From owner-freebsd-ports  Mon Aug 28 00:45:26 1995
Return-Path: ports-owner
Received: (from majordom@localhost)
          by freefall.FreeBSD.org (8.6.11/8.6.6) id AAA07438
          for ports-outgoing; Mon, 28 Aug 1995 00:45:26 -0700
Received: from silvia.HIP.Berkeley.EDU (silvia.HIP.Berkeley.EDU [136.152.64.181])
          by freefall.FreeBSD.org (8.6.11/8.6.6) with ESMTP id AAA07427
          ; Mon, 28 Aug 1995 00:45:23 -0700
Received: (from asami@localhost) by silvia.HIP.Berkeley.EDU (8.6.12/8.6.9) id AAA03593; Mon, 28 Aug 1995 00:45:20 -0700
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 00:45:20 -0700
Message-Id: <199508280745.AAA03593@silvia.HIP.Berkeley.EDU>
To: paul@freebsd.org
CC: paul@freebsd.org, ports@freebsd.org
In-reply-to: <199508271225.NAA00628@server.netcraft.co.uk> (message from Paul Richards on Sun, 27 Aug 1995 13:25:32 +0100 (BST))
Subject: Re: Dependencies
From: asami@cs.berkeley.edu (Satoshi Asami)
Sender: ports-owner@freebsd.org
Precedence: bulk

 * Can't we use the pkg* interface to find out if a package is installed or
 * not? It's much more robust thatn relying on the path being set properly
 * for all users who might try and install a port.

That is possible, but I thought it would be more robust to use "which"
because we don't know if the user installed the dependency via pkg_add
or the ports' "make install".  Note that pkg_info looks only at
/var/db/pkg.

Also, many ports actually invoke these things during compilation
and/or installation, so if it's not in the search path, you are dead
anyway. :<

Satoshi