64-bit versions of some ports

[Emil Lundberg]

>> From the previous discussion, I remember that we (or rather mww)
>> started by changing the +universal variant to build all 4 versions (2
>> architectures each of 32-bit and 64-bit) but this was problematic
>> because many ports failed to build out of the box as 64-bit, and  
>> there
>> was no clear upgrade path for those who already had 2-architecture
>> universal variants installed, and it was said that 64-bit versions of
>> most ports don't make sense anyway (aren't faster, or possibly are
>> even slower). But it seems like we want to be able to do this for
>> selected ports.
>
> Most of the ports that failed were using Carbon, or otherwise old...
> (old Carbon GUI does not support 64-bit, only Cocoa GUI does that)

Thanks for revisiting this. There is a real need to be able to  
compile, by default, for the native architecture of your machine.  
There is also a real need to preseve backwards compatibility. A  
modest proposal (based on posts and discussions old and new) that  
might please everyone:

* Keep the "universal" variant for building architecture-fat binaries  
(only).
* Add a new "fat" variant for building bit-fat binaries (only).
* Activate the "fat" variant by default on all library-class ports.
* Add an config option to set the default bit-ness ("always 32-bit"  
or "native") for all builds.

Some of it may well be in there already; I haven't been able to  
locate it in the docs though, e.g. where does "universal_archs"  
apply...?


> I reverted +universal back to meaning "10.4u SDK for ppc/i386 arch",
> and then made them into parameters for overriding locally if desired.

So is it possible, using the current MacPorts 1.6.0, to build bit-fat/ 
quad-fat binaries, and if so, how is this accomplished (feel free to  
bring this onto the users-list)?

thx,

/Emil