ports/38090: devel/m4 port PREFIX vs LOCALBASE

[Ade Lovett]

On Tuesday, Oct 7, 2003, at 20:40 US/Pacific, Joseph Koshy wrote:
> -CONFIGURE_ENV+=	M4=${LOCALBASE}/bin/gm4
> +CONFIGURE_ENV+=	M4=$(which gm4)

Hrm.  Not too keen on this idea, since bad things happen if 'which gm4' 
doesn't return a path, though this is also true of the hardcoded 
solution.

Something along the lines

GM4?=	${LOCALBASE}/bin/gm4
CONFIGURE_ENV+=	M4=${GM4}

[...]

post-extract:
.if !exists(${GM4})
	@${ECHO_CMD} "Unable to locate GNU M4"
	@${FALSE}
.endif

Would allow for maximum flexibility for those who put gm4 in odd places.

However, I'm still not really convinced, given the number of other 
ports that assume that things are installed in ${LOCALBASE} or 
${X11BASE}.  In my opinion, if a user is prepared to make those 
changes, then there could well be breakage elsewhere, particularly in 
the case where things are installed outside of a ${LOCALBASE} or 
${X11BASE} scenario.

I guess it could be wrapped into a USE_GM4 variable, once the massive 
amount of GNU tool hacking in bsd.port.mk is shifted out to 
bsd.gnutools.mk.

Thoughts?