[MacPorts] VIGRA 1.7.1 Port - Revision 75743

[Michael Dickens]

Hi Benjamin - I'm moving this discussion to the MacPorts dev list because I believe that it's a "broader community" issue.  I didn't ask permission, so I hope this is OK :)

On Apr 11, 2011, at 4:58 AM, Benjamin Seppke wrote:
> while selfupdating my Port-system, I found that you removed the python-somehow-hack from the MacPort of the VIGRA by hardcoding the Python-Version to 2.6.

I removed the python version detection hack because MacPorts folks told me I couldn't do that: < https://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macports-dev/2011-February/013776.html >.  I thought it was a pretty cool hack, but I got outvoted ;)  My hack auto-detected the python version through the use of 'otool' to view which libraries the Boost Python library was linked to & then parse the output to get the actual python version.  I did this because the Portfile interface did not allow me to check which variants of another port are installed; I assume it still does not.  I'm sure VIGRA isn't the only port that has this need, and so it continues to be a broader developer issue.

> However, as all dependencies of the Python-bindings have reached a Python 2.7 state, so I highly recommend to change the Portfiles' Hardcoded Python version to 2.7.

I set the python version to 2.6 because that was what was being used by default at the time: < https://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macports-dev/2011-February/013777.html >.

Looking at the Boost Portfile, I see that there are no default variants (for Python or otherwise).  That means if Boost is not installed & someone tried to do "sudo port install vigra" they would end up seeing the warning about not having NUMPY bindings because the boost Python library would not exist & how to install it.  If someone does want these bindings, then they must install Boost +python26 and then VIGRA.

You/I/whoever can change the default Python version in VIGRA to 2.7, or add a multi-variant selector such as what Boost provides.  But it doesn't solve the underlying problem that port doesn't provide installed variant into to Portfiles -- and hence it is simple try mess up these port-variant-dependent installs.

Please let me know how you want to proceed. - MLD