Building port with options

[Alejandro Pulver]

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 17:26:07 +0200
Peter Pentchev <roam at ringlet.net> wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 03:06:41PM -0300, Alejandro Pulver wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I am making a port of an application that allows to build with the
> > following options:
> > 
> > WITH_GTK	GTK+ interface (default).
> > WITH_SDL	Command-line interface (with WITH_SDL_AUDIO).
> > WITH_SDL_AUDIO	Use SDL audio instead of OSS (only available with GTK+).
> > 
> > The port always uses SDL, but it offers a graphical UI (GTK+). If the
> > command-line program is built, it will automatically use SDL audio. If
> > compiled with the GTK+ GUI, it allows the use of SDL audio or OSS.
> > This is done by passing different options to 'configure'.
> > 
> > I can build it with all (3) the combinations (make -DWITH_*), but when
> > the build terminates, I change the option "-D" to compile a different
> > version, but it does nothing. So I have to 'make clean' or 'rm -rf
> > work' before compiling with a different option.
> > 
> > I also tried 'WANT_GNOME' before including 'bsd.ports.pre.mk' and
> > 'USE_GNOME' instead of 'WITH_GNOME'.
> > 
> > What am I doing wrong?
> 
> Nothing; that's the way things are supposed to work :)
> 
> That's the way that the 'fetch', 'extract', 'patch', 'configure', 'all',
> and 'install' targets behave - after their work is done, they touch a
> file in the work/ directory, and they actually depend on this file.  You
> can see these files with a 'ls -A work/' - there should be files with
> names like ".extract_done.generator-cbiere-1.0._usr_local".  If such a
> file exists, 'make extract' will do nothing, since make(1) will know
> that the 'extract' target has already been fulfilled.
> 
> Consider this, now: if you have already configured and built the port
> with, say, the WITH_GTK option defined, then the configure script has
> generated a Makefile, object files have been created from all the source
> files, and the final executable file has been linked from the object
> files.  What is the Ports framework supposed to do if you do a 'make'
> now *without* WITH_GTK?  An attempt to just do 'make all' in the port's
> directory would not do anything, since the executable is newer than the
> object files, and each object file is newer than the respective source
> file, so there's nothing to be done.  To accomplish something different,
> the configure script should be run anew to recreate the Makefile so it
> does not try to link the GTK library, and a 'make clean' or some
> equivalent should be run in the port's WRKSRC directory to get rid of
> the object files and the executable.  Okay, but how is the ports
> framework supposed to know whether it should run a 'make clean', then
> reconfigure the thing, and how does it know when to stop on the way
> back?  In some cases, the fact that some option is or is not defined
> influences things in post-patch, sometimes pre-patch, sometimes even
> patch files are added or removed depending on whether some option is
> selected.
> 
> In short, the only way for the Ports framework to be *sure* that it has
> a clean environment to build the port with the new options is to, well,
> provide a really clean environment - remove the WRKSRC directory
> whatsoever, and redo the full extract/patch/configure/build cycle from
> scratch.  That's basically what 'make clean' does, and that's what 'rm
> -rf work' effectively does, as you have discovered :)
> 
> G'luck,
> Peter
> 
> -- 
> Peter Pentchev	roam at ringlet.net    roam at cnsys.bg    roam at FreeBSD.org
> PGP key:	http://people.FreeBSD.org/~roam/roam.key.asc
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> 

Thanks for your reply.

I was confused with the port of Vim, that uses different variables to
pass the options (but I think it depends on the Vim build environment).

So the port is just fine?

I mean: Do I have to implement extra steps to make 'make' notice the
changes? Can you please mention some ports that use build options?

Thanks and Best Regards,
Ale