Infer value of the global field BuildDepends

[gildor478]

This feature request has been migrated from artifact #702 on forge.ocamlcore.org. It was assigned to user102.

user188 posted on 2010-07-27 15:37:23:

Since each section has to declare its own BuildDepends, I don't see what is the purpose of the global field BuildDepends.

The answer for the question "what is needed for the whole package to be build" could be computed looking at individual sections.

user102 replied on 2010-07-27 15:52:08:

No, you can define a general BuildDepends for the whole package.

In the section, you can either extend the general definition: BuildDepends+: ounit

or replace it BuildDepends: ounit

You just have to use '+:' to extend the definition (or ':' to replace it).

Does it answer your question?

user188 replied on 2010-07-27 16:04:24:

I see. The documentation doesn't say that the general BuildDepends is anyhow related to the ones for sections.

So the sentence in the documentation: "are appended to all sections and not used directly in the package" is not quite correct and started to make sense for me only after you have explained the thing here.

It should be not "appended to sections" but "combined with the corresponding fields in each section", which is really different.

user102 replied on 2010-07-27 16:11:27:

OK, I will rephrase the help of the toplevel BuildDepends field.