# Separate REQUIRE for deps/build.jl

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/separate-require-for-deps-build-jl/2172>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Tags:** package\
**Created:** [February 18, 2017, 3:06pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/separate-require-for-deps-build-jl/2172 "2017-02-18T15:06:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ScottPJones](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/scottpjones/32/146_2.png) [@ScottPJones](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ScottPJones)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 3:06pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/separate-require-for-deps-build-jl/2172/1 "2017-02-18T15:06:31Z")

</div>

I’m not sure if this has already been thought about for the Pkg3 design, however, it would be very useful for the current Pkg to allow having addition requirements for `deps/build.jl` to be in a `deps/REQUIRE`, in the same way that it is possible to have a `test/REQUIRE` for `runtests.jl` for a package.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![djsegal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/djsegal/32/13752_2.png) [@djsegal](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/djsegal)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 4:38pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/separate-require-for-deps-build-jl/2172/2 "2017-02-19T16:38:57Z")

</div>

This seems intimately related to [Different requirements for packages, using, building, and testing](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/different-requirements-for-packages-using-building-and-testing/2170)

* * *

I just don’t think it seems very DRY to have N `REQUIRE` files for the different ways you want to run your code.

Why not just one REQUIRE file with environment specifications built in?

Then you don’t have to keep moving code to different files every time you want to slide packages around

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ScottPJones](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/scottpjones/32/146_2.png) [@ScottPJones](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ScottPJones)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 6:10pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/separate-require-for-deps-build-jl/2172/3 "2017-02-19T18:10:34Z")

</div>

I’m not saying that having separate REQUIRE files is the best way, but that’s currently all that I think might be possible easily with the current (Pkg2) system.

Hopefully there would be a cleaner & more performant way of handling these issues with Pkg3, whenever that is ready.