lang/php5 port

[Tom Worster]

On 12/17/08 10:34 AM, "Paul Schmehl" <pauls at utdallas.edu> wrote:

> --On Wednesday, December 17, 2008 08:18:47 +0100 Mel
> <fbsd.questions at rachie.is-a-geek.net> wrote:
>>
>> ...
>> Though a lot of things can be handled by:
>> 1) environment variables (temporary)
>> 2) /etc/make.conf (permanent)
>> 3) Makefile.local (permanent, inclusion is at bsd.port.pre.mk stage which
>> allows you to override hardcoded settings)
>> 
>> It is needed in some cases to edit the makefile to fix things or remove
>> dependencies that the maintainer didn't find necessary to remove or even to
>> fix bugs.
> 
> I agree with you with one caveat.  Make sure that you know what you're doing
> before you do this, and be prepared for the consequences.  For example, if you
> edit any files in a port, they will be overwritten when you update your ports.
> That means you'll have to make those edits again.

thanks. i was going to ask about that.


> If you're maintaining your
> own workstation, that might be an educational experience.  If you're
> maintaining servers, that could cause an outage while you try to remember what
> your edits were.

one has to remember the port's configuration whichever method is used. my
memory isn't good so i keep detailed notes. recording in these notes which
checkboxes in the config pseudo-gui were checked and unchecked is not
convenient. i'm not sure i wouldn't prefer editing a file and keeping a diff
with my notes, as i do for the other config files i change.


> If you think a port is incorrectly built (unnecessary dependencies, for
> example) there's nothing wrong with submitting a PR and asking the maintainer
> to update the port.  If the maintainer rejects your changes, you can always
> edit locally later, but your submission could benefit thousands of people.
> 
> IOW, if you're the smartest guy on the block, please don't keep it to
> yourself.

i'm certainly not smart enough to know what might be a better way to design
ports like php. but one thing seems odd to me. i ended up with dozens of
ports installed that appeared to use nothing but the same php-5.2.8.tar.bz2
distfile. relative to what i'm used to with php (i.e. manual configure,
compile, install) this seems a bit untidy and i'm nervous what it might mean
for maintenance.

my guess is that this approach allows the ports framework to handle
conditional installation of dependent software on a relatively fine-grained
basis depending which options the user chooses. that's a nice feature to
have. but wouldn't it be nicer if were just one port with dependencies based
off its configuration?

seems that would reduce clutter in the ports tree too and maybe effort for
the ports maintainer.