Installing asymptote

[Dan Ports]

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 01:10:14PM -0500, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> For most ports that depend on a TeX port, the dependencies are written in bin: style instead of port: style specifically so that you could edit macports.conf and add MacTeX's path to your binpath setting to avoid having MacPorts install those ports. This exception to the usual "MacPorts dependencies only" rule is for TeX software only.
> 
> The asymptote port, however, does not have its TeX dependency written in bin: style so this trick won't work. I don't know if that 
> was a deliberate decision by the asymptote port maintainer or an oversight.

Generally, I've tried to use bin: dependencies for anything that
just *uses* TeX (and so would be OK to use MacTeX) and port:
dependencies for things that are more closely integrated. The usual
reason for using a port: dependency is that the port installs tex
packages, which are going to go into $prefix/share/texmf for use by
MacPorts texlive. asymptote falls into this category.

The other common reason for needing a port: dependency is something
that links against libraries provided by texlive-bin (e.g.
libkpathsea). IIRC, asymptote doesn't, but some other ports do.

Dan

-- 
Dan R. K. Ports              MIT CSAIL                http://drkp.net/