./options-descr file suggestion for ports

[Brooks Davis]

On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 10:33:17PM +0200, Kirill Ponomarew wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 09:36:51AM -0700, David Southwell wrote:
> > Hi
> > 
> > Would it be possible , when a port has options,  to ask porters if they would 
> > consider the merits/demerits of adding:
> > 
> > 1. An ./options-descr file in the port directory that describes  the options, 
> > their purpose and any notes about an option
> > 
> > Reasons:
> > This would be extremely useful for anyone not familiar with the port to help 
> > in the task of choosing which options to install. 
> > 
> > I realise that this would depend upon whether maintainers are willing to add 
> > an additional task to the already heavy burden they undertake. Maintainers 
> > who are willing to consider this idea but are reluctant to prepare the notes 
> > themselves but do not have the time or are for any reason reluctant to do so, 
> > could invite users to submit notes for incorporating in ./options-descr.
> > 
> > By way of example I am just installing www/ruby-gem-rails and had no immediate 
> > idea whether or not to add fastcgi support without trying to find out whether 
> > it is or is not needed when one has mod_ruby installed and
> > LoadModule ruby_module libexec/apache/mod_ruby.so
> > in httpd.conf. A brief note in a ./options-descr could be very helpful, 
> > especially for some ports where the options are sometimes numerous and not 
> > always completely documented.
> > 
> > A little bit of intial guidance about options would be most helpful to a 
> > system administrator who is not necessarily familiar with the a specific 
> > port.
> 
> That's what ports/KNOBS supposed to be, see rev. 1.1 by ahze:
> 
> Limitations to KNOBS: In the future we plan to add support for
> OPTIONS to support the KNOBS file, and so dialog(1) will be able to
> handle the size of each knob knob-name's are limited to 12
> characters and knob-descriptions are limited to 45 characters, not
> including the white space between the knob-name and
> knob-description.
> 
> Though, I don't know when OPTIONS support to KNOBS will be added.

While I think KNOBS has merit, I don't think it addresses per-port
issues such as documenting dependencies between various OPTIONS or
documenting that a particular option has a large or small impact on
dependencies.

-- Brooks
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