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The XBPS source packages manual

This article contains an exhaustive manual of how to create new source packages for XBPS, the Void Linux native packaging system.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Help

Introduction

The void-packages repository contains all the recipes to download, compile and build binary packages for Void Linux. These source package files are called templates.

The template files are shell scripts that define variables and functions to be processed by xbps-src, the package builder, to generate binary packages. The shell used by xbps-src is GNU bash; xbps-src doesn't aim to be compatible with POSIX sh.

By convention, all templates start with a comment saying that it is a template file for a certain package. Most of the lines should be kept under 80 columns; variables that list many values can be split into new lines, with the continuation in the next line indented by one space.

A simple template example is as follows:

# Template file for 'foo'
pkgname=foo
version=1.0
revision=1
build_style=gnu-configure
short_desc="A short description max 72 chars"
maintainer="name <email>"
license="GPL-3.0-or-later"
homepage="http://www.foo.org"
distfiles="http://www.foo.org/foo-${version}.tar.gz"
checksum="fea0a94d4b605894f3e2d5572e3f96e4413bcad3a085aae7367c2cf07908b2ff"

The template file contains definitions to download, build and install the package files to a fake destdir, and after this a binary package can be generated with the definitions specified on it.

Don't worry if anything is not clear as it should be. The reserved variables and functions will be explained later. This template file should be created in a directory matching $pkgname, Example: void-packages/srcpkgs/foo/template.

If everything went fine after running

$ ./xbps-src pkg <pkgname>

a binary package named foo-1.0_1.<arch>.xbps will be generated in the local repository hostdir/binpkgs.

Quality Requirements

To be included in the Void repository, software must meet at least one of the following requirements. Exceptions to the list are possible, and might be accepted, but are extremely unlikely. If you believe you have an exception, start a PR and make an argument for why that particular piece of software, while not meeting any of the following requirements, is a good candidate for the Void packages system.

System: The software should be installed system-wide, not per-user.
Compiled: The software needs to be compiled before being used, even if it is software that is not needed by the whole system.
Required: Another package either within the repository or pending inclusion requires the package.

In particular, new themes are highly unlikely to be accepted. Simple shell scripts are unlikely to be accepted unless they provide considerable value to a broad user base. New fonts may be accepted if they provide value beyond aesthetics (e.g. they contain glyphs for a script missing in already packaged fonts).

Browser forks, including those based on Chromium and Firefox, are generally not accepted. Such forks require heavy patching, maintenance and hours of build time.

Software need to be used in version announced by authors as ready to use by the general public - usually called releases. Betas, arbitrary VCS revisions, templates using tip of development branch taken at build time and releases created by the package maintainer won't be accepted.

Package build phases

Building a package consist of the following phases:

setup This phase prepares the environment for building a package.
fetch This phase downloads required sources for a source package, as defined by the distfiles variable or do_fetch() function.
extract This phase extracts the distfiles files into $wrksrc or executes the do_extract() function, which is the directory to be used to compile the source package.
patch This phase applies all patches in the patches directory of the package and can be used to perform other operations before configuring the package.
configure This phase executes the configuration of a source package, i.e GNU configure scripts.
build This phase compiles/prepares the source files via make or any other compatible method.
check This optional phase checks the result of the build phase by running the testsuite provided by the package. If the default do_check function provided by the build style doesn't do anything, the template should set make_check_target and/or make_check_args appropriately or define its own do_check function. If tests take too long or can't run in all environments, make_check should be set to fitting value or do_check should be customized to limit testsuite unless XBPS_CHECK_PKGS is full.
install This phase installs the package files into the package destdir <masterdir>/destdir/<pkgname>-<version>, via make install or any other compatible method.
pkg This phase builds the binary packages with files stored in the package destdir and registers them into the local repository.
clean This phase cleans up the package (if defined).

xbps-src supports running just the specified phase, and if it ran successfully, the phase will be skipped later (unless its work directory ${wrksrc} is removed with xbps-src clean).

Package naming conventions

Libraries

Libraries are packages which provide shared objects (*.so) in /usr/lib. They should be named like their upstream package name with the following exceptions:

The package is a subpackage of a front end application and provides shared objects used by the base package and other third party libraries. In that case it should be prefixed with 'lib'. An exception from that rule is: If an executable is only used for building that package, it moves to the -devel package.

Example: wireshark -> subpkg libwireshark

Libraries have to be split into two sub packages: <name> and <name>-devel.

<name> should only contain those parts of a package which are needed to run a linked program.
<name>-devel should contain all files which are needed to compile a package against this package. If the library is a sub package, its corresponding development package should be named lib<name>-devel

Language Modules

Language modules are extensions to script or compiled languages. Those packages do not provide any executables themselves, but can be used by other packages written in the same language.

The naming convention to those packages is:

<language>-<name>

If a package provides both, a module and a executable, it should be split into a package providing the executable named <name> and the module named <language>-<name>. If a package starts with the languages name itself, the language prefix can be dropped. Short names for languages are no valid substitute for the language prefix.

Example: python-pam, perl-URI, python3-pyside2

Language Bindings

Language Bindings are packages which allow programs or libraries to have extensions or plugins written in a certain language.

The naming convention to those packages is:

<name>-<language>

Example: gimp-python, irssi-perl

Programs

Programs put executables under /usr/bin (or in very special cases in other .../bin directories)

For those packages the upstream packages name should be used. Remember that in contrast to many other distributions, void doesn't lowercase package names. As a rule of thumb, if the tar.gz of a package contains uppercase letter, then the package name should contain them too; if it doesn't, the package name is lowercase.

Programs can be split into program packages and library packages. The program package should be named as described above. The library package should be prefixed with "lib" (see section Libraries)

Global functions

The following functions are defined by xbps-src and can be used on any template:

vinstall() vinstall <file> <mode> <targetdir> [<name>]

Installs file with the specified mode into targetdir in the pkg $DESTDIR. The optional 4th argument can be used to change the file name.
vcopy() vcopy <pattern> <targetdir>

Copies recursively all files in pattern to targetdir in the pkg $DESTDIR.
vmove() vmove <pattern>

Moves pattern to the specified directory in the pkg $DESTDIR.
vmkdir() vmkdir <directory> [<mode>]

Creates a directory in the pkg $DESTDIR. The 2nd optional argument sets the mode of the directory.
vbin() vbin <file> [<name>]

Installs file into usr/bin in the pkg $DESTDIR with the permissions 0755. The optional 2nd argument can be used to change the file name.
vman() vman <file> [<name>]

Installs file as a man page. vman() parses the name and determines the section as well as localization. Also transparently converts gzipped (.gz) and bzipped (.bz2) manpages into plaintext. Example mappings:
- foo.1 -> ${DESTDIR}/usr/share/man/man1/foo.1
- foo.fr.1 -> ${DESTDIR}/usr/share/man/fr/man1/foo.1
- foo.1p -> ${DESTDIR}/usr/share/man/man1/foo.1p
- foo.1.gz -> ${DESTDIR}/usr/share/man/man1/foo.1
- foo.1.bz2 -> ${DESTDIR}/usr/share/man/man1/foo.1
vdoc() vdoc <file> [<name>]

Installs file into usr/share/doc/<pkgname> in the pkg $DESTDIR. The optional 2nd argument can be used to change the file name.
vconf() vconf <file> [<name>]

Installs file into etc in the pkg $DESTDIR. The optional 2nd argument can be used to change the file name.
vsconf() vsconf <file> [<name>]

Installs file into usr/share/examples/<pkgname> in the pkg $DESTDIR. The optional 2nd argument can be used to change the file name.
vlicense() vlicense <file> [<name>]

Installs file into usr/share/licenses/<pkgname> in the pkg $DESTDIR. The optional 2nd argument can be used to change the file name. See license for when to use it.
vsv() vsv <service>

Installs service from ${FILESDIR} to /etc/sv. The service must be a directory containing at least a run script. Note the supervise symlink will be created automatically by vsv and that the run script is automatically made executable by this function. For further information on how to create a new service directory see The corresponding section the FAQ.
vsed() vsed -i <file> -e <regex>

Wrapper around sed that checks sha256sum of a file before and after running the sed command to detect cases in which the sed call didn't change anything. Takes any arbitrary amount of files and regexes by calling -i file and -e regex repeatedly, at least one file and one regex must be specified.

