Where to start: pointers? links? tickets?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Aug 9, 2009, at 06:06, Giorgio Valoti wrote:

> Il giorno 09/ago/09, alle ore 00:08, Jeremy Lavergne ha scritto:
>
>>>> I’d like to contribute some more to this project, so I thought I
>>>> could browse the tickets and begin to fix some easy ones but I
>>>> thought maybe it’s better to ask here.
>>>
>>> Definitely an easier way to get started; the simplest tickets to  
>>> handle to
>>> begin with would be simple version updates, either to  
>>> nomaintainer ports or
>>> submitted by maintainers who don't have commit access.
>>
>> To that end, you might consider doing `port livecheck installed`  
>> to easily find out what ports you're using that are outdated.  You  
>> could also do `port livecheck maintainer:openmaintainer` or `port  
>> livecheck maintainer:nomaintainer`.  If you come across ports  
>> without livechecks, you might flex your regex (if applicable) and  
>> write some livechecks ;-)
>
> I’m already maintaining some ports, I was thinking doing something  
> on the lower levels. I took a look at some tickets listed here:
> <http://trac.macports.org/query? 
> status=new&status=reopened&component=base&order=priority&col=id&col=su 
> mmary&col=status&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=port&type=% 
> 21enhancement>
>
> Maybe I’ll find something to start with.

It's ambitious! Understanding how base works is a lot more involved  
than understanding how portfiles work. But feel free to dive in. We  
could certainly use more people working on base.


> Re: the livechecks. Is there a way to maintain a parallel macports  
> system, say one under /opt/local and one under ~/ports?

Sure. Just install another MacPorts with a different prefix.

You need more than just the --prefix argument to the ./configure  
script though. You also need to tell it to put the Tcl package,  
applications and frameworks in different places, otherwise they will  
overwrite those files in your other MacPorts install. For example you  
could use:


PREFIX=/wherever

./configure \
--prefix=$PREFIX \
--with-tclpackage=$PREFIX/Library/Tcl \
--with-applications-dir=$PREFIX/Applications \
--with-frameworks-dir=$PREFIX/Library/Frameworks \
--enable-readline

make

sudo make install


When I install a second MacPorts for testing, I tend to link the  
portfiles and distfiles up to the ones I already have from my first  
installation, so I don't have to download them again. To do that, you  
would edit $PREFIX/etc/macports/sources.conf and tell it the file:///- 
based location of your existing ports tree, and delete $PREFIX/var/ 
macports/distfiles and replace it with a symlink to your existing  
distfiles directory, respectively.