Packages etc.


package (PACKAGE), configure (PACKAGE)
package (PACKAGE) causes a Pacman package to be installed starting at the current working directory. The argument PACKAGE can be any Pacman package specification such as
package('BU:Python | versionGE(2.2)')
The configure atom has the same syntax and differs from package only in inducing the correct behavior when Pacman uninstalls and updates packages. The rule that you should follow is this:

The practical effect of using configure is that packages become linked together in terms of what must be uninstalled and re-installed together.

packageName (packageName)
packageName sets the name of a Pacman package to packageName. For example, if you have a package FOO.pacman with no packageName in the source code, the package name is taken to be "FOO". If, on the other hand, you have several versions of FOO in FOO-1.0.pacman, FOO-1.1.pacman, FOO-1.2.pacman, you should use packageName('FOO') in each of these files so that all three packages have the name "FOO".

setup (command)
Setup let's you put code directly into the setup.csh(sh) scripts that Pacman generates when you use -setup or -get. command is put directly into the scripts with the following modifications A typical use is
setup('source $MYPACKAGE_LOCATION/mySetup.SHELL')
which causes mySetup.csh and mySetup.sh to be sourced from the standard Pacman generated setup scripts.

description (text)
description lets you attach a description string to a package. This string is used for browsing and web displays.

url (URL), author (authorString), contact (contactString)
url, author and contact let you provide useful information about a package which is then used in browsing and web displays.

register (symbolicCacheName,cacheURL,infoString,infoURL,contactString,contactEmail)
register let's you define your own symbolic cache names. This is typically useful for large project who want to define a common set of caches with convenient names. For example,
register('BU','http://atlas.bu.edu/caches','Atlas Tier 2, Boston University','http://physics.bu.edu/~usatlas/','Saul Youssef', 'http://physics.bu.edu/~youssef/')
defines the symbolic cache name BU, so that one can refer to BU:Python, for example.

alreadyInstalled (PACKAGE)
alreadyInstalled lets you require that a package PACKAGE must be already installed in the local instalation before the current package can be installed.

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