On Jan 19, 2015, at 7:15 PM, René J.V. Bertin wrote:
> On Monday January 19 2015 17:21:14 Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>
>> Spotlight would find items in the /opt/local/var/macports/software
>> directory. So when you were trying to launch an application in
>> /Applications/MacPorts, it might find the copy in
>> /opt/local/var/macports/software instead, which might not work.
>
> That was before macports/software contained tarballs, I presume.
Correct, that's what we're talking about here: the problems with
/opt/local/var/macports/software containing "images" (directories containing
the actual files), and why we changed MacPorts to use "archives" (compressed
tarballs) instead.
>> That would be a possible solution for the Spotlight issues but not for the
>> Time Machine issues.
>
> Why not for Time Machine? It can't (or rather, couldn't) make duplicate
> backups if one of the 2 sources is in an excluded directory, yes?
Which directory would you exclude?
If you exclude /opt/local/var/macports/software, then you cannot restore that
directory from backups and you'll have a broken MacPorts installation (one
which cannot re-activate deactivated ports).
If you exclude the "real" installation directory, that means excluding all of
MacPorts i.e. /opt/local and /Applications/MacPorts.
With "images", not only were all the MacPorts-installed files backed up twice,
taking twice the disk space, but if you restored such a backup, then the files
would be duplicated on your real machine too.
The reasons for switching from "images" to "archives" all those years ago were
sound, we don't need to re-hash this discussion again.
>> I also do not know what would happen if a user who already has ports
>> installed with bz2 archives suddenly changes the archive format to xz (or,
>> more generally, makes any change to the archive format). Would MacPorts
>> still know how to find the existing archive and remove it when a port is
>> uninstalled or upgraded?
>
> I suppose there is normally only 1 tarball per installed version or variant,
> so the search algorithm could omit the compressor extension from the search
> pattern.
Yes, solutions could be invented. I'm questioning whether we already have a
solution coded. If not, that's more code someone would have to write and test.
>>> What parts of ${prefix}/var/macports are used during normal operation, so
>>> as long as you don't use the port command?
>>
>> None. That directory is for the port command to use, and nobody else.
>
> So it could indeed be on a removable/external drive that's mounted only for
> port maintenance.
It's conceivable, but not tested by me.
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