default_variants / upgrades

[Rainer Müller]

Anders F Björklund wrote:
> Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> 
>> However, if you're going to make it the default to build without
>> documentation, then the variant should be changed to be called
>> "docs" (or "with_docs" if you insist on that nonstandard naming
>> convention). Default variants are buggy during upgrades and should be
>> avoided.
> ...
>> Here also you'll want to instead convert the x11 variant to a no_x11
>> variant, and not use default_variants.
> 
> So, you think "default_variants" should be removed instead of fixed ?
> Or is this one of those interim workarounds, until upgrades work OK ?

I also don't like these "no_*" variants, because they are semantically
incorrect. And once we get this fixed we should rename these variants to
get rid of the "no_" prefix. And that will cause some more trouble for
people using them...

But I neither know a better workaround at the moment, nor do I know how
to fix it properly. Not sure what the fix would be; store deselected
variants in the registry or remove default_variants when using upgrade.

I think ticket #2377 [1] is related, although I can't find a ticket
exactly for this default_variants problem. Maybe it does not include the
right keywords? As our tickets are growing exponentially, it is not easy
to find a specific ticket...

Rainer

[1] http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/macports/ticket/2377