Hello,
I was wondering: seeing some ports called *-devel in the list, does MacPorts offer a sub-package mechanism? I haven't found anything in the guide, so I considered using variants as a proper way to handle optional features in a software which I would otherwise build a sub- package for.
Also, following the discussion about binary builds, I think it might get difficult if there are variants of a package that offer optional features which result in some destroot files only being built for certain variants. You'd have to specify which files belong to which variant in that case... Is there already a mechanism for that in the portfiles?
I definitely like the idea of binary builds. Although I am a developer, I usually like to get required packages into my system as quickly and hasslefree as possible, so I can continue my work. And I think most users wouldn't want a build environment on their machine if they're not developers (the Mac OS X SDK is an optional install, too ;-) ). I also like sub-packages (variants?) very much, since they reduce the need for package dependencies which I don't really need on my machine...
Is it okay to use variants for sub-package-like behavior (which I am currently doing in the pike port I updated), or should this done another way?
Best regards, Robert _______________________________________________ macports-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/macports-dev
