Landon Fuller wrote:
1) Config files
We need a feature in the Portfile to mark which of the install files are configuration. These files will then be handled specially when doing installations/upgrades/removals, in that any existing modified configuration will *not* be overwritten. It could also be helpful for implementing a similar feature in the regular install/activate target too.
Syntax could probably be similar to "destroot.keepdirs"
This might be a nice mechanism for doing the initial installation of example configuration files. I wouldn't want to go too far and do what Debian does -- try to manage configuration files for you. It's not so bad when they ask if you want to update/diff/merge the files (although that's annoying and in my experience a bad method for handling software upgrades) -- it's downright dangerous when they try to auto-merge configuration based on scripts (think apache, sendmail, exim, etc).
I wasn't thinking of diff/merge of configuration files (it does indeed sound very interactive and/or rather dangerous), only to compare/move configuration files. FreeBSD (with scripts*) and RPM (automatically) does this for you, for instance... But the first step is to add a setting to the Portfile to signify which are configuration files. The install/uninstall script solution is currently not possible in MacPorts, since it doesn't feature any such scripts/targets at the moment. --anders * see http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/porters-handbook/plist-config.html