Note that vsed will call the sed command for every regex specified against every file specified, in the order that they are given.
vcompletion() <file> <shell> [<command>]

Installs shell completion from file for command, in the correct location and with the appropriate filename for shell. If command isn't specified, it will default to pkgname. The shell argument can be one of bash, fish or zsh.

Shell wildcards must be properly quoted, Example: vmove "usr/lib/*.a".

Global variables

The following variables are defined by xbps-src and can be used on any template:

makejobs Set to -jX if XBPS_MAKEJOBS is defined, to allow parallel jobs with GNU make.
sourcepkg Set to the to main package name, can be used to match the main package rather than additional binary package names.
CHROOT_READY Set if the target chroot (masterdir) is ready for chroot builds.
CROSS_BUILD Set if xbps-src is cross compiling a package.
XBPS_CHECK_PKGS Set if xbps-src is going to run tests for a package. Longer testsuites should only be run in do_check() if it is set to full.
DESTDIR Full path to the fake destdir used by the source pkg, set to <masterdir>/destdir/${sourcepkg}-${version}.
FILESDIR Full path to the files package directory, i.e srcpkgs/foo/files. The files directory can be used to store additional files to be installed as part of the source package.
PKGDESTDIR Full path to the fake destdir used by the pkg_install() function in subpackages, set to <masterdir>/destdir/${pkgname}-${version}.
XBPS_BUILDDIR Directory to store the source code of the source package being processed, set to <masterdir>/builddir. The package wrksrc is always stored in this directory such as ${XBPS_BUILDDIR}/${wrksrc}.
XBPS_MACHINE The machine architecture as returned by xbps-uhelper arch.
XBPS_ENDIAN The machine's endianness ("le" or "be").
XBPS_LIBC The machine's C library ("glibc" or "musl").
XBPS_WORDSIZE The machine's word size in bits (32 or 64).
XBPS_NO_ATOMIC8 The machine lacks native 64-bit atomics (needs libatomic emulation).
XBPS_SRCDISTDIR Full path to where the source distfiles are stored, i.e $XBPS_HOSTDIR/sources.
XBPS_SRCPKGDIR Full path to the srcpkgs directory.
XBPS_TARGET_MACHINE The target machine architecture when cross compiling a package.
XBPS_TARGET_ENDIAN The target machine's endianness ("le" or "be").
XBPS_TARGET_LIBC The target machine's C library ("glibc" or "musl").
XBPS_TARGET_WORDSIZE The target machine's word size in bits (32 or 64).
XBPS_TARGET_NO_ATOMIC8 The target machine lacks native 64-bit atomics (needs libatomic emulation).
XBPS_FETCH_CMD The utility to fetch files from ftp, http of https servers.
XBPS_WRAPPERDIR Full path to where xbps-src's wrappers for utilities are stored.
XBPS_CROSS_BASE Full path to where cross-compile dependencies are installed, varies according to the target architecture triplet. i.e aarch64 -> aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.
XBPS_RUST_TARGET The target architecture triplet used by rustc and cargo.

Available variables

Mandatory variables

The list of mandatory variables for a template:

homepage A string pointing to the upstream homepage.
license A string matching the license's SPDX Short identifier, Public Domain, or string prefixed with custom: for other licenses. Multiple licenses should be separated by commas, Example: GPL-3.0-or-later, custom:Hugware.

Empty meta-packages that don't include any files which thus have and require no license, should have set license="BSD-2-Clause".

Note: MIT, BSD, ISC and custom licenses require the license file to be supplied with the binary package.
maintainer A string in the form of name <user@domain>. The email for this field must be a valid email that you can be reached at. Packages using users.noreply.github.com emails will not be accepted.
pkgname A string with the package name, matching srcpkgs/<pkgname>.
revision A number that must be set to 1 when the source package is created, or updated to a new upstream version. This should only be increased when the generated binary packages have been modified.
short_desc A string with a brief description for this package. Max 72 chars.
version A string with the package version. Must not contain dashes or underscore and at least one digit is required. Using bash's pattern substitution and prefix and suffix matching isn't supported, since this field needs to be parsed by xbps-checkvers(1). Using variables in this field should be avoided.

Neither pkgname or version should contain special characters which make it necessary to quote them, so they shouldn't be quoted in the template.

Optional variables

hostmakedepends The list of host dependencies required to build the package, and that will be installed to the master directory. There is no need to specify a version because the current version in srcpkgs will always be required. Example: hostmakedepends="foo blah".
makedepends The list of target dependencies required to build the package, and that will be installed to the master directory. There is no need to specify a version because the current version in srcpkgs will always be required. Example: makedepends="foo blah".
checkdepends The list of dependencies required to run the package checks, i.e. the script or make rule specified in the template's do_check() function. Example: checkdepends="gtest".
depends The list of dependencies required to run the package. These dependencies are not installed to the master directory, rather are only checked if a binary package in the local repository exists to satisfy the required version. Dependencies can be specified with the following version comparators: <, >, <=, >= or foo-1.0_1 to match an exact version. If version comparator is not defined (just a package name), the version comparator is automatically set to >=0. Example: depends="foo blah>=1.0". See the Runtime dependencies section for more information.
bootstrap If enabled the source package is considered to be part of the bootstrap process and required to be able to build packages in the chroot. Only a small number of packages must set this property.
conflicts An optional list of packages conflicting with this package. Conflicts can be specified with the following version comparators: <, >, <=, >= or foo-1.0_1 to match an exact version. If version comparator is not defined (just a package name), the version comparator is automatically set to >=0. Example: conflicts="foo blah>=0.42.3".

distfiles The full URL to the upstream source distribution files. Multiple files can be separated by whitespaces. The files must end in .tar.lzma, .tar.xz, .txz, .tar.bz2, .tbz, .tar.gz, .tgz, .gz, .bz2, .tar or .zip. To define a target filename, append >filename to the URL. Example: distfiles="http://foo.org/foo-1.0.tar.gz http://foo.org/bar-1.0.tar.gz>bar.tar.gz"

To avoid repetition, several variables for common hosting sites exist:

Variable	Value
CPAN_SITE	https://cpan.perl.org/modules/by-module
DEBIAN_SITE	http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool
FREEDESKTOP_SITE	https://freedesktop.org/software
GNOME_SITE	https://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources
GNU_SITE	https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu
KERNEL_SITE	https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux
MOZILLA_SITE	https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub
NONGNU_SITE	https://download.savannah.nongnu.org/releases
PYPI_SITE	https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/source
SOURCEFORGE_SITE	https://downloads.sourceforge.net/sourceforge
UBUNTU_SITE	http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool
XORG_SITE	https://www.x.org/releases/individual
KDE_SITE	https://download.kde.org/stable

checksum The sha256 digests matching ${distfiles}. Multiple files can be separated by blanks. Please note that the order must be the same than was used in ${distfiles}. Example: checksum="kkas00xjkjas"

If a distfile changes its checksum for every download because it is packaged on the fly on the server, like e.g. snapshot tarballs from any of the https://*.googlesource.com/ sites, the checksum of the archive contents can be specified by prepending a commercial at (@). For tarballs you can find the contents checksum by using the command tar xf <tarball.ext> --to-stdout | sha256sum.

