Maybe you want to use
extract.mkdir yes
This option was added in MacPorts 1.6.0.
http://guide.macports.org/#reference.phases.extract
This worked great.
I have made progress on this. I found older versions, which is important, and been able to compile - mostly. The older versions are important since the 3.3.1.1 requires Java 6 to compile (Java 6 API being used). Kaffe and Tiger do not have Java 6 support also. Although Kaffe is a dependency, I don't think it is actually being used to compile (not that I care). Since the version that I can get to compile does not have a build.xml file, how do I create a patch file for a missing file? I can patch an existing file, but how do I add a missing file? diff -u just tells me the file is missing. Michael