Default +universal variant for configure-based ports

[Elias Pipping]

That is a lovely addition and I embrace it wholeheartedly.

Now more than ever it brings up the need for a database that contains  
information on which port builds on what platform and if its variant  
+universal works, though.

So a port would have these entries e.g.:

db44     ppc   i386   universal

Panther   ?      ?        ?
Tiger     X      ?        X
Leopard   ?      ?        ?

or something like that. maybe i'm the only one to see it that way but  
i find it problematic to just assume away every port builds on every  
platform and is perfectly stable. also, is it really a good idea to  
keep adding -devel ports instead of allowing a port to be available  
as multiple "branches"? like bash 3.1.17 and 3.2.9 as a 3.1 and a 3.2  
branch (yes, i'm thinking of gentoo - stable, testing, etc)?


Regards,

Elias Pipping


On Feb 26, 2007, at 5:45 AM, Paul Guyot wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I've just implemented and committed a default +universal variant  
> for configure-based ports. There's been some heat about +universal  
> recently and I did not want every port to define the same code over  
> and over.
>
> This variant is more or less equivalent to:
> variant universal {
> 	configure.args-append "--disable-dependency-tracking"
> 	configure.env-append CFLAGS="-isysroot /Developer/SDKs/ 
> MacOSX10.4u.sdk -arch i386 -arch ppc" LDFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch ppc"
> }
>
> However, there is some additional magic:
> * selecting the variant will fail if the port doesn't invoke  
> configure (because user may think they can build the port universal  
> while it would be effectless)
> * selecting the variant will print a warning message if the port  
> already overrides LDFLAGS or CFLAGS in the environment for the  
> configure command
> * you can add -O -g if the port requires it with just:
> configure.universal_cflags-append	-O -g
> * you can simply redefine the variant to override the default code  
> and provide port-specific handler for the universal variant.
>
> etc.
>
> The variant is documented in portfile(7). I tested it with several  
> ports and it seems to just work®™.
>
> I'm considering some future enhancements, but let's see what it  
> gives if we start building ports with +universal. Of course, the  
> build will probably fail if dependencies were not built universal.
>
> Enjoy!
>
> Paul
>
> _______________________________________________
> macports-dev mailing list
> macports-dev at lists.macosforge.org
> http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/macports-dev