[Pkg-octave-devel] [RFC] patch octave to help users install auxiliary packages

[Rafael Laboissiere]

* Thomas Weber <tweber at debian.org> [2013-08-06 00:17]:
>
> Upstream is the wrong level for this sort of patch - after a while, you 
> have detection code for 
> Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/Redhat/OpenSuse/TopDistroWatchDistributionOfTheMonth/...

Agreed.

What about a distribution-agnostic approach?  This is exemplified in the 
simple-minded patch attached below.  The distro-specific barking file 
would be put somewhere in the path by the package maintainers, without 
the need of patching upstream files.  A possible barking file for Debian 
is also attached below.

Rafael

P.S.:  I hope you do not take seriously the name that I chose for the 
distro-specific function, even though my proposal *_is_* serious.



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function bark_according_to_distro (code)

    if strcmp (code, "no-octave-info")
        error ("doc: info file not found, please install the Debian package 'octave-info'");
    elseif strcmp (code, "no-mkoctfile")
        warning ("mkoctfile: please install the Debian package 'liboctave-dev'");
    endif

endfunction