License question

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jan 1, 2012, at 20:10, Mark Brethen wrote:

> Can you cite an example of a sub-port?

Subports are especially useful when you have multiple pieces of software to be built out of a single distfile, that a user might want to install independently of one another. Examples of this kind of subport:

The pure port has a subport:

https://trac.macports.org/browser/trunk/dports/lang/pure/Portfile

The php54 port I'm developing in my users directory has several subports (and will gain several dozen more by the time I'm done with it):

https://trac.macports.org/browser/users/ryandesign/ports/lang/php54/Portfile

All ports using the unified python portgroup, by virtue of using that portgroup, get subports for each supported Python version:

https://trac.macports.org/browser/trunk/dports/_resources/port1.0/group/python-1.0.tcl


Subports are also helpful if there's a collection of software whose version number always changes together, even if there are separate distfiles. Examples of this kind of subport:

This patch shows an example of adding a subport to the virtualbox port:

https://trac.macports.org/attachment/ticket/32615/virtualbox-guest-additions.diff


For further examples of subports, you can grep for "subport" in all the Portfiles.