compiler.whitelist and compiler installation side-effects

[René J.V. Bertin]

On Sunday September 20 2015, Brandon Allbery wrote regarding "Re: compiler.whitelist and compiler installation side-effects"

[this is a resurrected message]

>Because we can't provide any meaningful support if it's using a random
>compiler?

That's what I meant with discourage rather than disallow. Someone savvy enough to install a compiler outside of MacPorts (or to spend $$$ on something like icc) can be expected to be able to deal with lack of support (or at least understand that no support can be given)...

>I am aware that you want MacPorts to be a homebrewing system, not a
>repeatable builds system. I will note that the last such system discovered
>the hard way why, when you need to do support, you are better off with
>repeatable builds.

Maybe, but again, a supported compiler that fits the criteria for whitelisting shouldn't degrade the principle of repeatable builds. That should be a clear self-evidence. And the llvm+clang ports are simply too expensive in terms of disk space and build resources (when the bots are down as apparently they still are) to be imposed. If required, find a way to provide a clang port that installs the latest supported version for the host OS (and only upgrade that one when the bots are available...) and to depend on that in a compiler selection mechanism. Users would still need to uninstall versions that are no longer needed, but at least they have the choice then, without finding themselves reinstalling them

But frankly, I don't see why it is OK to say "clang but not this or that version or older than xyz" and not "macports-clang but not if older than x.y". That is basically all I am looking for.

At least blacklisting apparently works more or less as I'd expect. Is it at least possible to blacklist specific macports-clang versions and version ranges?
If so, one can probably write up a series conditional compiler.blacklist-append statements that filter out the appropriate parts in the compiler.whitelist setting.

R.