Confusion about Ports and options framework

[RW]

On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:17:01 -0800
"Zachary Kline" <Z_kline at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
> "RW" <fbsd06 at mlists.homeunix.com> wrote in message 
> news:44079.9636221074$1196053676 at news.gmane.org...
> > On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 16:24:32 -0800
> > "Zachary Kline" <Z_kline at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>     I've read through the sections of the handbook quite carefully,
> >> and haven't quite found what I'm looking for.
> >>     To be specific, I've no plans to install X11 or anything like
> >> it on this machine yet.  I may do so in the future merely to see
> >> how accessible Gnome and such are, but not now.
> >>     I note that /usr/ports/editors/emacs has several environment
> >> variables which can be set, such as WITHOUT_X11.
> >
>     Call me dense, if you like.  I'm not quite sure how to do that.
> Would a simple WITHOUT_X11=YES or similar pull it off?  I got the
> impression those were environment variables, and not something
> specific to make.  

Normally it doesn't matter whether it's in the environment or
defined in make.conf. The only exception I can think of is that a
handful of ports have deinstall scripts that test for BATCH to avoid
prompting you for removing special users/groups, but can only see it if
it defined in the environment