perl ports overwriting files, so need -f?

[Caspar Florian Ebeling]

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 4:00 PM, Daniel J. Luke <dluke at geeklair.net> wrote:
> On Sep 17, 2008, at 3:58 AM, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
>> On 2008-09-15 12:25:37 -0400, Daniel J. Luke wrote:
>>> Except that you say it as a blanket statement even though you've been
>>> shown at least one case where the port requires the newer version (svk).
>> No, upstream doesn't claim any such dependency on a newer version of
>> a Perl module. You're just seeing a bug, that needs to be fixed.
> The Makefile.PL that ships with svk clearly states a requirement for
> File::Temp 0.17, which is why the p5-file-temp-svkonly port was created (as
> 0.17 is newer than what was distributed with perl 5.8.8).

I'd find it reasonable though, to agree on a policy which forbids ports
overwriting the contents of their dependents voluntarily. And if it is really
desirable somewhere, then it should be marked clearly as a workaround.
Your example is quite good in that respect. But ports like p5-test-harness
make the missunderstanding quite easy that you have to install them,
when you need the perl module Test::Harness. The name is simply missleading.
It is rather a "monkey patch" of the original perl installation.

So we should maybe:
1) outrule ports overwriting dependents
2) make a exception for special cases, but those require an additional
name suffix
like -patch to make the indended use clear.
3) if 1 or 2 are violated this is a bug and has to be fixed

Bug #12710 lists quite a few of these ports, (only perl ones):

http://trac.macports.org/ticket/12710

What do you think of the proposal, e.g. as an extension to the guide?


-- 
Florian Ebeling
florian.ebeling at gmail.com