[MacPorts] #21072: Cannot force a change to +universal

[Michael_google gmail_Gersten]

I cannot submit a change (including "re-open") on the tracker. I am
responding here instead.

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 8:10 PM, MacPorts<noreply at macports.org> wrote:
> #21072: Cannot force a change to +universal
> -----------------------------------------------+----------------------------
>  Reporter:  michael-macports@…                |       Owner:  macports-tickets@…
>      Type:  defect                            |      Status:  closed
>  Priority:  Normal                            |   Milestone:
>  Component:  ports                             |     Version:  1.8.0
> Resolution:  invalid                           |    Keywords:  --enforce-variants
>      Port:                                    |
> -----------------------------------------------+----------------------------
> Changes (by toby@…):
>
>  * status:  new => closed
>  * resolution:  => invalid
>
>
> Comment:
>
>  You obviously don't need --enforce-variants when installing, since there's
>  nothing to enforce. The rest of your report is #126.
>
> --
> Ticket URL: <http://trac.macports.org/ticket/21072#comment:2>
> MacPorts <http://www.macports.org/>
> Ports system for Mac OS

This isn't #126, and there is a need at install time.

If I am installing X, and specifying +universal, then any uninstalled
dependency of X also gets +universal. But existing dependencies that
do not have +universal are not upgraded, and cannot be forced to
upgrade. There is no current option to "Enforce the variants that I'm
installing with on the child dependents".

Equally, there is no way I can find to determine the complete list of
currently installed dependents and the list of not-yet-installed
dependents. If there was, I could just get the installed dependents,
and do an upgrade --enforce-variants on them.

But that is exactly what I want -- when installing X +universal, any
not-yet-installed dependents get installed with +universal, and any
already-installed dependents get upgrade --enforce-variants.

This is something that is "trivial" (for some value of trivial) for
the code to do as it does the install and dependency check, and very,
very time consuming/painful for humans to do.

Nor is it easy to uninstall things. As in, uninstall all the
dependencies to re-install them. All it takes is one other program
using them (very very common on some low-level libraries).

#126 -- 7 years??? -- would address the issue of "If I'm installed
with +darwin9, then I need X installed with +darwin". It does nothing
to address the "I'm going in as +universal, now that one needs to be
changed to +universal. I'm going in as +darwin, now that one needs to
be changed to +darwin".

In a very serious vein, it is (more than) conceivable that you may
need a given library in two different variants for two different
programs; the library in question should appears twice in the file
system, in two different locations, with different names. That isn't a
MacPort issue -- that's a general flawed unix file system layout issue
-- /usr/lib/library.a should be /usr/lib/<flavor>/library.a, and
searching the libraries should be sufficiently smarter :-).

Put it this way: If you say that there is no need for this, then
please tell me how I can easily get my relevant installed ports to be
upgraded to +universal? Please do not say "sudo port upgrade
--enforce-variant +universal installed" -- that will upgrade
everything under the sun to universal, even the things that are
perfectly fine as PPC only.