wrksrc The directory name where the package sources are extracted, by default set to ${pkgname}-${version}. If the top level directory of a package's distfile is different from the default, wrksrc must be set to the top level directory name inside the archive.
build_wrksrc A directory relative to ${wrksrc} that will be used when building the package.
create_wrksrc Enable it to create the ${wrksrc} directory. Required if a package contains multiple distfiles.
build_style This specifies the build method for a package. Read below to know more about the available package build methods or effect of leaving this not set.
build_helper Whitespace-separated list of files in common/build-helper to be sourced and its variables be made available on the template. i.e. build_helper="rust".
configure_script The name of the configure script to execute at the configure phase if ${build_style} is set to configure or gnu-configure build methods. By default set to ./configure.
configure_args The arguments to be passed in to the configure script if ${build_style} is set to configure or gnu-configure build methods. By default, prefix must be set to /usr. In gnu-configure packages, some options are already set by default: --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --infodir=/usr/share/info --mandir=/usr/share/man --localstatedir=/var.
make_cmd The executable to run at the build phase if ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile build methods. By default set to make.
make_build_args The arguments to be passed in to ${make_cmd} at the build phase if ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile build methods. Unset by default.
make_check_args The arguments to be passed in to ${make_cmd} at the check phase if ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile build methods. Unset by default.
make_install_args The arguments to be passed in to ${make_cmd} at the install-destdir phase if ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile build methods. By default set to PREFIX=/usr DESTDIR=${DESTDIR}.
make_build_target The build target. If ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile, this is the target passed to ${make_cmd} in the build phase; when unset, it defaults to all. If ${build_style} is python3-pep517, this is the path of the package directory that should be built as a Python wheel; when unset, defaults to . (the current directory with respect to the build).
make_check_target The target to be passed in to ${make_cmd} at the check phase if ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile build methods. By default set to check.
make_install_target The installation target. When ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile, this is the target passed to ${make_command} in the install phase; when unset, it defaults to install. If ${build_style} is python-pep517, this is the path of the Python wheel produced by the build phase that will be installed; when unset, the python-pep517 build style will look for a wheel matching the package name and version in the current directory with respect to the install.
patch_args The arguments to be passed in to the patch(1) command when applying patches to the package sources during do_patch(). Patches are stored in srcpkgs/<pkgname>/patches and must be in -p1 format. By default set to -Np1.
disable_parallel_build If set the package won't be built in parallel and XBPS_MAKEJOBS has no effect.
make_check Sets the cases in which the check phase is run. This option should usually be accompanied by a comment explaining why it was set, especially when set to no. Allowed values:
- yes (the default) to run if XBPS_CHECK_PKGS is set.
- extended to run if XBPS_CHECK_PKGS is full.
- ci-skip to run locally if XBPS_CHECK_PKGS is set, but not as part of pull request checks.
- no to never run.
keep_libtool_archives If enabled the GNU Libtool archives won't be removed. By default those files are always removed automatically.
skip_extraction A list of filenames that should not be extracted in the extract phase. This must match the basename of any url defined in ${distfiles}. Example: skip_extraction="foo-${version}.tar.gz".
nodebug If enabled -dbg packages won't be generated even if XBPS_DEBUG_PKGS is set.
conf_files A list of configuration files the binary package owns; this expects full paths, wildcards will be extended, and multiple entries can be separated by blanks. Example: conf_files="/etc/foo.conf /etc/foo2.conf /etc/foo/*.conf".
mutable_files A list of files the binary package owns, with the expectation that those files will be changed. These act a lot like conf_files but without the assumption that a human will edit them.
make_dirs A list of entries defining directories and permissions to be created at install time. Each entry should be space separated, and will itself contain spaces. make_dirs="/dir 0750 user group". User and group and mode are required on every line, even if they are 755 root root. By convention, there is only one entry of dir perms user group per line.
repository Defines the repository in which the package will be placed. See Repositories for a list of valid repositories.
nostrip If set, the ELF binaries with debugging symbols won't be stripped. By default all binaries are stripped.
nostrip_files White-space separated list of ELF binaries that won't be stripped of debugging symbols.
noshlibprovides If set, the ELF binaries won't be inspected to collect the provided sonames in shared libraries.
noverifyrdeps If set, the ELF binaries and shared libaries won't be inspected to collect their reverse dependencies. You need to specify all dependencies in the depends when you need to set this.
skiprdeps White space separated list of filenames specified by their absolute path in the $DESTDIR which will not be scanned for runtime dependencies. This may be useful to skip files which are not meant to be run or loaded on the host but are to be sent to some target device or emulation.
ignore_elf_files White space separated list of machine code files in /usr/share directory specified by absolute path, which are expected and allowed.
ignore_elf_dirs White space separated list of directories in /usr/share directory specified by absolute path, which are expected and allowed to contain machine code files.
nocross If set, cross compilation won't be allowed and will exit immediately. This should be set to a string describing why it fails, or a link to a buildlog (from the official builders, CI buildlogs can vanish) demonstrating the failure.
restricted If set, xbps-src will refuse to build the package unless etc/conf has XBPS_ALLOW_RESTRICTED=yes. The primary builders for Void Linux do not have this setting, so the primary repositories will not have any restricted package. This is useful for packages where the license forbids redistribution.
subpackages A white space separated list of subpackages (matching foo_package()) to override the guessed list. Only use this if a specific order of subpackages is required, otherwise the default would work in most cases.
broken If set, building the package won't be allowed because its state is currently broken. This should be set to a string describing why it is broken, or a link to a buildlog demonstrating the failure.
shlib_provides A white space separated list of additional sonames the package provides on. This appends to the generated file rather than replacing it.
shlib_requires A white space separated list of additional sonames the package requires. This appends to the generated file rather than replacing it.
nopie Only needs to be set to something to make active, disables building the package with hardening features (PIE, relro, etc). Not necessary for most packages.
nopie_files White-space seperated list of ELF binaries that won't be checked for PIE.
reverts xbps supports a unique feature which allows to downgrade from broken packages automatically. In the reverts field one can define a list of broken pkgver the resulting package should revert. This field must be defined before version and revision fields in order to work as expected. The versions defined in reverts must be bigger than the one defined in version. Example:
```
reverts="2.0_1 2.0_2"
version=1.9
revision=2
```
alternatives A white space separated list of supported alternatives the package provides. A list is composed of three components separated by a colon: group, symlink and target. Example: alternatives="vi:/usr/bin/vi:/usr/bin/nvi ex:/usr/bin/ex:/usr/bin/nvi-ex".
font_dirs A white space separated list of directories specified by an absolute path where a font package installs its fonts. It is used in the x11-fonts xbps-trigger to rebuild the font cache during install/removal of the package. Example: font_dirs="/usr/share/fonts/TTF /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
dkms_modules A white space separated list of Dynamic Kernel Module Support (dkms) modules that will be installed and removed by the dkms xbps-trigger with the install/removal of the package. The format is a white space separated pair of strings that represent the name of the module, most of the time pkgname, and the version of the module, most of the time version. Example: dkms_modules="$pkgname $version zfs 4.14"
register_shell A white space separated list of shells defined by absolute path to be registered into the system shells database. It is used by the register-shell trigger. Example: register_shell="/bin/tcsh /bin/csh"
tags A white space separated list of tags (categories) that are registered into the package metadata and can be queried with xbps-query by users. Example for qutebrowser: tags="browser chromium-based qt5 python3"
perl_configure_dirs A white space separate list of directories relative to wrksrc that contain Makefile.PL files that need to be processes for the package to work. It is used in the perl-module build_style and has no use outside of it. Example: perl_configure_dirs="blob/bob foo/blah"
preserve If set, files owned by the package in the system are not removed when the package is updated, reinstalled or removed. This is mostly useful for kernel packages that shouldn't remove the kernel files when they are removed in case it might break the user's booting and module loading. Otherwise in the majority of cases it should not be used.
fetch_cmd Executable to be used to fetch URLs in distfiles during the do_fetch phase.
archs Whitespace separated list of architectures that a package can be built for, available architectures can be found under common/cross-profiles. In general, archs should only be set if the upstream software explicitly targets certain architectures or there is a compelling reason why the software should not be available on some supported architectures. Examples:
```
# Build package only for musl architectures
archs="*-musl"
# Build package for x86_64-musl and any non-musl architecture
archs="x86_64-musl ~*-musl"
# Default value (all arches)
archs="*"
```

A special value noarch used to be available, but has since been removed.

About the many types of `depends` variables

So far, we have listed four types of depends variables: hostmakedepends, makedepends, checkdepends and depends. These different kinds of variables are necessary because xbps-src supports cross compilation and to avoid installing unecessary packages in the build environment.

During a build process, there are programs that must be run on the host, such as yacc or the C compiler. The packages that contain these programs should be listed in hostmakedepends, and will be installed on the host when building the target package. Some of these packages are dependencies of the base-chroot package and don't need to be listed. It is possible that some of the programs necessary to build a project are located in -devel packages.

The target package can also depend on other packages for libraries to link against or header files. These packages should be listed in makedepends and will match the target architecture, regardless of the architecture of the build machine. Typically, makedepends will contain mainly -devel packages.

