From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 26 09:54:32 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AEF6E1065674 for ; Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:54:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@parodius.com) Received: from mx01.sc1.parodius.com (mx01.sc1.parodius.com [72.20.106.3]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A1FC78FC17 for ; Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:54:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@parodius.com) Received: by mx01.sc1.parodius.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id B18181CC060; Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:38:58 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:38:58 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick To: Andrew Reilly Message-ID: <20080326093858.GA78756@eos.sc1.parodius.com> References: <20080326053328.GA29448@duncan.reilly.home> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20080326053328.GA29448@duncan.reilly.home> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.17 (2007-11-01) Cc: ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: There is no way to know what port options mean (in general) X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:54:32 -0000 On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 04:33:28PM +1100, Andrew Reilly wrote: > "make config" in many port directories produces an interactive > dialog where one may select various make environment variables > to be set. There is a one line description of each flag, to help > one make this selection. Unfortunately, in many situations, this > description is unhelpful, as flag FOO will have description "foo > support", or possiblly "libfoo support". Unless one is fairly > well familiar with both the package and the libraries, one can > not readily know what the implications of setting these controls > one way or the other is. What you want is something like what some ports offer (but it's a per-port thing): "make showconfig", which describes all the available knobs in detail. I'm not saying what you want is unreasonable -- it's very reasonable. But there's no existing ports framework for documenting OPTIONS features in verbose detail for all ports which use OPTIONS. At this time it's a "per port" thing, and up to the port maintainer. Solving this problem: I don't agree with something like a pkg-options-descr file in each port, because that drastically increases the number of inodes used on the filesystem. Simultaneously, sticking long and verbose texts inside of the Makefile only clutters things. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |