Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 17:37:38 +0000 From: RW <fbsd06@mlists.homeunix.com> To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: DEPENDS -- is it time to remove it? Message-ID: <20070105173738.2f4d86c4@gumby.homeunix.com> In-Reply-To: <459D08CA.7060104@infracaninophile.co.uk> References: <459D08CA.7060104@infracaninophile.co.uk>
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On Thu, 04 Jan 2007 14:01:46 +0000 Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> wrote: > > Dear all, > > The ports make infrastructure has a whole series of variables for > showing how one port depends on another: LIB_DEPENDS, BUILD_DEPENDS, > RUN_DEPENDS etc. Amongst these is what looks to me like the > vestigial remnant of an earlier phase of the ports: the plain, > unmodified 'DEPENDS' variable. > > This seems to have an effect apparently like all of the other DEPENDS > variants rolled together, but unlike the others you can't give it a > filename or a shlib to use as a test that whatever it references has > been installed, so it always causes its target to be installed. > > The Porter's Handbook says (Section 5.7.10): > > "Do not use DEPENDS unless there is no other way the behaviour you > want can be accomplished. It will cause the other port to always be > built (and installed, by default), and the dependency will go into the > packages as well. If this is really what you need, you should > probably write it as BUILD_DEPENDS and RUN_DEPENDS instead--at least > the intention will be clear." > > Plus it seems that there is nowadays a grand total of just 3 ports out > of 16,300 or so that actually uses this variable: Isn't DEPENDS still a sensible way of making one metaport depend on another. For example if someone wanted to create a personal desktop metaport that depends on KDE, xorg etc.
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