Re: reading NEWS from installed package

[Carnë Draug]

2011/11/3 Carnë Draug <address@hidden>:
> On 3 November 2011 17:16, Olaf Till <address@hidden> wrote:
>> On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 12:30:47PM +0000, Carnė Draug wrote:
>>>
>>> I have modified the news function so one can also access the NEWS file
>>> from installed package (patch
>>> https://savannah.gnu.org/patch/index.php?7660).
>>>
>>> I have one question however. Currently there is no standard to where a
>>> package should have its NEWS file (when it does). The only thing I see
>>> is that the pkg function looks for a ChangeLog file at the root of the
>>> package and if it exists, places it into the 'packinfo' of that
>>> package. By looking into all the packages in octave-forge, I see two
>>> cases:
>>>
>>>   * a ChangeLog file in the root of the package
>>>   * a NEWS file in the doc directory
>>>
>>> My changeset supports the second case but could easily be modified for
>>> other another behavior (even to try both cases). I prefer the idea of
>>> the NEWS file to be consistent with octave (but not sure if it would
>>> go in the doc or in the root of the package).
>>>
>>
>> The GNU coding standards don't seem to prescribe a place for the NEWS
>> file. But since the common practice for software packages seems to be
>> a NEWS file in the root directory and, if present, manuals and
>> examples in a subdirectory (e.g. 'doc'), I think we should also choose
>> to place the NEWS file in the root directory (along with a possibly
>> present ChangeLog). It is probably better to move the NEWS file in the
>> control package one level up than to let the package manager look for
>> it in different directories (of which 'doc' is only one possibility).
>>
>> What do you mean by 'consistent with Octave'? The style of the NEWS
>> file?
>
> I meant both naming the file NEWS (instead of ChangeLog) and placing
> it in the root directory of the package (and leave docs for manuals
> and whatever).

If everyone agrees that the NEWS of a package should be in the root of
the package (instead of doc), hopefully everyone also agrees that it
should go into the 'packinfo' dir (like ChangeLog). The 'packinfo'
directory, is a dir inside the package dir that has the files COPYING
DESCRIPTION and ChangeLog

If so, I can make another patch for the following
  * make news() look for the NEWS file into the 'packinfo' dir instead
  * make pkg install place a NEWS file at the root of the package into
the 'packinfo' dir (currently this is only done to the ChangeLog file)
  * edit packages.txi to mention this stuff

Carnë