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Date:      Mon, 11 Jun 2007 10:16:37 -0500
From:      Brooks Davis <brooks@freebsd.org>
To:        Kirill Ponomarew <krion@voodoo.bawue.com>
Cc:        ports@freebsd.org, David Southwell <david@vizion2000.net>
Subject:   Re: ./options-descr file suggestion for ports
Message-ID:  <20070611151636.GA16517@lor.one-eyed-alien.net>
In-Reply-To: <20070609203316.GC71246@voodoo.bawue.com>
References:  <200706090936.51775.david@vizion2000.net> <20070609203316.GC71246@voodoo.bawue.com>

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On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 10:33:17PM +0200, Kirill Ponomarew wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 09:36:51AM -0700, David Southwell wrote:
> > Hi
> >=20
> > Would it be possible , when a port has options,  to ask porters if they=
 would=20
> > consider the merits/demerits of adding:
> >=20
> > 1. An ./options-descr file in the port directory that describes  the op=
tions,=20
> > their purpose and any notes about an option
> >=20
> > Reasons:
> > This would be extremely useful for anyone not familiar with the port to=
 help=20
> > in the task of choosing which options to install.=20
> >=20
> > I realise that this would depend upon whether maintainers are willing t=
o add=20
> > an additional task to the already heavy burden they undertake. Maintain=
ers=20
> > who are willing to consider this idea but are reluctant to prepare the =
notes=20
> > themselves but do not have the time or are for any reason reluctant to =
do so,=20
> > could invite users to submit notes for incorporating in ./options-descr.
> >=20
> > By way of example I am just installing www/ruby-gem-rails and had no im=
mediate=20
> > idea whether or not to add fastcgi support without trying to find out w=
hether=20
> > it is or is not needed when one has mod_ruby installed and
> > LoadModule ruby_module libexec/apache/mod_ruby.so
> > in httpd.conf. A brief note in a ./options-descr could be very helpful,=
=20
> > especially for some ports where the options are sometimes numerous and =
not=20
> > always completely documented.
> >=20
> > A little bit of intial guidance about options would be most helpful to =
a=20
> > system administrator who is not necessarily familiar with the a specifi=
c=20
> > port.
>=20
> That's what ports/KNOBS supposed to be, see rev. 1.1 by ahze:
>=20
> Limitations to KNOBS: In the future we plan to add support for
> OPTIONS to support the KNOBS file, and so dialog(1) will be able to
> handle the size of each knob knob-name's are limited to 12
> characters and knob-descriptions are limited to 45 characters, not
> including the white space between the knob-name and
> knob-description.
>=20
> Though, I don't know when OPTIONS support to KNOBS will be added.

While I think KNOBS has merit, I don't think it addresses per-port
issues such as documenting dependencies between various OPTIONS or
documenting that a particular option has a large or small impact on
dependencies.

-- Brooks

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