On the heels of the memtester port

[Joshua Root]

On 2009-7-16 04:38, Scott Haneda wrote:
> Hello, I have been reading today about Makefiles, not getting too far.
> 
> The Makefile for memtester did not accept the --prefix argument.  I also
> had this issue with the rbldnsd port as well.

The --prefix argument is for a configure script, not a makefile. Make
does allow you to pick up variables from the environment, or set them on
the command line with NAME=value syntax.

> Can someone summarize why some sources are so simple to make a portfile
> for, and others require reinplacing the Makefile to alter it just enough
> to conform how MacPorts will need it to be?

If software can be installed with `./configure && make && sudo make
install` it's generally easy to make a port for. The more it differs
from this, the more work you'll likely have to do.

> If I use MacPorts to make a package installer, do I need to do so on
> each of 10.4, and 10.5 for PPC and Intel, and make 4 total binary
> files?  Is there any way to make a universal binary so I can only
> distribute one file?

You can build universal binaries with MP, but you can't target an OS
version other than the one you're running on. A universal package built
on Tiger would likely work on Leopard as well, but not vice versa.

- Josh