getting rid of GObject Introspection, vala

[xanderal]

Hej,
can anyone explain to my what GObject Introspection and vala do for me? I found this forum topic from 2011 and read a few articles on it but I'm still not sure why I would want this installed on my system...
I have USE="-gtk -gnome" - so why wouldn't I add -introspection and/or -vala to the mix?
Thanks in advance.

[charles17]

No problem here with

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# Global USE flags
*/* -bluetooth -dbus -introspection -ldap -libnotify -nls -pam -udisks

But

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Calculating dependencies... done!
  dev-libs/gobject-introspection-common-1.60.2 pulled in by:
    gnome-base/librsvg-2.40.20 requires dev-libs/gobject-introspection-common
    x11-libs/gtk+-2.24.32-r1 requires dev-libs/gobject-introspection-common
    x11-libs/gtk+-3.24.10 requires dev-libs/gobject-introspection-common

There is an unconditional DEPEND on it in

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DEPEND="${RDEPEND}
	dev-libs/gobject-introspection-common
	dev-libs/vala-common

[Anon-E-moose]

Yeah, they pull in gobject-introspection-common even when gobject-introspection is a choice, it's stupid but it's the way the devs have been doing it.
Although all it really installs is

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/usr/share/aclocal/introspection.m4
/usr/share/gobject-introspection-1.0/Makefile.introspection

Having said that, I have gnome and introspection use flags set off globally, I don't worry about vala, because not a lot of packages use it and have it set on.

For the original question, introspection and vala are used by (mostly) gnome packages. So if you're not running gnome, you can global block those.

[xanderal]

Thanks for your answers. I went ahead and added -introspection -vala. As you already mentioned I couldn't yet rid my system completely off these things.
But I still don't know what it really does for me (regardless of whether or not I can completely remove it or use it or whatever) - in the topic I referenced above:

But, do you know if there's something concrete that introspection has done for the users, or something that's going to provide soon or in a middle term? Is it maybe aimed to bring the mainstream desktops closer than ever and make them more compatible i.e. to reuse widgets, applets, etc. from one in the others? Is it something that adds options or functionality to gtk+ or glib based applications automatically?
[...]
Or is it just a thing for the programmers?

Did something along those lines change in the last 8 years?

[Anon-E-moose]

Well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GObject#G ... rospection

Depending only on GLib and libc, GObject is a cornerstone of GNOME and is used throughout GTK, Pango, ATK, and most higher-level GNOME libraries like GStreamer and applications. Prior to GTK+ 2.0, code similar to GObject was part of the GTK codebase. (The name “GObject” was not yet in use — the common baseclass was called GtkObject.)

At the release of GTK+ 2.0, the object system was extracted into a separate library due to its general utility. In the process, most non-GUI-specific parts of the GtkObject class were moved up into GObject, the new common baseclass. Having existed as a separate library since March 11, 2002 (the release date of GTK+ 2.0), the GObject library is now used by many non-GUI programs such as command-line and server applications.

Although I've never had it on, on any system of mine, and all packages still run fine, though I don't run much gnome stuff.

[trickygnome]

I faced bug when compiling "dev-libs/gobject-introspection" with python_single_target_python3_12
So I just disabled it at globally with this:

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USE="-introspection"

and in file "/etc/portage/package.use/notmuch" I set:

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dev-libs/gmime -vala

But I got error for "dev-libs/gmime-3.2.14" that I need for Notmuch to work[/quote]:

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Couldn't find include 'GObject-2.0.gir' (search path: '['.', '/var/tmp/portage/dev-libs/gmime-3.2.14/homedir/.local/share/gir-1.0', 'gir-1.0', '/usr/local/share/gir-1.0', '/usr/share/gir-1.0', '/usr/share/gir-1.0', '/usr/share/gir-1.0', '/usr/share/gir-1.0']')
make[3]: *** [/usr/share/gobject-introspection-1.0/Makefile.introspection:156: GMime-3.0.gir] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory '/var/tmp/portage/dev-libs/gmime-3.2.14/work/gmime-3.2.14/gmime'
make[2]: *** [Makefile:1020: all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/var/tmp/portage/dev-libs/gmime-3.2.14/work/gmime-3.2.14/gmime'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:539: all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/var/tmp/portage/dev-libs/gmime-3.2.14/work/gmime-3.2.14'
make: *** [Makefile:446: all] Error 2
 * ERROR: dev-libs/gmime-3.2.14::gentoo failed (compile phase):
 *   emake failed
 *
 * If you need support, post the output of `emerge --info '=dev-libs/gmime-3.2.14::gentoo'`,
 * the complete build log and the output of `emerge -pqv '=dev-libs/gmime-3.2.14::gentoo'`.
 * The complete build log is located at '/var/tmp/portage/dev-libs/gmime-3.2.14/temp/build.log'.
 * The ebuild environment file is located at '/var/tmp/portage/dev-libs/gmime-3.2.14/temp/environment'.
 * Working directory: '/var/tmp/portage/dev-libs/gmime-3.2.14/work/gmime-3.2.14'
 * S: '/var/tmp/portage/dev-libs/gmime-3.2.14/work/gmime-3.2.14'

I unmerged notmuch, made full update and after that gmime installed without errors with notmuch.
Happy ending.