From owner-freebsd-ports Sun Jan 18 19:59:33 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id TAA19333 for freebsd-ports-outgoing; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 19:59:33 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from hwcn.org (ac199@james.hwcn.org [199.212.94.66]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id TAA19325 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 19:59:28 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from ac199@hwcn.org) Received: from localhost (ac199@localhost) by hwcn.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id WAA14363; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 22:55:53 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 22:55:52 -0500 (EST) From: Tim Vanderhoek To: John Fieber cc: Warner Losh , ports@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Docs for bsd.ports.mk In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Sun, 18 Jan 1998, John Fieber wrote: > On Sun, 18 Jan 1998, Warner Losh wrote: > > > Is it time to expand the docs for bsd.ports.mk? > > You mean beyond what www.freebsd.org/handbook/porting.html > provides? Which is wonderful if you're writing a port. However, for the generic user of the ports system, there is nothing which serves as a reference document. There is a section of the handbook which explains how the system works, but a tutorial != a reference (would one like having to read a tutorial on grep everytime one wanted a quick reference for the -w option?) A manpage documenting things such as the purpose of ECHO_MSG, NOCLEANDEPENDS, BATCH, etc. would be great! If you grab some of the stuff from the ports.sgml of the handbook (and trim it down respectively), that would be a good start. The http://www.handbook.porting/html probably has little that would be useful (like using a C manual to explain how to use vi). Questions such as "How do I avoid cleaning dependencies?" are becoming more common and wouldn't be necessary with an appropriate and concise manpage. That said, once you've studied bsd.port.mk for a while, the whole ports system takes on a new level of sex appeal, and we wouldn't want to discourage new users from realizing that potential. ;-) -- Outnumbered? Maybe. Outspoken? Never! tIM...HOEk