gtk lib rename.

[Marco van de Voort]

> On Mar 02, 2006, at 12:28 , Marco van de Voort wrote:
> > I think I'll have to update the compiler to parse pkgconfig files.  
> > However I
> > hesitate, since that makes the whole system a lot less transparent  
> > for the
> > user.
> 
> Why do you need to parse them when:
> 
> 	pkg-config --cflags package
> and	pkg-config --libs package
> 
> will do it for you?  That's the whole point of those .pc files

No, 

Multiple reasons:

1)
[Snail] </home/marcov> which pkg-config
/usr/local/bin/pkg-config

Uh, and I'm supposed to run files in /usr/local from inside a compiler?
Think not. What if it is not installed? Or the env variable is not set? Or
not in the path? 

2) Besides that, pkg-config parses them and generates parameters for gcc and
partially gcc-escaped ld params.
I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do with gcc flags in a pascal
compiler. Transformation of params might break at the next gcc update
anyway. And currently even the GNU ld usage is unsure for this port in the
near future (we have an own linker in beta, GNU's too slow and memory hungry
for RAD use)

Anyway, so I have to parse and interpret anyway, and then I prefer it
straight from the source with as much info as possible, and not in a
digested form that may change from gcc to gcc version.

3) FreeBSD is not the only OS I have to take into account. I'm already not
too fond of having to parse pc files in the first place. 

This might seem alien to a "normal" port maintainers, but if you have a port
like mine that doesn't in principle get *any* info about changes except if
you explicitely configure it, any dependancy is a complication that will
break horribly and/or need an ugly workaround somewhere in the future to
support multiple path locations. KISS all the way.

4) performance. It is destined to be the underpinnings of a RAD (Lazarus).
Ever pressed F9 in Borland Delphi? That is the performance we are aiming at,
and you don't get it by executing lots of binaries to get a bit of
systeminfo.

-----------------

Of course all this email wordplay is fun (I of course know I have a not
entirely standard port, and have practiced such discussions a lot over the
years), but I'm still wondering why there is no sane grace period of say an
year with a couple of symlinks? It would save a lot of people a lot of
trouble, having to fix the ports at breakneck speed, decrease all breakage
with a magnitude, simply because a lot more systems will be up to speed in
an year etc.