Using pkg_add to satisfy port dependencies...

[Chuck Swiger]

Luke Bakken wrote:
> Is there a way to tell the ports system to try to fetch port
> dependencies using the 'pkg_add' command rather than try to build the
> dependency first from source?

"pkg_add -r _port_" ought to fetch needed runtime dependencies, too?
Or maybe you are looking for the "portupgrade -P" option:

      -P
      --use-packages         Use packages instead of ports whenever available.
                             portupgrade searches the local directories listed
                             in PKG_PATH for each package to install or upgrade
                             the current installation with, and if none is
                             found, pkg_fetch(1) is invoked to fetch one from a
                             remote site.  If it doesn't work either, the port
                             is used.

      -PP
      --use-packages-only    Never use the port even if a package is not avail-
                             able either locally or remotely, although you
                             still have to keep your ports tree up-to-date so
                             that portupgrade can check out what the latest
                             version of each port is.

-- 
-Chuck