Furthermore, if XBPS_CHECK_PKGS is set or the -Q option is passed to xbps-src, the target package might require specific dependencies or libraries that are linked into its test binaries to run its test suite. These dependencies should be listed in checkdepends and will be installed as if they were part of hostmakedepends. Some dependencies that can be included in checkdepends are:

dejagnu: used for some GNU projects
cmocka-devel: linked into test binaries
dbus: makes it possible to run dbus-run-session <test-command> to provide a D-Bus session for applications that need it
git: some test suites run the git command

Lastly, a package may require certain dependencies at runtime, without which it is unusable. These dependencies, when they aren't detected automatically by XBPS, should be listed in depends. This is mostly relevant for Perl and Python modules and other programs that use dlopen(3) instead of dynamically linking.

Finally, as a general rule, if a package is built the exact same way whether or not a particular package is present in makedepends or hostmakedepends, that package shouldn't be added as a build time dependency.

Repositories

Repositories defined by Branch

The global repository takes the name of the current branch, except if the name of the branch is master. Then the resulting repository will be at the global scope. The usage scenario is that the user can update multiple packages in a second branch without polluting his local repository.

Package defined Repositories

The second way to define a repository is by setting the repository variable in a template. This way the maintainer can define repositories for a specific package or a group of packages. This is currently used to distinguish between closed source packages, which are put in the nonfree repository and other packages which are at the root-repository.

The following repository names are valid:

nonfree: Repository for closed source packages.

Checking for new upstream releases

New upstream versions can be automatically checked using ./xbps-src update-check <pkgname>. In some cases you need to override the sensible defaults by assigning the following variables in a update file in the same directory as the relevant template file:

site contains the URL where the version number is mentioned. If unset, defaults to homepage and the directories where distfiles reside.
pkgname is the package name the default pattern checks for. If unset, defaults to pkgname from the template.
pattern is a perl-compatible regular expression matching the version number. Anchor the version number using \K and (?=...). Example: pattern='<b>\K[\d.]+(?=</b>)', this matches a version number enclosed in <b>...</b> tags.
ignore is a space-separated list of shell globs that match version numbers which are not taken into account for checking newer versions. Example: ignore="*b*"
version is the version number used to compare against upstream versions. Example: version=${version//./_}
single_directory can be set to disable detecting directory containing one version of sources in url, then searching new version in adjacent directories.
vdprefix is a perl-compatible regular expression matching part that precedes numeric part of version directory in url. Defaults to (|v|$pkgname)[-_.]*.
vdsuffix is a perl-compatible regular expression matching part that follows numeric part of version directory in url. Defaults to (|\.x).

Handling patches

Sometimes software needs to be patched, most commonly to fix bugs that have been found or to fix compilation with new software.

To handle this, xbps-src has patching functionality. It will look for all files that match the glob srcpkgs/$pkgname/patches/*.{diff,patch} and will automatically apply all files it finds using patch(1) with -Np1. This happens during the do_patch() phase. The variable PATCHESDIR is available in the template, pointing to the patches directory.

The patching behaviour can be changed in the following ways:

A file called series can be created in the patches directory with a newline separated list of patches to be applied in the order presented. When present xbps-src will only apply patches named in the series file.
A file with the same name as one of the patches but with .args as extension can be used to set the args passed to patch(1). As an example, if foo.patch requires special arguments to be passed to patch(1) that can't be used when applying other patches, foo.patch.args can be created containing those args.

build style scripts

The build_style variable specifies the build method to build and install a package. It expects the name of any available script in the void-packages/common/build-style directory. Please note that required packages to execute a build_style script must be defined via $hostmakedepends.

The current list of available build_style scripts is the following:

If build_style is not set, the template must (at least) define do_install() function and optionally more build phases such as do_configure(), do_build(), etc., and may overwrite default do_fetch() and do_extract() that fetch and extract files defined in distfiles variable.
cargo For packages written in rust that use Cargo for building. Configuration arguments (such as --features) can be defined in the variable configure_args and are passed to cargo during do_build.
cmake For packages that use the CMake build system, configuration arguments can be passed in via configure_args. The cmake_builddir variable may be defined to specify the directory for building under build_wrksrc instead of the default build.
configure For packages that use non-GNU configure scripts, at least --prefix=/usr should be passed in via configure_args.
fetch For packages that only fetch files and are installed as is via do_install().
gnu-configure For packages that use GNU configure scripts, additional configuration arguments can be passed in via configure_args.
gnu-makefile For packages that use GNU make, build arguments can be passed in via make_build_args and install arguments via make_install_args. The build target can be overridden via make_build_target and the install target via make_install_target. This build style tries to compensate for makefiles that do not respect environment variables, so well written makefiles, those that do such things as append (+=) to variables, should have make_use_env set in the body of the template.
go For programs written in Go that follow the standard package structure. The variable go_import_path must be set to the package's import path, e.g. github.com/github/hub for the hub program. This information can be found in the go.mod file for modern Go projects. It's expected that the distfile contains the package, but dependencies will be downloaded with go get.
meta For meta-packages, i.e packages that only install local files or simply depend on additional packages. This build style does not install dependencies to the root directory, and only checks if a binary package is available in repositories.
R-cran For packages that are available on The Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN). The build style requires the pkgname to start with R-cran- and any dashes (-) in the CRAN-given version to be replaced with the character r in the version variable. The distfiles location will automatically be set as well as the package made to depend on R.
gemspec For packages that use gemspec files for building a ruby gem and then installing it. The gem command can be overridden by gem_cmd. configure_args can be used to pass arguments during compilation. If your package does not make use of compiled extensions consider using the gem build style instead.
gem For packages that are installed using gems from RubyGems. The gem command can be overridden by gem_cmd. distfiles is set by the build style if the template does not do so. If your gem provides extensions which must be compiled consider using the gemspec build style instead.
ruby-module For packages that are ruby modules and are installable via ruby install.rb. Additional install arguments can be specified via make_install_args.
perl-ModuleBuild For packages that use the Perl Module::Build method.
perl-module For packages that use the Perl ExtUtils::MakeMaker build method.
raku-dist For packages that use the Raku raku-install-dist build method with rakudo.
waf3 For packages that use the Python3 waf build method with python3.
waf For packages that use the Python waf method with python2.
slashpackage For packages that use the /package hierarchy and package/compile to build, such as daemontools or any djb software.
qmake For packages that use Qt4/Qt5 qmake profiles (*.pro), qmake arguments for the configure phase can be passed in via configure_args, make build arguments can be passed in via make_build_args and install arguments via make_install_args. The build target can be overridden via make_build_target and the install target via make_install_target.
meson For packages that use the Meson Build system, configuration options can be passed via configure_args, the meson command can be overridden by meson_cmd and the location of the out of source build by meson_builddir
void-cross For cross-toolchain packages used to build Void systems. There are no mandatory variables (target triplet is inferred), but you can specify some optional ones - cross_gcc_skip_go can be specified to skip gccgo, individual subproject configure arguments can be specified via cross_*_configure_args where * is binutils, gcc_bootstrap (early gcc), gcc (final gcc), glibc (or musl), configure_args is additionally passed to both early and final gcc. You can also specify custom CFLAGS and LDFLAGS for the libc as cross_(glibc|musl)_(cflags|ldflags).

For packages that use the Python module build method (setup.py or PEP 517), you can choose one of the following:

python-module to build both Python 2.x and 3.x modules
python2-module to build Python 2.x only modules
python3-module to build Python 3.x only modules
python3-pep517 to build Python 3.x only modules that provide a PEP 517 build description without a setup.py script

Environment variables for a specific build_style can be declared in a filename matching the build_style name, Example:

`common/environment/build-style/gnu-configure.sh`

texmf For texmf zip/tarballs that need to go into /usr/share/texmf-dist. Includes duplicates handling.

build helper scripts

The build_helper variable specifies shell snippets to be sourced that will create a suitable environment for working with certain sets of packages.

