| Artifact ID: | 4b12ddaf6a222cc458e53b74ba92492b2db9ce350043fe3c3d5669b2abf1abf4 |
|---|---|
| Page Name: | depends |
| Date: | 2018-07-05 14:30:43 |
| Original User: | mario |
| Mimetype: | text/x-markdown |
| Parent: | 1db4aaff112adb318caa0d61a507477ab918f9b53fad9e4c317edc3b313de533 (diff) |
| Next | 3c6f35255c8a2590b3412a0bb4434dd235465b639603b74267d04ef8eec33a13 |
# depends:
Lists other plugins or language/system libraries which the current plugin expects:
# depends: corefuncs, json_io, bin:bash
Each entry is a plugin basename, and indicates it must be available/active alongside.
The recommended field name is "depends" and not "require" - for parity with the Debian packaging spec, and because it sounds less stringent.
Not every application would want to enforce this strictly. Because dynamic languages can soft-detect dependencies usually.
Within a plugin management UI, the depends: list could be used for installation warnings.
It's optional, and might be treated as documentation in some implementations.
Versioned dependencies
Additionally the plugin names can be suffixed with a version comparison:
# depends: core (>= 2.0.0)
Which obviously does require the plugin manager to be somewhat more involved. You'll often get away just implementing a >= check. Most other version expression gimmicks are likely overkill for simple applicatiion-level features.
System/language references
While a TYPE:name entry can reference other scopes (instead of application-local plugins)
bin:imagemagick |
verify a binary exists |
python:lxml |
for language modules |
sys:amd64 |
e.g. the architecture. |
deb:anacron |
as hint for the system package manager. |
api:archnemesis |
see api |
This is quite informal still. There's seldomly practical value to implement such complex dependency lookups, or these exact ones. This is just the advised syntax.
One could implement a few "magic" basenames as well. For instance checking the current language version with just # depends: python (>= 3.4), or if feasible check for module versions php:sqlite (>= 3.24).
Related fields
Depending on complexity other fields might be used alongside:
# provides:# conflicts:# suggests: