MACHINE and DISTRO are set.  You can use a 'local' override to get
>>> around it, or you can ask the distro/machine maintainer to use ?=
>>> assignments (set only if unset).
>>>
>>> PREFERRED_VERSION_<package>_local = "xxx" is how you use the override.
>>
>> The real solution woud be to either temporary store the
>> PREFERRED_VERSION and apply it later on.
>> Alternately we could parse local.conf twice, the first time ignoring
>> the PREFERRED lines, and the 2nd time only looking at these.
>> Yet another solution could be to split local.conf into two pieces, one
>> with settings like MACHINE and DISTRO, the other one with the
>> overrides.
> 
> Wouldn't it be far simpler to fix the distro conf file(s)? E.g. apply
> something like this:
> s/^PREFERRED_VERSION_\([a-z]*\) =/PREFERRED_VERSION_\1 ?=/

What's the point of setting a preferred version at all if you make it a
weak assignment?
The distro nearly always knows better and if you want to use a different
version, sending a patch to change that version for review isn't exactly
rocket science.
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