lang/php5 port

[Paul Schmehl]

--On Wednesday, December 17, 2008 08:18:47 +0100 Mel 
<fbsd.questions at rachie.is-a-geek.net> wrote:

> On Wednesday 17 December 2008 04:33:51 Paul Schmehl wrote:
>> --On December 16, 2008 7:33:31 PM -0600 Steve Bertrand <steve at ibctech.ca>
>>
>> wrote:
>> > One of the reasons I've had to edit Makefile manually was because a
>> > client needed JPEG support.
>> >
>> > At the time, `make config' didn't provide that option.
>>
>> You should *never* need to edit a Makefile in a port.  (Well, extremely
>> rarely.)
>
> More often then you think. I encourage understanding the system and editing
> to  suit your needs. It's a transparent system, unlike many others out there,
> so  you might as well make good use of it.
>
> Though a lot of things can be handled by:
> 1) environment variables (temporary)
> 2) /etc/make.conf (permanent)
> 3) Makefile.local (permanent, inclusion is at bsd.port.pre.mk stage which
> allows you to override hardcoded settings)
>
> It is needed in some cases to edit the makefile to fix things or remove
> dependencies that the maintainer didn't find necessary to remove or even to
> fix bugs.

I agree with you with one caveat.  Make sure that you know what you're doing 
before you do this, and be prepared for the consequences.  For example, if you 
edit any files in a port, they will be overwritten when you update your ports. 
That means you'll have to make those edits again.  If you're maintaining your 
own workstation, that might be an educational experience.  If you're 
maintaining servers, that could cause an outage while you try to remember what 
your edits were.

If you think a port is incorrectly built (unnecessary dependencies, for 
example) there's nothing wrong with submitting a PR and asking the maintainer 
to update the port.  If the maintainer rejects your changes, you can always 
edit locally later, but your submission could benefit thousands of people.

IOW, if you're the smartest guy on the block, please don't keep it to yourself.

-- 
Paul Schmehl (pauls at utdallas.edu)
Senior Information Security Analyst
The University of Texas at Dallas
http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/