The current list of available build_helper scripts is the following:

rust specifies environment variables required for cross-compiling crates via cargo and for compiling cargo -sys crates.
gir specifies dependencies for native and cross builds to deal with GObject Introspection. The following variables may be set in the template to handle cross builds which require additional hinting or exhibit problems. GIR_EXTRA_LIBS_PATH defines additional paths to be searched when linking target binaries to be introspected. GIR_EXTRA_OPTIONS defines additional options for the g-ir-scanner-qemuwrapper calling qemu-<target_arch>-static when running the target binary. You can for example specify GIR_EXTRA_OPTIONS="-strace" to see a trace of what happens when running that binary.
qemu sets additional variables for the cmake and meson build styles to allow executing cross-compiled binaries inside qemu. It sets CMAKE_CROSSCOMPILING_EMULATOR for cmake and exe_wrapper for meson to qemu-<target_arch>-static and QEMU_LD_PREFIX to XBPS_CROSS_BASE. It also creates the vtargetrun function to wrap commands in a call to qemu-<target_arch>-static for the target architecture.
qmake creates the qt.conf configuration file (cf. qmake build_style) needed for cross builds and a qmake-wrapper to make qmake use this configuration. This aims to fix cross-builds for when the build-style is mixed: e.g. when in a gnu-configure style the configure script calls qmake or a Makefile in gnu-makefile style, respectively.
cmake-wxWidgets-gtk3 sets the WX_CONFIG variable which is used by FindwxWidgets.cmake

Functions

The following functions can be defined to change the behavior of how the package is downloaded, compiled and installed.

pre_fetch() Actions to execute before do_fetch().
do_fetch() if defined and distfiles is not set, use it to fetch the required sources.
post_fetch() Actions to execute after do_fetch().
pre_extract() Actions to execute after post_fetch().
do_extract() if defined and distfiles is not set, use it to extract the required sources.
post_extract() Actions to execute after do_extract().
pre_patch() Actions to execute after post_extract().
do_patch() if defined use it to prepare the build environment and run hooks to apply patches.
post_patch() Actions to execute after do_patch().
pre_configure() Actions to execute after post_patch().
do_configure() Actions to execute to configure the package; ${configure_args} should still be passed in if it's a GNU configure script.
post_configure() Actions to execute after do_configure().
pre_build() Actions to execute after post_configure().
do_build() Actions to execute to build the package.
post_build() Actions to execute after do_build().
pre_install() Actions to execute after post_build().
do_install() Actions to execute to install the package files into the fake destdir.
post_install() Actions to execute after do_install().
do_clean() Actions to execute to clean up after a successful package phase.

A function defined in a template has preference over the same function defined by a build_style script.

Current working directory for functions is set as follows:

For pre_fetch, pre_extract, do_clean: <masterdir>.
For do_fetch, post_fetch: XBPS_BUILDDIR.
For do_extract, post_extract, pre_patch, do_patch, post_patch: wrksrc.
For pre_configure through post_install: build_wrksrc if it is defined, otherwise wrksrc.

Build options

Some packages might be built with different build options to enable/disable additional features; The XBPS source packages collection allows you to do this with some simple tweaks to the template file.

The following variables may be set to allow package build options:

build_options Sets the build options supported by the source package.
build_options_default Sets the default build options to be used by the source package.
desc_option_<option> Sets the description for the build option option. This must match the keyword set in build_options. Note that if the build option is generic enough, its description should be added to common/options.description instead.

After defining those required variables, you can check for the build_option_<option> variable to know if it has been set and adapt the source package accordingly. Additionally, the following functions are available:

vopt_if() vopt_if <option> <if_true> [<if_false>]

Outputs if_true if option is set, or if_false if it isn't set.
vopt_with() vopt_with <option> [<flag>]

Outputs --with-<flag> if the option is set, or --without-<flag> otherwise. If flag isn't set, it defaults to option.

Examples:
- vopt_with dbus
- vopt_with xml xml2
vopt_enable() vopt_enable <option> [<flag>]

Same as vopt_with, but uses --enable-<flag> and --disable-<flag> respectively.
vopt_conflict() vopt_conflict <option 1> <option 2>

Emits an error and exits if both options are set at the same time.
vopt_bool() vopt_bool <option> <property>

Outputs -D<property>=true if the option is set, or -D<property>=false otherwise.

The following example shows how to change a source package that uses GNU configure to enable a new build option to support PNG images:

# Template file for 'foo'
pkgname=foo
version=1.0
revision=1
build_style=gnu-configure
configure_args="... $(vopt_with png)"
makedepends="... $(vopt_if png libpng-devel)"
...

# Package build options
build_options="png"
desc_option_png="Enable support for PNG images"

# To build the package by default with the `png` option:
#
# build_options_default="png"

...

The supported build options for a source package can be shown with xbps-src:

$ ./xbps-src show-options foo

Build options can be enabled with the -o flag of xbps-src:

$ ./xbps-src -o option,option1 <cmd> foo

Build options can be disabled by prefixing them with ~:

$ ./xbps-src -o ~option,~option1 <cmd> foo

Both ways can be used together to enable and/or disable multiple options at the same time with xbps-src:

$ ./xbps-src -o option,~option1,~option2 <cmd> foo

The build options can also be shown for binary packages via xbps-query(8):

$ xbps-query -R --property=build-options foo

Permanent global package build options can be set via XBPS_PKG_OPTIONS variable in the etc/conf configuration file. Per package build options can be set via XBPS_PKG_OPTIONS_<pkgname>.

NOTE: if pkgname contains dashes, those should be replaced by underscores Example: XBPS_PKG_OPTIONS_xorg_server=opt.

The list of supported package build options and its description is defined in the common/options.description file.

Runtime dependencies

Dependencies for ELF objects are detected automatically by xbps-src, hence runtime dependencies must not be specified in templates via $depends with the following exceptions:

ELF objects using dlopen(3).
non ELF objects, i.e perl/python/ruby/etc modules.
Overriding the minimal version specified in the shlibs file.

The runtime dependencies for ELF objects are detected by checking which SONAMEs they require and then the SONAMEs are mapped to a binary package name with a minimal required version. The shlibs file in the void-packages/common directory sets up the <SONAME> <pkgname>>=<version> mappings.

For example the foo-1.0_1 package provides the libfoo.so.1 SONAME and software requiring this library will link to libfoo; the resulting binary package will have a run-time dependency to foo>=1.0_1 package as specified in common/shlibs:

# common/shlibs
...
libfoo.so.1 foo-1.0_1
...

The first field specifies the SONAME.
The second field specified the package name and minimal version required.
A third optional field (usually set to ignore) can be used to skip checks in soname bumps.

Dependencies declared via ${depends} are not installed to the master directory, rather are only checked if they exist as binary packages, and are built automatically by xbps-src if the specified version is not in the local repository.

As a special case, virtual dependencies may be specified as runtime dependencies in the ${depends} template variable. Several different packages can provide common functionality by declaring a virtual name and version in the ${provides} template variable (e.g., provides="vpkg-0.1_1"). Packages that rely on the common functionality without concern for the specific provider can declare a dependency on the virtual package name with the prefix virtual? (e.g., depends="virtual?vpkg-0.1_1"). When a package is built by xbps-src, providers for any virtual packages will be confirmed to exist and will be built if necessary. A map from virtual packages to their default providers is defined in etc/default.virtual. Individual mappings can be overridden by local preferences in etc/virtual. Comments in etc/default.virtual provide more information on this map.

INSTALL and REMOVE files

The INSTALL and REMOVE shell snippets can be used to execute certain actions at a specified stage when a binary package is installed, updated or removed. There are some variables that are always set by xbps when the scripts are executed:

$ACTION: to conditionalize its actions: pre or post.
$PKGNAME: the package name.
$VERSION: the package version.
$UPDATE: set to yes if package is being upgraded, no if package is being installed or removed.
$CONF_FILE: full path to xbps.conf.
$ARCH: the target architecture it is running on.

An example of how an INSTALL or REMOVE script shall be created is shown below:

# INSTALL
case "$ACTION" in
pre)
	# Actions to execute before the package files are unpacked.
	...
	;;
post)
	if [ "$UPDATE" = "yes" ]; then
		# actions to execute if package is being updated.
		...
	else
		# actions to execute if package is being installed.
		...
	fi
	;;
esac

subpackages can also have their own INSTALL and REMOVE files, simply create them as srcpkgs/<pkgname>/<subpkg>.INSTALL or srcpkgs/<pkgname>/<subpkg>.REMOVE respectively.

NOTE: always use paths relative to the current working directory, otherwise if the scripts cannot be executed via chroot(2) won't work correctly.

NOTE: do not use INSTALL/REMOVE scripts to print messages, see the next section for more information.

INSTALL.msg and REMOVE.msg files

The INSTALL.msg and REMOVE.msg files can be used to print a message at post-install or pre-remove time, respectively.

Ideally those files should not exceed 80 chars per line.

subpackages can also have their own INSTALL.msg and REMOVE.msg files, simply create them as srcpkgs/<pkgname>/<subpkg>.INSTALL.msg or srcpkgs/<pkgname>/<subpkg>.REMOVE.msg respectively.

Creating system accounts/groups at runtime

There's a trigger along with some variables that are specifically to create system users and groups when the binary package is being configured. The following variables can be used for this purpose:

system_groups This specifies the names of the new system groups to be created, separated by blanks. Optionally the gid can be specified by delimiting it with a colon, i.e system_groups="_mygroup:78" or system_groups="_foo _blah:8000".
system_accounts This specifies the names of the new system users/groups to be created, separated by blanks, i.e system_accounts="_foo _blah:22". Optionally the uid and gid can be specified by delimiting it with a colon, i.e system_accounts="_foo:48". Additional variables for the system accounts can be specified to change its behavior:
- <account>_homedir the home directory for the user. If unset defaults to /var/empty.
- <account>_shell the shell for the new user. If unset defaults to /sbin/nologin.
- <account>_descr the description for the new user. If unset defaults to <account> unprivileged user.
- <account>_groups additional groups to be added to for the new user.
- <account>_pgroup to set the primary group, by default primary group is set to <account>.

The system user is created by using a dynamically allocated uid/gid in your system and it's created as a system account, unless the uid is set. A new group will be created for the specified system account and used exclusively for this purpose.

System accounts and groups must be prefixed with an underscore to prevent clashing with names of user accounts.

NOTE: The underscore policy does not apply to old packages, due to the inevitable breakage of changing the username only new packages should follow it.

Writing runit services

Void Linux uses runit for booting and supervision of services.

Most information about how to write them can be found in their FAQ. The following are guidelines specific to Void Linux on how to write services.

If the service daemon supports CLI flags, consider adding support for changing it via the OPTS variable by reading a file called conf in the same directory as the daemon.

#!/bin/sh
[ -r conf ] && . ./conf
exec daemon ${OPTS:- --flag-enabled-by-default}

If the service requires the creation of a directory under /run or its link /var/run for storing runtime information (like Pidfiles) write it into the service file. It is advised to use install if you need to create it with specific permissions instead of mkdir -p.

#!/bin/sh
install -d -m0700 /run/foo
exec foo

#!/bin/sh
install -d -m0700 -o bar -g bar /run/bar
exec bar

If the service requires directories in parts of the system that are not generally in temporary filesystems. Then use the make_dirs variable in the template to create those directories when the package is installed.

32bit packages

32bit packages are built automatically when the builder is x86 (32bit), but there are some variables that can change the behavior:

lib32depends If this variable is set, dependencies listed here will be used rather than those detected automatically by xbps-src and depends. Please note that dependencies must be specified with version comparators, Example: lib32depends="foo>=0 blah<2.0".
lib32disabled If this variable is set, no 32bit package will be built.
lib32files Additional files to be added to the 32bit package. This expect absolute paths separated by blanks, Example: lib32files="/usr/bin/blah /usr/include/blah.".
lib32symlinks Makes a symlink of the target filename stored in the lib32 directory. This expects the basename of the target file, Example: lib32symlinks="foo".
lib32mode If unset, only shared/static libraries and pkg-config files will be copied to the 32bit package. If set to full all files will be copied to the 32bit package, unmodified.

Subpackages

In the example shown above just a binary package is generated, but with some simple tweaks multiple binary packages can be generated from a single template/build, this is called subpackages.

To create additional subpackages the template must define a new function with this naming: <subpkgname>_package(), Example:

# Template file for 'foo'
pkgname=foo
version=1.0
revision=1
build_style=gnu-configure
short_desc="A short description max 72 chars"
maintainer="name <email>"
license="GPL-3.0-or-later"
homepage="http://www.foo.org"
distfiles="http://www.foo.org/foo-${version}.tar.gz"
checksum="fea0a94d4b605894f3e2d5572e3f96e4413bcad3a085aae7367c2cf07908b2ff"

# foo-devel is a subpkg
foo-devel_package() {
	short_desc+=" - development files"
	depends="${sourcepkg}>=${version}_${revision}"
	pkg_install() {
		vmove usr/include
		vmove "usr/lib/*.a"
		vmove "usr/lib/*.so"
		vmove usr/lib/pkgconfig
	}
}

All subpackages need an additional symlink to the main pkg, otherwise dependencies requiring those packages won't find its template Example:

 /srcpkgs
  |- foo <- directory (main pkg)
  |  |- template
  |- foo-devel <- symlink to `foo`

The main package should specify all required build dependencies to be able to build all subpackages defined in the template.

An important point of subpackages is that they are processed after the main package has run its install phase. The pkg_install() function specified on them commonly is used to move files from the main package destdir to the subpackage destdir.

The helper functions vinstall, vmkdir, vcopy and vmove are just wrappers that simplify the process of creating, copying and moving files/directories between the main package destdir ($DESTDIR) to the subpackage destdir ($PKGDESTDIR).

Subpackages are processed always in alphabetical order; To force a custom order, the subpackages variable can be declared with the wanted order.

Development packages

A development package, commonly generated as a subpackage, shall only contain files required for development, that is, headers, static libraries, shared library symlinks, pkg-config files, API documentation or any other script that is only useful when developing for the target software.

A development package should depend on packages that are required to link against the provided shared libraries, i.e if libfoo provides the libfoo.so.2 shared library and the linking needs -lbar, the package providing the libbar shared library should be added as a dependency; and most likely it shall depend on its development package.

If a development package provides a pkg-config file, you should verify what dependencies the package needs for dynamic or static linking, and add the appropriate development packages as dependencies.

Development packages for the C and C++ languages usually vmove the following subset of files from the main package:

Header files usr/include
Static libraries usr/lib/*.a
Shared library symbolic links usr/lib/*.so
Cmake rules usr/lib/cmake usr/share/cmake
Package config files usr/lib/pkgconfig usr/share/pkgconfig
Autoconf macros usr/share/aclocal
Gobject introspection XML files usr/share/gir-1.0
Vala bindings usr/share/vala

Data packages

Another common subpackage type is the -data subpackage. This subpackage type used to split architecture independent, big(ger) or huge amounts of data from a package's main and architecture dependent part. It is up to you to decide, if a -data subpackage makes sense for your package. This type is common for games (graphics, sound and music), part libraries (CAD) or card material (maps). The main package must then have depends="${pkgname}-data-${version}_${revision}", possibly in addition to other, non-automatic depends.

Documentation packages

Packages intended for user interaction do not always unconditionally require their documentation part. A user who does not want to e.g. develop with Qt5 will not need to install the (huge) qt5-doc package. An expert may not need it or opt to use an online version.

In general a -doc package is useful, if the main package can be used both with or without documentation and the size of the documentation isn't really small. The base package and the -devel subpackage should be kept small so that when building packages depending on a specific package there is no need to install large amounts of documentation for no reason. Thus the size of the documentation part should be your guidance to decide whether or not to split off a -doc subpackage.

Python packages

Python packages should be built with the python{,2,3}-module build style, if possible. This sets some environment variables required to allow cross compilation. Support to allow building a python module for multiple versions from a single template is also possible. The python3-pep517 build style provides means to build python packages that provide a build-system definition compliant with PEP 517 without a traditional setup.py script. The python3-pep517 build style does not provide a specific build backend, so packages will need to add an appropriate backend provider to hostmakedepends.

Python packages that rely on python3-setuptools should generally map setup_requires dependencies in setup.py to hostmakedepends in the template and install_requires dependencies to depends in the template; include python3 in depends if there are no other python dependencies. If the package includes a compiled extension, the python3-devel packages should be added to makedepends, as should any python packages that also provide native libraries against which the extension will be linked (even if that package is also included in hostmakedepends to satisfy setuptools).

NB: Python setuptools will attempt to use pip or EasyInstall to fetch any missing dependencies at build time. If you notice warnings about EasyInstall deprecation or python eggs present in ${wrksrc}/.eggs after building the package, then those packages should be added to hostmakedepends.

