py27-omniORBpy pre-built binary trouble

[Thomas G Lockhart]

On Sep 7, 2014, at 11:21 AM, Bradley Giesbrecht <pixilla at macports.org> wrote:

> 
> On Sep 6, 2014, at 10:44 PM, Thomas G Lockhart <tlockhart1976 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I’m configuring a new machine (running Mavericks) and notice that some packages I’m used to building from source are available as pre-built binaries. That is great. But one package, py27-omniORBpy, wants to put its python files under /opt/local/lib/ when installed using “port install py27-omniORBpy”, whereas the prerequisite package omniORB wants to put its python libraries under /opt/local/Library/
>> 
>> I’d expect both of these to install python code under /opt/local/Library/, and in fact py27-omniORBpy *does* do that when built from source using “port install -s py27-omniORBpy”.
>> 
>> Any ideas on what might be causing these differences?
> 
> A none default env var you have set?

Ah ha! Not exactly, but...

The omniORBpy software uses autoconf and the python discovery mechanisms in those m4 macros. And it looks like it falls back to using something based on the value of —prefix (/opt/local in our case?) if it does not find a python executable. If it does find one it expects to look up the library location using:

from distutils import sysconfig; sysconfig.get_python_lib()

I have my /opt/local/bin/python pointing at python2.7. And autoconf found that so my py27-omniORBpy worked just as intended. If I remove the default version of python:

sudo port select —set python none

then I see the same (incorrect) build behavior here. Autoconf can’t figure out what to use so falls back to using a library path based on the —prefix value.

So any suggestions for locking in the value of a PYTHON environment variable or the actual python executable within a MacPorts variant? I would have guessed that the python PortGroup would have magically handled that, but that does not seem to be the case.

I’ll rummage around some other python-based ports and see if I find other approaches. But suggestions are appreciated. TIA

                 - Tom