Problem with liveupdate (zlib)

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jul 11, 2007, at 14:19, Simon Ruderich wrote:

>>> "port livecheck installed" returns this:
>>>
>>> apr seems to have been updated (port version: 1.2.9, new version:  
>>> 1.2.8)
>>> Error: cannot check if apr-util was updated (regex didn't match)
>>> clearsilver seems to have been updated (port version: 0.10.4, new
>>> version: 0.10.2)
>>> Error: cannot check if db44 was updated (regex didn't match)
>>> Error: cannot check if gettext was updated (regex didn't match)
>>> Error: cannot check if libxml2 was updated (regex didn't match)
>>> Error: cannot check if libxslt was updated (regex didn't match)
>>> Error: cannot check if nano was updated (regex didn't match)
>>> Error: cannot check if ncurses was updated (regex didn't match)
>>> Error: cannot check if ncursesw was updated (regex didn't match)
>>> pcre seems to have been updated (port version: 7.1, new version:  
>>> 7.2)
>>> Error: cannot check if perl5.8 was updated (regex didn't match)
>>> Error: cannot check if popt was updated (regex didn't match)
>>> Error: cannot check if readline was updated (regex didn't match)
>>
>> 1) Error: cannot check if apr-util was updated (regex didn't match)
>>
>> is the message you get for ports that have not any livecheck
>> configuration and for which the default does not work (the default  
>> being
>> fetching on freshmeat I believe) either because the project is not
>> declared on the default site either it has another name.
>
> Oh ok, then the Portfile should be fixed. This would remove this  
> problem.
>
>> 2) pcre seems to have been updated (port version: 7.1, new  
>> version: 7.2)
>>
>> That's a good message indicating that pcre may need to be updated...
>>
>> 3) apr seems to have been updated (port version: 1.2.9, new version:
>> 1.2.8)
>>
>> This happens if freshmeat has a project declared for this name but  
>> the
>> page is not as up-to-date as the port. The problem is upstream
>> (developper) does not change the project info on freshmeat at every
>> release, blame them.
>> Or the port maintainer may try to configure livecheck for it to fetch
>> version on an up-to-date site. But since this feature is mostly  
>> useful
>> for the port-maintainer, he may not need this to know when a port  
>> needs
>> upgrading.
>
> Ok, thanks for the info. Maybe "port livecheck" should check if the
> release number of the homepage is greater then the one in the Portfile
> and only then print a "needs update" message. What do you think?

If you read up on livecheck, you will see that it has many different  
modes of operation -- many places from which it can attempt to get a  
program's most recent version info -- be that sourceforge, freshmeat,  
the project's homepage, etc. Indeed, what you describe is one  
possible way livecheck can work -- provided the port author  
configures *how* to extract the current version number from that  
project's homepage, since everybody writes their web pages in a  
different way.

>> Emmanuel
>
> Thanks for your answers, but I have still two questions.
>
> "The aim of livecheck is to give the maintainers a quick  
> information if
> the Portfile needs an update."
> Is this statement correct?

Yes, that's correct. livecheck is a feature meant to help port  
maintainers. Anybody else -- port users, for example -- may also use  
it, of course, but some maintainers may not have set up livecheck  
information for their ports, as you've seen. Maybe they're subscribed  
to a project's announce list, for example, so they learn about new  
versions of the project that way. In this way, you may run into ports  
where livecheck doesn't work and the maintainer doesn't care. They  
may accept patches, though, if you would like to figure out how to  
enable livecheck for that port and contribute it to the maintainer.

> What is with the other "regex didn't match" messages for Portfiles  
> which
> have a correct specification of the liveupdate. Is this a  
> limitation of
> the regex or am I missing something (again).

It could mean that the project's homepage is offline. Or it could  
mean the livecheck specification was not in fact correct in the  
portfile, either because the port author made a mistake, or because  
MacPorts changed the way the livecheck information is interpreted, or  
because the project's homepage has changed in some way and a new  
livecheck needs to be written.