Keeping track of automatically installed dependency-only ports

[Peter Jeremy]

On 2007-Jun-16 20:44:53 -0700, Stephen Hurd <shurd at sasktel.net> wrote:
>> Agreed, but this situation is not easy to detect with the automated
>> ports checks that are in place.
>
> Impossible even since we're not using automated tools.

I was thinking of pointyhat

>> Yes - but since it requires the maintainer to manually determine what
>> features are automatically detected and enabled, it is something that
>> is error-prone - the maintainer could easily accidently overlook it.
>
> A maintainer needs to do this anyways.

A maintainer _should_ do this.  They may accidently miss a dependency
or they might be too lazy to do a proper job.

> Of course, simply not automatically deinstalling SDL would help out quite a 
> bit.  If I decide to remove SDL, all the results of that are my fault.  If 
> removing portXXX also removes SDL, I can blame the ports system for removing 
> stuff out from under me.

A normal 'pkg_delete' will not remove any ports other than those
specified and will only remove the port(s) specified iff those ports
have no other ports depending on them.  If portXYZ registers a
dependency on SDL then it will not be possible to remove SDL without
disabling the dependency check (via '-f').  The problematic scenario
is where the GNU configure script (or equivalent) for portXYZ senses
the presence of SDL and decides to use it even though the port doesn't
list SDL as a dependency.

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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