Re: Difference between LIB_DEPENDS and RUN_DEPENDS

From: Tomoaki AOKI <junchoon_at_dec.sakura.ne.jp>
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2022 12:50:06 UTC 
On Fri, 10 Jun 2022 12:03:16 +0000
jbo@insane.engineer wrote:

> Hello folks,
> 
> Maybe an unusual request but could somebody elaborate on the difference between LIB_DEPENDS and RUN_DEPENDS?
> I read the corresponding handbook section thrice and it's not clear to me when to use which - I must be missing something obvious.
> 
> RUN_DEPENDS appears to be for runtime dependencies. But when do I want to use LIB_DEPENDS?
> I'm working on a port of a C++ library which depends on on some shared libraries (provided by existing ports) but it's not clear to me whether those should be listed in RUN_DEPENDS or LIB_DEPENDS.
> 
> Best regards,
> ~ joel

My guess is that...

 LIB_DEPENDS: Include something dynamically linked (by rtld) on runtime.
 RUN_DEPENDS: Include something called by fork*() or exec*() as
              independent process, excluding LIB_DEPENDS.

In ancient days before USE_* or USES=* were introduced, IIRC, something
like perl, python, ruby or bash was RUN_DEPENDS.

-- 
Tomoaki AOKI    <junchoon@dec.sakura.ne.jp>