[patch] Integration between portconf and port options

[Christopher Key]

  On 22/07/2010 11:11, Alex Dupre wrote:
> Christopher Key ha scritto:
>>   At present, the interaction between portconf and port options is
>> somewhat confusing.
> It's not completely clear to me if you are referring to my portconf
> port. If so, the interaction is really simple: portconf is complementary
> to port OPTIONS, that is, it's to be used for ports that don't have
> OPTIONS or, better, for knobs that are not handled by OPTIONS.
> If you use it to set knobs handled by OPTIONS, you are using portconf in
> the wrong way.
>
Hello Alex,

I was referring to any variables set on the command line, make.conf or 
any linked files, so yes that I was including your portconf port.

The problem was what when I first started using portconf, I wasn't aware 
that the knobs and port OPTIONS were intended to be mutually exclusive, 
and not being familiar with the ports infrastructure at the time, I 
found some of the resulting behaviour somewhat confusing.

If it is really desired to keep knobs and options wholly separate, then 
it might at least be desirable to have a warning emitted if duplicate 
WITH_XXX and WITHOUT_XXX values are detected.  I would however argue 
that there is some merit in having the two as parallel methods.  For 
example, a site wide WITHOUT_X11 might be desirable, which would be 
honoured in ports that supported it as a knob, and give a suitable 
default for the ports that supported it as an option.  I also prefer the 
idea of storing any important port options in a single file, which is 
easily maintained, rather than the hierarchy of files in /var/db/ports.

Kind regards,


Christopher Key