2010-07-06



On Debian:

If you want to install mailx, you need to have an MTA  installed.
The  package  management  enforces this.  But what if you install
your MTA manually bypassing the package management?  (Don't  tell
me not to do so.  Unix should not stop users from doing what they
want to do.)

I remembered Wouter Verhelst  presenting  the  solution  to  this
problem in his ``Debian secret power tools for power users'' talk
at Fosdem 2010:  equivs.  This package helps you  building  pack-
ages  to only satisfy such dependencies ...  if you know what you
do.


Do check your documentation against your implementation,  and  do
it  automated.   I discovered several undocumented config options
this way.  All I used was this small shell script:
     #!/bin/sh
     #
     # checks if all recognized options are documented
     # run from masqmail's repository root dir
     #
     # Note: this script is far from perfect, but its development time to
     #       usage value ratio is quite good :-)

     docs="/tmp/masqmail-opts-docs.$$"
     code="/tmp/masqmail-opts-code.$$"

     cat man/masqmail.*.5 | grep -o '^\fB[^(\]*\f.' |
         egrep -v 'OBSOLETE|http://' | sed 's,^\fB,,; s,[\ =].*,,' |
         sort -u | grep -v '^val$' >"$docs"

     cat src/conf.c | grep 'lval,.*"' |
         sed 's,[^"]*",,; s,", [0-9]*,",; s,".*,,' | sort -u >"$code"

     diff -U 0 "$code" "$docs" | grep -v '^@@'

     rm -f "$docs" "$code"


Had strange problems with minimalist:  The list  stopped  working
when  seven  people were subscribed.  (I know this reason is stu-
pid, but I just don't have any better.)



http://marmaro.de/lue/        markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>