Updating macports.conf

[Jordan K. Hubbard]

On Feb 15, 2008, at 6:01 PM, Rainer Müller wrote:

> Currently on selfupdate macports.conf is not updated in any way if it
> already existed. This "hides" new options from long time users.

Yep.  Very common problem with configuration files!

> An up-to-date macports.conf provides a good overview over all options
> and contains short documentation lines.
> [ ... ]
> 1) Add macports.conf.dist

Yes, at a minimum, you need an updated reference config file available  
at all times, though I dislike the .dist approach.  If it's just a  
passive reference, then you need to either write a merge utility (like  
FreeBSD's "mergemaster") or dump the entire problem of merging in the  
user's lap, neither solution bringing much happiness.  A better  
approach is FreeBSD's /etc/defaults - a set of shadow files you keep  
up to date, making the primary configuration file an override.   You  
can still get stale data lingering in the user configuration file,  
keeping an option on or off when the default has changed, but  
sometimes that's a feature.

This is, in any case, how I'd handle this one.  Always install a  
macports.conf.default and add some logic to load the two in order  
(macports.conf should, in fact, be optional).

- Jordan



>
>    Place a file named macports.conf.dist right beside macports.conf.  
> It
>    would be the same file as the install process would have  
> generated if
>    no macports.conf file exists. Then the user can copy & paste new
>    options over to macports.conf.
>
>    Advantages:    * Easy to implement
>    Disadvantages: * User still has to do it him/herself.
>
> 2) Parse macports.conf and regenerate it
>    Parse the existing macports.conf and rewrite it completely. This
>    takes takes all options already present and writes a new
>    macports.conf (by also keeping a backup).
>
>    Advantages:    * macports.conf is always up-to-date
>                   * Does not require work by user
>    Disadvantages: * More work to implement this.
>                   * Users will loose their formatting or comments, if
>                     they customized it.
>
> Any comments on this appreciated.
>
> Rainer
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