Features desirable for packaging

[Anders F Björklund]

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