[Dict-common-dev] openoffice.org: dictionary.lst is gone

[Agustin Martin]

On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 08:52:20PM +0100, Rene Engelhard wrote:
> 
> but then new dicts also need to add it for compat with lenny, but they won't when
> it's in an other section. So what you propose is keeping the stuff inside the policy
> although it isn't used.

After thinking a bit on this, I am more for some sort of guide in the policy for
lenny portability, something like

Appendix:
-------------------------------------------
<=lenny portability of myspell/hunspell dictionaries
-------------------------------------------
If you want your myspell/hunspell dictionary to work also in lenny you must
provide a info file too, this very different though. It must be named as
the package and contain the lines which were added to OpenOffice.org's
dictionary.lst in older versions; it should be installed into 
/usr/share/myspell/infos/ooo. For example

   # German (Germany)
   DICT de DE de_DE

which is the entry for German in Germany. First element is the kind of
element, second the iso country code, third the iso language code, and
finally the name of the .dic file, stripped of the extension.

Other relevant info for this purpose ...
--------------------------------------------

being in a appendix, so is considered somewhat differently than the main
stuff.

We may make it require an special dictionaries-common version, handling new
paths in case there is a change in paths. Some other portability additions
may be needed. 

Also, installdeb-myspell should not fail if no info file is found, and of
course install things in the new locations.

> > I will not have much free time these days, will be back to this when
> > possible. I will then look really at the code instead of just a quick look
> > at the .diff. Since lenny is taking longer than expected, we have time.
> 
> OK. I tested it, though :)

Sure about that. Thanks for the work you did on this. My concerns were
mostly about my personal setup. I usually work in a stable+some backports box
(included sid dictionaries-common) and wanted to have an idea about how I was
affected, and if everything will work for me as before or not. That is
probably the corner case we will ever find, so I just intended to lobby a bit
for it ;-)

On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 09:28:06PM +0100, Rene Engelhard wrote:
> Oh, what I forgot to mention in my initial mail and the one cited is that
OOo
> now can handle separate dirs for the dicts.
> 
> So I wanted to do (after this transition is over) do something like:
> 
> /usr/share/hunspell: myspell/hunspell dicts
> /usr/share/hyphen: hyphenation patterns
> /usr/share/mythes or similar: thesauri
> 
> The info file stuff then doesn't work either, and no direct compat with
> lenny anyway.
  
Well, I am now at an etch box, running a personal backport of experimental
hunspell (1.2.8), so I may be wrong wrt to the version to be shipped with   
lenny,
   
/usr/share/hunspell seems supported by 1.2.8 (correct me if needed for
sid 1.2.6), so new hunspell/myspell dicts should be installed there. No
problems expected for lenny if that path is already supported, and all dicts
should start using that path.
   
For the other, symlinks may be added at maintainer will. My main concern is 
that maintainers can, if they want, keep their dicts compatible with lenny, 
and better if we provide a minimal guidelines for that in the policy, so
that is done consistently. And wonderful if we provide a tool for that.

Finally had (little) time to at least look at the proposed code. Some comments
regarding to the runtime (dictionaries-common)

I would not remove /etc/openoffice/dictionary.lst from dictionaries-common
preinst, nor remove update-openoffice-dicts call from dictionaries-common
postinst. First may be run before ooo stuff, so having no effect, or called
in an ooo<3 environment and then miss local changes. Second may be called
from a ooo <3 site, having a wrong effect. I am more for handling all that
from update-openoffice-dicts, so things are done like (in pseudo-perl)

if ( ooo>=3 ){
  if ( -f /etc/openoffice/dictionary.lst ){
    print STDERR "Removing obsolete ooo<3 /etc/openoffice/dictionary.lst file";
    unlink etc/openoffice/dictionary.lst;
  } else {
    Run previous code ...
  }

Chances that somebody downgrades from ooo3 to ooo2 are minimal, so I think
the above approach is better.

Regarding the developers stuff, I only had a quick look at installdeb-myspell
(so please fix me), and I am unclear about what the new version will do. I
think we can keep old installdeb-myspell to create a backwards compatible
structure, so maintainers wanting to have an hunspell only package can
ignore it and use plain install for new only hunspell stuff.
installdeb-myspell will then install stuff in the new locations and set
symlinks if appropriate. If, in the meantime, something good for
hunspell+emacs/jed/whatever is prepared, we can consider how to put it here.

While speaking about this, I do not know where the ice* (aka mozilla*) look
for the dicts. We may need to do something special for them.

I will have an intermitent connection during Christmas, but I hope to read
mail at least twice a week, so I expect to remain connected with this.

Cheers,

-- 
Agustin