Synth and circular dependencies

[Thomas Mueller]

from Jonathan Chen:

> On 22 August 2017 at 18:34, Thomas Mueller <mueller6722 at twc.com> wrote:
[...]
> > I believe Synth and poudriere have no means for setting options.  That should be enough impetus to make it easier to bypass the dialog4ports entirely.
        
> >From the synth man page:
>      <profile>-make.conf
>                        This is an optional, user-provided file. If it exists,
>                        the builder's /etc/make.conf will be appended with the
>                        contents of this file. For the default profile, the
>                        file would normally be located at
>                        /usr/local/etc/synth/LiveSystem-make.conf

> All you need to do is to convert your /var/db/ports/* options into
> make.conf style options and put it into LiveSystem-make.conf.

> Works for me.

At this stage, I think I don't want to ever again see a dialog4ports!

How do I convert /var/db/ports/* options into make.conf-style options in a reasonable amount of time?

I don't (yet) have a LiveSystem-make.conf apart from /etc/make.conf, but I have 
/usr/local/etc/synth/synth.ini

I see (running "less" on this file)

[Global Configuration]


[LiveSystem]

Directory_packages= /var/synth/live_packages
Directory_repository= /var/synth/live_packages/All
Directory_portsdir= /BETA1/usr/ports
Directory_options= /var/db/ports
Directory_distfiles= /BETA1/usr/ports/distfiles
Directory_buildbase= /usr/obj/synth-live
Directory_logs= /var/log/synth
Directory_ccache= disabled
Directory_system= /
Number_of_builders= 6
Max_jobs_per_builder= 4
Tmpfs_workdir= true
Tmpfs_localbase= true
Display_with_ncurses= true
leverage_prebuilt= false

occurring four times, the latter three being verbatim repeats of the first.

Now I want to get rid of the Directory_options line, should I delete the line or should I change "/var/db/ports" to "/dev/null"?  Or just move /var/db/ports to /var/db/ports2, which I intend to do anyway?

What if synth finds /var/db/ports no longer there?

Tom