Re:?==?utf-8?q? devel/sope: make (stage-qa) now fails with DEVELOPER=yes complaining about iconv dependency

[Euan Thoms]

On Saturday, July 16, 2016 00:10 SGT, Don Lewis <truckman at FreeBSD.org> wrote: 
 
> On 15 Jul, Euan Thoms wrote:
> >  
> > On Friday, July 15, 2016 15:26 SGT, Kubilay Kocak <koobs at FreeBSD.org>
> > wrote:
> >  
> >> On 15/07/2016 5:17 PM, Martin Waschbüsch wrote:
> >> > 
> >> >> Am 14.07.2016 um 23:29 schrieb Euan Thoms <euan at potensol.com>:
> >> >> 
> >> >> 
> >> >> On Friday, July 15, 2016 01:11 SGT, Walter Schwarzenfeld
> >> >> <w.schwarzenfeld at utanet.at> wrote:
> >> >> 
> >> >>> I think this statements should be only warnings. Cause not all
> >> >>> of these statements are right and each maintianer should decide
> >> >>> which "USES" or "LIB_DEPENDS" are necessairely and which not.
> >> >> 
> >> >> Well, I don't know enough to comment about whether it should be
> >> >> classed as a warning or an error. But there's definetely a bug in
> >> >> the ports Mk system, since adding USES+=iconv does not remove the
> >> >> error. I don't think I even need iconv as a dependency, it should
> >> >> be included lower down in the dependency tree.
> >> > 
> >> > I am not sure about this. At the very least, sope-core does use
> >> > iconv in its NGExtensions (e.g. NSString+Encoding.m). Can we really
> >> > assume some lower dependency package already pulls iconv in?
> >> 
> >> If something in a port links to libiconv (or anything else), then
> >> the dependency should be registered in that port
> >> 
> >  
> > OK, thanks guys. I will add libiconv as a LIB_DEPENDS. But I still
> > think there may be a bug. The make error tells me to use USES+=iconv
> > and it doesn't work, I still get the same error about libiconv not
> > being specified as a dependancy.
> 
> It looks like USES=iconv doesn't add the dependency on newer FreeBSD
> versions that have basic iconv support in the base system.  If you set
> USES=iconv:wchar_t or USES=iconv:translit, then it will unconditionally
> add the dependency.
> 
> If you don't use the WCHAR_T or //TRANSLIT extensions, it may not be
> necessary to link with -liconv, but it is possible that the port does
> this automatically if it finds that libiconv is installed by another
> dependency.
> 
 
Aha, in that case perhaps ignore my last email. This starts to make more sense now. although the stage-qa error message is misleading.

Is this case, would I not be better adding a LIB_DEPENDS instead of USES=iconv.wchar_t or USES=iconv:translit? I don't even know where to find out which one I need.

A bit off tpic, but personally I prefer to just use the LIB_DEPENDS for a straight dependency. Keeping track of which macros to use can be more difficult than the time they save. I've only been porting for about a year, yet the ports system seems to be going through a lot of changes in this time. All good changes I'm sure. As a user I do find installing and upgrading easier than I did when I strated using ports about 5 years ago.

I'm just about to start working on the port again now.
 
-- 
Regards, Euan Thoms