Keeping track of automatically installed dependency-only ports

[Stephen Hurd]

Peter Jeremy wrote:
> 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
>   

The scenario is installing something *not* from ports which relies on a 
port which was installed as a dependency then removing the port that 
required the dependency.  The proposed feature would remove the 
dependency also.

>> 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.
>   

Two things....
1) The suggestion is that pkg_delete SHOULD remove dependencies with no 
other dependencies marked.
2) The scenario I used was not a port, but a 3rd party piece of software.