[103128] trunk/dports/python/py-html2text/Portfile

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Feb 16, 2013, at 21:04, Joshua Root <jmr at macports.org> wrote:

> On 2013-2-16 09:52 , Lawrence Velázquez wrote:
>> On Feb 15, 2013, at 4:43 PM, Ryan Schmidt <ryandesign at macports.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Feb 15, 2013, at 15:03, sean at macports.org wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Revision: 103128
>>>>        https://trac.macports.org/changeset/103128
>>>> Author:   sean at macports.org
>>>> Date:     2013-02-15 13:03:59 -0800 (Fri, 15 Feb 2013)
>>>> Log Message:
>>>> -----------
>>>> py-html2text: add missing py-distribute dependency; fixes #37964
>>>> 
>>>> Modified Paths:
>>>> --------------
>>>>  trunk/dports/python/py-html2text/Portfile
>>> 
>>>> +    depends_lib-append  port:py${python.version}-distribute
>>> 
>>> Is it really a library dependency? Isn't distribute usually only used at build time?
>> 
>> Some programs use the pkg_resources module at runtime and flip out if distribute is removed after install. According to egall[1], py-html2text does so.
>> 
>>    [1] https://trac.macports.org/ticket/37964#comment:3
> 
> We've been over this in the general case before:
> 
> <https://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macports-dev/2013-January/021451.html>
> 
> It's probably not very productive to question every runtime dep on
> distribute without knowing that it's actually unnecessary.

But it is unusual to use distribute at runtime, isn't it? Just as it would be unusual to use pkgconfig at runtime. If a port author has gone to the trouble to determine that that unusual situation exists, it would be helpful if that port author would insert a comment into the portfile explaining it. That way the rest of us reading the commit messages don't have to wonder or spend time trying to find out ourselves.