From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Mar 12 22:12:37 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8B72E106564A for ; Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:12:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from corky1951@comcast.net) Received: from qmta13.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net (qmta13.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net [76.96.59.243]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4916D8FC26 for ; Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:12:37 +0000 (UTC) Received: from omta14.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.62.60]) by qmta13.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id JNCc1g0021HzFnQ5DNCdV1; Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:12:37 +0000 Received: from comcast.net ([98.203.142.76]) by omta14.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id JNCb1g00V1f6R9u3aNCcsB; Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:12:37 +0000 Received: by comcast.net (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Sat, 12 Mar 2011 14:12:34 -0800 Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 14:12:34 -0800 From: Charlie Kester To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20110312221233.GD79028@comcast.net> Mail-Followup-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org References: <4D76426A.2010006@secnap.com> <20110312215307.GB26099@lonesome.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20110312215307.GB26099@lonesome.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i X-Mailer: Mutt 1.4.2.3i X-Composer: Vim 7.3 Subject: Re: Superfluous dependencies 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: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:12:37 -0000 On Sat 12 Mar 2011 at 13:53:07 PST Mark Linimon wrote: >On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 10:28:40AM +0100, Hans Ottevanger wrote: >> If anybody is interested I could consolidate my results and post a few patches. > >I would like to see them. > >This is the kind of really-dull-but-necessary work that we need to have >people work on to fight the creeping dependencies :-) A few minutes ago, I was answering a post on the forums, in which a user expressed surprise (and outrage) that the phpmyadmin port was installing libX11 and similar things on his server. By installing it myself and then using "pkg_tree -v" to examine the dependencies, I was able to narrow it down to two of the port's options that were ON by default. I'm not aware of any tool that will display a similar dependency tree for a port *before* it is installed. "make all-depends-list" creates exactly what it suggests, a list, and doesn't show any of the hierarchical info that is needed to answer questions like the one I was working on. If there is such a tool, I'd love to hear about it. Otherwise, it might be an interesting and useful project for someone to take a stab at.