The following variables may influence how the python packages are built and configured at post-install time:

pycompile_module: By default, files and directories installed into usr/lib/pythonX.X/site-packages, excluding *-info and *.so, are byte-compiled at install time as python modules. This variable expects subset of them that should be byte-compiled, if default is wrong. Multiple python modules may be specified separated by blanks, Example: pycompile_module="foo blah". If a python module installs a file into site-packages rather than a directory, use the name of the file, Example: pycompile_module="fnord.py".
pycompile_dirs: this variable expects the python directories that should be byte-compiled recursively by the target python version. This differs from pycompile_module in that any path may be specified, Example: pycompile_dirs="usr/share/foo".
python_version: this variable expects the supported Python major version. By default it's set to 2. This variable is needed for multi-language applications (e.g., the application is written in C while the command is written in Python) or just single Python file ones that live in /usr/bin.

NOTE: you need to define it only for non-Python modules.

Also, a set of useful variables are defined to use in the templates:

Variable	Value
py2_ver	2.X
py2_lib	usr/lib/python2.X
py2_sitelib	usr/lib/python2.X/site-packages
py2_inc	usr/include/python2.X
py3_ver	3.X
py3_lib	usr/lib/python3.X
py3_sitelib	usr/lib/python3.X/site-packages
py3_inc	usr/include/python3.Xm

NOTE: it's expected that additional subpkgs must be generated to allow packaging for multiple python versions.

Go packages

Go packages should be built with the go build style, if possible. The go build style takes care of downloading Go dependencies and setting up cross compilation.

The following template variables influence how Go packages are built:

go_import_path: The import path of the package included in the distfile, as it would be used with go get. For example, GitHub's hub program has the import path github.com/github/hub. This variable is required.
go_package: A space-separated list of import paths of the packages that should be built. Defaults to go_import_path.
go_build_tags: An optional, space-separated list of build tags to pass to Go.
go_mod_mode: The module download mode to use. May be off to ignore any go.mod files, default to use Go's default behavior, or anything accepted by go build -mod MODE. Defaults to vendor if there's a vendor directory, otherwise default.

The following environment variables influence how Go packages are built:

XBPS_MAKEJOBS: Value passed to the -p flag of go install, to control the parallelism of the Go compiler.

Occasionally it is necessary to perform operations from within the Go source tree. This is usually needed by programs using go-bindata or otherwise preping some assets. If possible do this in pre_build(). The path to the package's source inside $GOPATH is available as $GOSRCPATH.

Haskell packages

We build Haskell package using stack from Stackage, generally the LTS versions. Haskell templates need to have host dependencies on ghc and stack, and set build style to haskell-stack.

The following variables influence how Haskell packages are built:

stackage: The Stackage version used to build the package, e.g. lts-3.5. Alternatively:
- You can prepare a stack.yaml configuration for the project and put it into files/stack.yaml.
- If a stack.yaml file is present in the source files, it will be used
make_build_args: This is passed as-is to stack build ..., so you can add your --flag ... parameters there.

Font packages

Font packages are very straightforward to write, they are always set with the following variables:

depends="font-util": because they are required for regenerating the font cache during the install/removal of the package
font_dirs: which should be set to the directory where the package installs its fonts

Removing a package

Follows a list of things that should be done to help guarantee that a package template removal and by extension its binary packages from Void Linux's repositories goes smoothly.

Before removing a package template:

Guarantee that no package depends on it or any of its subpackages. For that you can search the templates for references to the package with grep -r '\bpkg\b' srcpkgs/.
Guarantee that no package depends on shlibs provided by it.

When removing the package template:

Remove all symlinks that point to the package. find srcpkgs/ -lname <pkg> should be enough.
If the package provides shlibs make sure to remove them from common/shlibs.
Some packages use patches and files from other packages using symlinks, generally those packages are the same but have been split as to avoid cyclic dependencies. Make sure that the package you're removing is not the source of those patches/files.
Remove package template.
Add pkgname<=version_revision to replaces variable of removed-packages template. All removed subpkgs should be added too. This will uninstall package from systems where it is installed.
Remove the package from the repository index or contact a team member that can do so.

XBPS Triggers

XBPS triggers are a collection of snippets of code, provided by the xbps-triggers package, that are added to the INSTALL/REMOVE scripts of packages either manually by setting the triggers variable in the template, or automatically, when specific conditions are met.

The following is a list of all available triggers, their current status, what each of them does and what conditions need to be for it to be included automatically on a package.

This is not a complete overview of the package. It is recommended to read the variables referenced and the triggers themselves.

appstream-cache

The appstream-cache trigger is responsible for rebuilding the appstream metadata cache.

During installation it executes appstreamcli refresh-cache --verbose --force --datapath $APPSTREAM_PATHS --cachepath var/cache/app-info/gv. By default APPSTREAM_PATHS are all the paths that appstreamcli will look into for metadata files.

The directories searched by appstreamcli are:

usr/share/appdata
usr/share/app-info
var/lib/app-info
var/cache/app-info

During removal of the AppStream package it will remove the var/cache/app-info/gv directory.

It is automatically added to packages that have XML files under one of the directories searched by appstreamcli.

binfmts

The binfmts trigger is responsible for registration and removal of arbitrary executable binary formats, know as binfmts.

During installation/removal it uses update-binfmts from the binfmt-support package to register/remove entries from the arbitrary executable binary formats database.

To include the trigger use the binfmts variable, as the trigger won't do anything unless it is defined.

dkms

The dkms trigger is responsible for compiling and removing dynamic kernel modules of a package.

During installation the trigger compiles and installs the dynamic module for all linux packages that have their corresponding linux-headers package installed. During removal the corresponding module will be removed

To include the trigger use the dkms_modules variable, as the trigger won't do anything unless it is defined.

gconf-schemas

The gconf-schemas trigger is responsible for registering and removing .schemas and .entries files into the schemas database directory

During installation it uses gconftool-2 to install .schemas and .entries files into usr/share/gconf/schemas. During removal it uses gconftool-2 to remove the entries and schemas belonging to the package that is being removed from the database.

To include it add gconf-schemas to triggers and add the appropriate .schemas in the gconf_schemas variable and .entries in gconf_entries.

It is automatically added to packages that have /usr/share/gconf/schemas present as a directory. All files with the schemas file extension under that directory are passed to the trigger.

gdk-pixbuf-loaders

The gdk-pixbuf-loaders trigger is responsible for maintaining the GDK Pixbuf loaders cache.

During installation it runs gdk-pixbuf-query-loaders --update-cache and also deletes the obsolete etc/gtk-2.0/gdk-pixbuf.loaders file if present. During removal of the gdk-pixbuf package it removes the cache file if present. Normally at usr/lib/gdk-pixbuf-2.0/2.10.0/loaders.cache.

It can be added by defining gdk-pixbuf-loaders in the triggers variable. It is also added automatically to any package that has the path usr/lib/gdk-pixbuf-2.0/2.10.0/loaders available as a directory.

gio-modules

The gio-modules trigger is responsible for updating the Glib GIO module cache with gio-querymodules from the glib package

During install and removal it just runs gio-querymodules to update the cache file present under usr/lib/gio/modules.

It is automatically added to packages that have /usr/lib/gio/modules present as a directory.

gsettings-schemas

The gsettings-schemas trigger is responsible for compiling Glib's GSettings XML schema files during installation and removing the compiled files during removal.

During installation it uses glib-compile-schemas from glib to compile the schemas into files with the suffix .compiled into /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas.

During removal of the glib package it deletes all files inside /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas that end with .compiled.

It is automatically added to packages that have /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas present as a directory.

gtk-icon-cache

The gtk-icon-cache trigger is responsible for updating the gtk+ icon cache.

During installation it uses gtk-update-icon-cache to update the icon cache.

During removal of the gtk+ package it deletes the icon-theme.cache file in the directories defined by the variable gtk_iconcache_dirs.

It is automatically added on packages that have /usr/share/icons available as a directory, all directories under that directory have their absolute path passed to the trigger.

gtk-immodules

The gtk-immodules trigger is responsible for updating the IM (Input Method) modules file for gtk+.

During installation it uses gtk-query-immodules-2.0 --update-cache to update the cache file. It also removes the obsolete configuration file etc/gtk-2.0/gtk.immodules if present.

