Hello. I've played a bit with portage-2.1.2_pre3-r2 and its per ebuild USE flag feature. This feature allow maintainers to specify default (or suggested) USE flags for their packages. But if user overides per ebuild default use flag value with one in make.conf it hard to find out default per-ebuild suggested USE flag values. I think it can be good idea to add some mark (may be '@', color @ or something else) to mark enabled per ebuild USE flags. TIA
If we want to be consistent with the new IUSE defaults feature, we could use a + symbol.
Yes. But if USE flag is disabled the output of emerge -pv will be ambiguous for the newcomer: foo/bar +-flag Thus if you stay with + sign may be it's good idea to show + sign at the end of USE flag: foo/bar -flag+ ?
I don't like this whole idea of indicating it. It doesn't matter where a USE flag comes from, it could as well be enabled/disabled in the profiles, then disabled in the ebuild defaults, then enabled in make.conf and finally disabled in p.keywords and you'd end up with something like !@#$-flag. I think the syntax we have right now is already confusing enough. In the end, all I care about in -pv or --newuse -pv output is a) is the flag enabled or disabled? and if -N was used b) did a flag (dis)appear? Everything beyond that should be up to the user. If you disagree, then I kindly ask you to be at least consistent and show whether a use flag is enabled/disabled for each level of cascading in USE_ORDER.
Simon: The idea of highlighting enabled per ebuild use flag comes from admission that this feature allows package maintainer to mark suggested USE flags. If this practice became ubiquitous then it is good idea to see suggested USE flags. This does not prevent portage from having another level of verbosity say with -vv flag and to have all of the USE_ORDER levels indicated there. But that is another story (feature request). But thinking another time on the issue I consider that you are right. While we do not have the ability to disable USE flag on per ebuild basis and thus mark "not suggested" USE flags may be there is not so much use in this highlighting. Also "suggested" or per ebuild USE flags could be caught from: env USE_ORDER="defaults:pkginternal" emerge -pv foo Or just another idea: May be it's better to add some --show-use-defaults option to emerge that will output per-package USE flags? Or move this functionality to another utility at all? Well. May be it's better to postpone decision on usefulness of the feature to time when people actually start to use per-ebuild USE flags...
(In reply to comment #4) > Well. May be it's better to postpone decision on usefulness of the feature to > time when people actually start to use per-ebuild USE flags... I'd say so.