Bug 489476

Summary:	sys-apps/groff: add USE perl
Product:	Gentoo Linux	Reporter:	Nikoli <nikoli>
Component:	Current packages	Assignee:	Gentoo's Team for Core System packages <base-system>
Status:	RESOLVED WONTFIX
Severity:	normal
Priority:	Normal
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description Nikoli 2013-10-26 16:02:57 UTC

sys-apps/groff has missing dev-lang/perl RDEPEND (or PDEPEND?). man and man-db work fine when perl is not installed, please add USE perl and do not make perl non optional runtime dep.

$ file `equery f sys-apps/groff`|grep -i perl
/usr/bin/afmtodit:                                            Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/bin/chem:                                                Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/bin/groffer:                                             Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/bin/grog:                                                Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/bin/gropdf:                                              Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/bin/mmroff:                                              Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/bin/pdfmom:                                              Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/bin/roff2dvi:                                            Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/bin/roff2html:                                           Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/bin/roff2pdf:                                            Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/bin/roff2ps:                                             Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/bin/roff2text:                                           Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/bin/roff2x:                                              Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/lib64/groff/groffer/func.pl:                             Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/lib64/groff/groffer/man.pl:                              Perl script, ASCII text executable
/usr/lib64/groff/groffer/perl_test.pl:                        Perl script, ASCII text executable

Comment 1 Thomas Deutschmann (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2019-01-08 18:54:41 UTC

Some groff helper will require perl. But because groff itself don't require perl at runtime, adding a RDEPEND on dev-lang/perl would be overkill (think about embedded systems which can run without dev-lang/perl installed due to binary packages).

Adding USE=perl just to pull in a runtime dependency for helpers would be wrong, to quote dev manual:

> The usage of a USE flag should not control runtime dependencies when the package does not link to it.

Therefore closing as WONTFIX.