During removal of the gtk+ package it removes the cache file which is located at usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules.cache.

It is automatically added to packages that have /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules present as a directory.

gtk-pixbuf-loaders

gtk-pixbuf-loaders is the old name for the current gdk-pixbuf-loaders trigger and is in the process of being removed. It currently re-execs into gdk-pixbuf-loaders as a compatibility measure.

For information about how it works refer to gdk-pixbuf-loaders.

gtk3-immodules

The gtk3-immodules trigger is responsible for updating the IM (Input Method) modules file for gtk+3.

During installation it executes gtk-query-immodules-3.0 --update-cache to update the cache file. It also removes the obsolete configuration file etc/gtk-3.0/gtk.immodules if present.

During removal of the gtk+3 package it removes the cache file which is located at usr/lib/gtk-3.0/3.0.0/immodules.cache.

It is automatically added to packages that have /usr/lib/gtk-3.0/3.0.0/immodules present as a directory.

hwdb.d-dir

The hwdb.d-dir trigger is responsible for updating the hardware database.

During installation and removal it runs usr/bin/udevadm hwdb --root=. --update.

It is automatically added to packages that have /usr/lib/udev/hwdb.d present as a directory.

info-files

The info-files trigger is responsible for registering and unregistering the GNU info files of a package.

It checks the existence of the info files presented to it and if it is running under another architecture.

During installation it uses install-info to register info files into usr/share/info.

During removal it uses install-info --delete to remove the info files from the registry located at usr/share/info.

If it is running under another architecture it tries to use the host's install-info utility.

initramfs-regenerate

The initramfs-regenerate trigger will trigger the regeneration of all kernel initramfs images after package installation or removal. The trigger must be manually requested.

This hook is probably most useful for DKMS packages because it will provide a means to include newly compiled kernel modules in initramfs images for all currently available kernels. When used in a DKMS package, it is recommended to manually include the dkms trigger before the initramfs-regenerate trigger using, for example,

```
triggers="dkms initramfs-regenerate"
```

Although xbps-src will automatically include the dkms trigger whenever dkms_modules is installed, the automatic addition will come after initramfs-regenerate, which will cause initramfs images to be recreated before the modules are compiled.

By default, the trigger uses dracut --regenerate-all to recreate initramfs images. If /etc/defalt/initramfs-regenerate exists and defines INITRAMFS_GENERATOR=mkinitcpio, the trigger will instead use mkinitcpio and loop over all kernel versions for which modules appear to be installed. Alternatively, setting INITRAMFS_GENERATOR=none will disable image regeneration entirely.

kernel-hooks

The kernel-hooks trigger is responsible for running scripts during installation/removal of kernel packages.

The available targets are pre-install, pre-remove, post-install and post-remove.

When run it will try to run all executables found under etc/kernel.d/$TARGET. The TARGET variable is one of the 4 targets available for the trigger. It will also create the directory if it isn't present.

During updates it won't try to run any executables when running with the pre-remove target.

It is automatically added if the helper variable kernel_hooks_version is defined. However it is not obligatory to have it defined.

mimedb

The mimedb trigger is responsible for updating the shared-mime-info database.

In all runs it will just execute update-mime-database -n usr/share/mime.

It is automatically added to packages that have /usr/share/mime available as a directory.

mkdirs

The mkdirs trigger is responsible for creating and removing directories dictated by the make_dirs variable.

During installation it takes the make_dirs variable and splits it into groups of 4 variables.

dir = full path to the directory
mode = Unix permissions for the directory
uid = name of the owning user
gid = name of the owning group

It will continue to split the values of make_dirs into groups of 4 until the values end.

During installation it will create a directory with dir then set mode with mode and permission with uid:gid.

During removal it will delete the directory using rmdir.

To include this trigger use the make_dirs variable, as the trigger won't do anything unless it is defined.

pango-modules

The pango-modules trigger is currently being removed since upstream has removed the code responsible for it.

It used to update the pango modules file with pango-modulesquery during installation of any package.

Currently it removes etc/pango/pango.modules file during removal of the pango package.

It can be added by defining pango-modules in the triggers variable and has no way to get added automatically to a package.

pycompile

The pycompile trigger is responsible for compiling python code into native bytecode and removing generated bytecode.

During installation it will compile all python code under the paths it is given by pycompile_dirs and all modules described in pycompile_module into native bytecode and update the ldconfig(8) cache.

During removal it will remove all the native bytecode and update the ldconfig(8) cache.

To include this trigger use the variables pycompile_dirs and pycompile_module. The trigger won't do anything unless at least one of those variables is defined.

A python_version variable can be set to direct behaviour of the trigger.

register-shell

The register-shell trigger is responsible for registering and removing shell entries into etc/shells.

During installation it will append the etc/shells file with the new shell and also change the permissions to 644 on the file.

During removal it will use sed to delete the shell from the file.

To include this trigger use the register_shell variable, as the trigger won't do anything unless it is defined.

system-accounts

The system-accounts trigger is responsible for creating and disabling system accounts and groups.

During removal it will disable the account by setting the Shell to /bin/false, Home to /var/empty, and appending ' - for uninstalled package $pkgname' to the Description. Example: transmission unprivileged user - for uninstalled package transmission

This trigger can only be used by using the system_accounts variable.

texmf-dist

The texmf-dist trigger is responsible for regenerating TeXLive's texmf databases.

During both installation and removal, it regenerates both the texhash and format databases using texhash and fmtutil-sys, to add or remove any new hashes or formats.

It runs on every package that changes /usr/share/texmf-dist. This is likely overkill, but it is much cleaner rather than checking each format directory and each directory that is hashed. In addition, it is very likely any package touching /usr/share/texmf-dist requires one of these triggers anyway.

update-desktopdb

The update-desktopdb trigger is responsible for updating the system's MIME database.

During installation it will execute update-desktop-database usr/share/applications which will result in a cache file being created at usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache.

During removal of the desktop-file-utils package it will remove the cache file that was created during installation.

It is automatically added to packages that have /usr/share/applications available as a directory.

x11-fonts

The x11-fonts trigger is responsible for rebuilding the fonts.dir and fonts.scale files for packages that install X11 fonts, and update fontconfig's cache for these fonts.

During installation and removal it executes mkfontdir, mkfontscale and fc-cache for all font directories it was given via the font_dirs variable.

To include this trigger use the font_dirs variable, as the trigger won't do anything unless it is defined.

xml-catalog

The xml-catalog trigger is responsible for registering and removing SGML/XML catalog entries.

During installation it uses xmlcatmgr to register all catalogs, passed to it by the sgml_entries and xml_entries variables, in usr/share/sgml/catalog and usr/share/xml/catalog respectively.

During removal it uses xmlcatmgr to remove all catalogs passed to it by the sgml_entries and xml_entries variables, in usr/share/sgml/catalog and usr/share/xml/catalog respectively.

To include this trigger use the sgml_entries variable or/and the xml_entries variable, as the trigger won't do anything unless either of them are defined.

Void specific documentation

When you want document details of package's configuration and usage specific to Void Linux, not covered by upstream documentation, put notes into srcpkgs/<pkgname>/files/README.voidlinux and install with vdoc "${FILESDIR}/README.voidlinux".

Notes

Make sure that all software is configured to use the /usr prefix.
Binaries should always be installed at /usr/bin.
Manual pages should always be installed at /usr/share/man.
If a software provides shared libraries and headers, probably you should create a development package that contains headers, static libraries and other files required for development (not required at runtime).
If you are updating a package please be careful with SONAME bumps, check the installed files (./xbps-src show-files pkg) before pushing new updates.
Make sure that binaries are not stripped by the software, let xbps-src do this; otherwise the debug packages won't have debugging symbols.

Contributing via git

To get started, fork the void-linux void-packages git repository on GitHub and clone it:

$ git clone git@github.com:<user>/void-packages.git

See CONTRIBUTING.md for information on how to format your commits and other tips for contributing.

Once you've made changes to your forked repository, submit a github pull request.

To keep your forked repository always up to date, setup the upstream remote to pull in new changes:

$ git remote add upstream git://github.com/void-linux/void-packages.git
$ git pull --rebase upstream master

Help

If after reading this manual you still need some kind of help, please join us at #xbps via IRC at irc.libera.chat.

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