variants / sub-packages

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Apr 1, 2008, at 03:40, Robert Hinn wrote:

> I was wondering: seeing some ports called *-devel in the list, does  
> MacPorts offer a sub-package mechanism? I haven't found anything in  
> the guide, so I considered using variants as a proper way to handle  
> optional features in a software which I would otherwise build a sub- 
> package for.

Anders already explained what *-devel ports are in MacPorts, that we  
don't have sub-packages, and that variants are the correct place to  
implement optional features in a port. I just wanted to add that  
there is already a request to document *-devel ports in the Guide:

http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/macports/ticket/14540

See that ticket for more about *-devel ports if interested.