Added support in MacPorts base to set PATH and MANPATH automatically in Leopard

[James Berry]

Hi Emmanuel,


On Nov 29, 2007, at 7:03 AM, Emmanuel Hainry wrote:

> Citando James Berry :
>> I just checked in some code (r31491:31492) that supplies and  
>> installs spec
>> files for the /etc/paths.d  and /etc/manpaths.d directories if they  
>> are
>> present, as they are on Leopard.
>
> I thought macports was supposed not to mess with anything outside
> /opt/local. (apart from /Application/Macports and
> /Library/LaunchDaemons and a few others but aiming to reduce them
> whenever possible). Modifying things in the user's home directory is
> acceptable though.

I general, we don't do stuff outside of /opt/local, though we do also  
install into /Library/Tcl, if memory serves, and also /Library/ 
LaunchDaemons, for instance. We try to be as minimal as possible, and  
I think this fits into that category. And it seems to be, warts and  
all, the Leopard "way" to do things.

Your question/point , however, is a completely valid one, which we'd  
love feedback on. There's something very nice and clean about the  
change I made (we just throw some files into a directory and don't  
worry about editing the ~/.profile, which has its own share of  
problems and snafus for less experienced users).

I think it's a question for the group in general: which is the best  
approach? The range of choices we have is basically to pick from the  
following menu:

	- Install a file into /etc/manpaths.d/
	- Install a file into /etc/paths.d/
	- Munge ~/.profile to munge MANPATH
	- Munge ~/.profile to munge PATH

Note that for man to work on Leopard, we have to do either 1 or 3, at  
least, as Leopard now sets MANPATH, which means that the auto path  
stuff for man doesn't work.

Note that just changing ~/.profile means that anybody who already has  
~/.bash_profile, for instance, doesn't get the fix (though this could  
be improved with better selection based on what profiles are available  
and what SHELL is.

Feedback welcome. Anybody?

James