[57854] trunk/dports/www/phpmyadmin/Portfile

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Sep 17, 2009, at 14:42, Landon Fuller wrote:

> On Sep 17, 2009, at 12:08 PM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>
>> On Sep 17, 2009, at 13:43, Landon Fuller wrote:
>>
>>> On Sep 17, 2009, at 8:44 AM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>>>
>>>> If you need to create files (like config files) outside of the  
>>>> destroot, you should do so in the post-activate phase, not in the  
>>>> destroot phase.
>>>
>>> I believe the (documented? defacto?) standard is that example  
>>> configuration files should be installed in destroot phase with  
>>> a .sample extension.
>>
>> Uh, yes. Well the sample config file should be installed with a  
>> name ending in e.g. ".sample" and this should be done in the  
>> destroot phase and this file should be part of the destroot. But if  
>> you then want to copy that sample config file to a real config file  
>> for the user to modify, that should be done outside the destroot  
>> and outside the destroot phase, after the port has been activated.
>
> My only point was that the historically standard behavior was to  
> install .sample files and not try to add configuration management  
> logic to either the base system or every port that uses a  
> configuration file.
>
> If the new standard is to write custom per-port post-activate  
> handlers to manually trigger ui_msg and install default  
> configuration files, then perhaps it's worth revisiting the years- 
> old decision to not add base system feature for handling  
> configuration files.

Personally, I prefer to tell the user where the sample files are so  
they can make copies if and when they want. Other port authors have  
taken recently to copying the sample files for the user.

I didn't realize there had been a specific decision not to do anything  
about configuration files in MacPorts base; I figured it was just  
something nobody had gotten to yet. There is an open ticket:

http://trac.macports.org/ticket/2365