Modifying a port and keeping the mods across updates

[Paul Hoffman]

At 11:37 PM -0600 1/19/07, Scot Hetzel wrote:
>On 1/19/07, Paul Hoffman <phoffman at proper.com> wrote:
>>Greetings again. I have a two-part question that may be a ports FAQ,
>>but I couldn't find such a beast.
>>
>>(1) For a particular port, I need to change the the MAKE_ENV to make
>>it build the way I want. What is the proper way to do this that will
>>live beyond the next time I do a cvsup? That is, editing the Makefile
>>works just fine, but I want something that will live if the Makefile
>>gets reverted.
>>
>Use the sysutils/portconf port and define the apporiate variable in
>PREFIX/etc/ports.conf.

This isn't working for me. I installed the port and created 
/usr/local/etc/ports.conf. I added the line:
security/nss: NSS_ENABLE_ECC=1 | BUILD_OPT=1

But building security/nss still builds without those in the make environment.

If I add NSS_ENABLE_ECC=1 in the Makefile, I can see it reflected in 
the cc lines during make; if I try to just ue the 
/usr/local/etc/ports.conf, I don't.

Clues?

--Paul Hoffman