going around in circles

[Gary Aitken]

On 01/12/17 10:09, James B. Byrne via freebsd-questions wrote:
> I know that I successfully built p5-DBD-pg against Pg96 in the past
> because I have both installed and working together.  However, I can no
> longer repeat the process.  When I try to build p5-DBD-pg from the
> ports collection after setting the default value for postgresql to 9.6
> in make.conf I get this error.
> 
> In file included from quote.c:10:
> ./Pg.h:35:10: fatal error: 'libpq-fe.h' file not found
> #include "libpq-fe.h"
> 
> 
> So, where to get 'libpq-fe.h'?  postgresql-libpgeasy maybe?  Ok, but
> how to install?  pkg install postgresql-libpgeasy.  However, this
> leads to this:
> 
> The following 3 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):
> 
> New packages to be INSTALLED:
>         postgresql-libpgeasy: 3.0.4_1
>         postgresql93-client: 9.3.15_1
> 
> and postgresql93-client: 9.3.15_1 leads to this:
> 
>         perl5.20: 5.20.3_15
> 
> whereas I have 5.24 installed.
> 
> So, If I build libeasy from ports instead I see this:
> 
> make install clean
> . . .
> checking for PQconnectdb in -lpq... no
> Error: libpq.so not found
> ===>  Script "configure" failed unexpectedly.
> . . .
> 
> 
> I know that I did not run into this back in December. There was a
> massive update to the ports collection applied today and I am guessing
> that just maybe that has something to do with this.
> 
> My understanding may be faulty but I was under the impression that if
> one used the ports system then this sort of stuff was not supposed to
> happen.  That if there were dependencies then the port build process
> would pull them in automatically.  This is not happening in this
> instance and I am not sure whether this is a real problem or if I am
> somehow missing a step or using the wrong command.  Is Postgresql96
> not supported on FreeBSD?

I can't speak specifically to postgresql, but it looks like you have 
run into an inconsistency in the ports tree; which happens regularly 
but usually a portsnap fetch + update some (indeterminate) time later 
will clear it up.

This thread gives a hint that there's an opportune time to update, but
it's not clear to me when that is:

https://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=415100+0+archive/2016/freebsd-ports/20161120.freebsd-ports

I've had mostly good luck syncing during the weekend, but haven't
narrowed it down to the beginning or end of that period.
success.

Gary