Libiconv confusion on 10.0-RELEASE

[Kevin Oberman]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 8:00 AM, Johan Hendriks <joh.hendriks at gmail.com>wrote:

> Dr. Peter Voigt schreef:
>
>  I am running a fresh installation of 10.0-RELEASE since its
>> publication at the end of January this year. I have installed many
>> ports since then and all dependencies are OK.
>>
>> Yesterday I have stumbled across several posts in the forum making me
>> aware of a major change in handling port converters/libiconv:
>> 10.0-RELEASE ships with its own version of iconv so that there is no
>> need to install port converters/libiconv anymore.
>>
>> Some of these posts are:
>> https://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=44658
>> https://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=44644
>> https://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=44659
>>
>> Immediately I have studied /usr/ports/UPDATING and have found this
>> confirmed with the 20130904 entry telling me at the same time how to
>> remove converters/libiconv from the system.
>>
>> First I checked dependencies from converters/libiconv:
>> # pkg query %ro libiconv
>> devel/glib20
>> sysutils/polkit
>> graphics/liblqr-1
>> sysutils/upower
>> x11-toolkits/pango
>> astro/xplanet
>> editors/vim
>> ftp/proftpd
>> converters/php5-iconv
>> mail/claws-mail
>> lang/vala-vapigen
>>
>> Then I've issued as proposed:
>> # pkg query %ro libiconv >ports_to_update
>> # pkg delete -f libiconv
>> # cat ports_to_update | xargs portmaster
>>
>> All ports depending on converters/libiconv have been rebuilt but
>> converters/libiconv has been reinstalled with all the above ports
>> depending on it again:
>> # pkg info -o libiconv
>> libiconv-1.14_2                converters/libiconv
>>
>> At the same time /usr/ports/UPDATING tells me that some ports still
>> need converters/libiconv. At this point I am completely lost and need
>> some advice:
>>
>> 1.) Should I try to get rid of converters/libiconv with respect to the
>>      above dependencies?
>>
>> 2.) If 1.) = "YES": How can I achieve it, because the proposed way
>>      in /usr/ports/UPDATING  does not work.
>>      In one of the above links following is proposed:
>>      portmaster -Raf
>>      which should rebuild all ports.
>>      Is there any switch needed in /etc/make.conf to convice ports of
>>      not using converters/libiconv?
>>
>> 3.) Is there a list of known ports that definitely
>>      need converters/libiconv?
>>
>> I do appreciate any advice on this topic.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Peter
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>>
>
> As far as I know, there is some libiconv functionality missing in the base
> libiconv implementation.
> That is the reason some ports installed converters/libiconv from ports.
>
> regards
> Johan
>

The FreeBSD iconv support is fully posix compliant, but  the ports libiconv
includes seeveral extension not in the standard and not in the base iconv.
As a result, a few ports that use these extensions still need to use the
ports version. Those include glib20 and php5-iconv.

If you use any of the ports requiring these extensions, converters/iconv
will e installed and must be installed. (Actually, glib20 will build and
run without it unless you install librawtherepee.)

Unlike some other cases of base system vs. ports, having the ports version
installed will NOT cause ports other then those requiring the GNU
extensions to link against the ports version nor will it produce rtld
errors about conflicting shareable versions that many ran into with things
like openssl.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired
E-mail: rkoberman at gmail.com