On 2008-09-23 22:19, Zooko O'Whielacronx wrote:
> Zooko O'Whielacronx <zooko@zooko.com> added the comment:
> 
>> Because that's exactly what lsb_release does as well.

I have to correct that: lsb_release will only look at the other
release files in case it doesn't already enough information from
the lsb-release file.

> You must know something about common lsb_release implementations that I
> don't.  As far as I saw in the LSB documentation, it is required to
> print out information in a certain format, but how it is implemented is
> totally up to the distribution in question.

Just do a "man lsb_release" or look at the lsb_release shell script.

> You give examples of SuSE and Fedora as not having /etc/lsb-release
> files,

Fedora doesn't have that file, so lsb_release has to read the results
from /etc/fedora-release. SuSE does, but doesn't override
the default set in /etc/SuSE-release.

> and I'm sure you are right, but I happen to know that both of
> them have compliant lsb_release executables (and that they have had for
> many releases).  So, the patch that I've submitted will definitely work
> correctly for those two distributions, although it will pay the price of
> having to spawn a subprocess and then wait for the lsb_release
> executable to do its work (however it does it).
> 
> However, presumably your SuSE- and Fedora- specific techniques will give
> correct answers on those platforms faster than the generic lsb_release
> would.

Yep and the same is true for all other _supported_dists. I always try
to avoid spawning external processes whenever I can.