stale dependencies in pkgdb

[Donald J. O'Neill]

On Friday 10 February 2006 12:41, Andrew wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-02-10 at 11:42 -0500, Robert Huff wrote:
> > Andrew writes:
> > >  I've run "pkgdb -F" as portupgrade suggests, deleting stale
> > >  dependencies, but they seem to keep reappearing.
> >
> > 	I'm not an expert on pkgdb, but I'm pretty sure that's the way
> > it works.
> > 	You need to fix, not delete, the stale dependencies.  This may
> > take some effort the first time around.
> > 	Beyond that, I question the wisdom of any "automatic"
> > solution.  There are definitely times when I do _not_ want to
> > accept the fixes proposed by pkgdb -F.
>
> I guess what is unclear to me is how I go about fixing the stale
> dependencies. I was under the impression that portupgrade would take
> care of the dependencies for a particular port, and the "stale
> dependency" was just an error in the package database (pkgdb). Is
> this not the case?
>
> Thank-you,
> Andrew
>
> _______________________________________________
A stale dependency can be a required program that's old, or it can be 
that there are two versions of the required program listed as installed 
in pkgdb, or it can be the required program was removed by another 
program and something else installed in its place and the dependcies 
not upgraded in pkgdb.

'pkgdb -F' will fix the problems it can safely fix. What it won't fix is 
a dependcency on a program that's been removed. You need to look at 
that message and figure out what's going on and correct the problem. 
Skipping or deleting the dependency is not taking care of the problem, 
it's just getting out of 'pkgdb -F'.

Portupgrade - depending on how you used it - takes care of dependcies. A 
stale dependency is not an error in pkgdb. Something is wrong and you 
have to fix it. By the way, portaudit is a fine tool, but sometimes it 
gets in the way of what you want to do. It can prevent you from 
installing or upgrading some program that you want to. I can't say you 
would be better off without it, but I very seldom use it.

Don