tetex/texlive dependencies

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jan 14, 2008, at 03:18, Emmanuel Hainry wrote:

>>>> If more than one port installs a binary foo, and either one is  
>>>> good enough, this could be specified in a portfile by saying
>>>>
>>>> depends_lib path:${prefix}/bin/foo:bar
>>>>
>>>> where "bar" is the preferred port for providing foo if it is not  
>>>> already installed.
>>>>
>>>> The dependencies would have to be changed in all ports that  
>>>> currently depend directly on teTeX.
>>>
>>> - Seems like it would be more valuable to say "either this port
>>>   or that port" rather than "depends on file", because there
>>>   might be many many files that need to be supported.
>>
>> Perhaps. But MacPorts does not currently have any syntax for  
>> specifying
>> that, and we've gotten along without it so far. The alternative  
>> that we
>> currently have available is to specify that a port depends on a  
>> certain
>> file existing, and if it does not, then install one particular  
>> port that
>> provides that file. There might be another port (or ports) that could
>> also provide that file, but the user would have to know about this  
>> and
>> install that other port first. The dependent port that's specified  
>> should
>> be the one that "most" users would want.
>
> At the moment, what dependent ports will check for is a texmf tree
> (provided by texlive_texmf-minimal and some binaries (latex, pdflatex,
> mktexlsr...). So the best dependency scheme would probably be
> bin:latex:texlive.  So that people with tetex who do not care to have
> the latest distribution can live with teTeX (which works well).

Using something like "bin:latex:texlive" is discouraged because a  
latex binary outside of the MacPorts prefix would satisfy the  
dependency, but we don't want it to; we only want latex binaries  
installed by MacPorts to be detected[1]. Therefore, "path:${prefix}/ 
bin/latex:texlive" should be used instead.


[1] http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/macports/wiki/ 
FAQ#WhyisMacPortsusingitsownlibraries