Problems with ".if HAVE_GNOME" tests because of installation order

[Alexander Leidinger]

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 00:14:35 +0900
Alexander Nedotsukov <bland at FreeBSD.org> wrote:

> Alexander,
> 
> This is not gnome ports specific problem. Any port wich tries to guess

But Gnome is a prominent example and shares a lot more developer
resources than a maintainer of one of those non-gnome ports may be able
to get help from.

> it configuration in way ".if exists() xx_DEPENDS+=" have such flaw.
> Situation can be resolved sometimes by adding WITHOUT_xx option if

It helps if you don't want such behavior, but in cases where you don't
want the WITHOUT_x one, this isn't helpful.

> they supported by port (unfortunately this is not sysutils/cdrdao
> case). The better way seems to use info stored in /var/db/pkg rather
> than do recursive make wailk through ports tree but this I guess need
> more than my pure speculation on subject :-)

I think a port should only depend on it's explicit dependencies, not on
the implicit ones. This implies, that a port should register every
dependency explicitly and shouldn't rely on implicit dependency
registrations.

Did I overlooked a situation where this causes problems?

Bye,
Alexander.

-- 
           I will be available to get hired in April 2004.

http://www.Leidinger.net                       Alexander @ Leidinger.net
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