Debian/Ubuntu-style -dev ports

[René J.V. Bertin]

On Wednesday May 18 2016 17:50:00 Brandon Allbery wrote:

> The problem with this is that if a MacPorts user can't get something from a
> prebuilt package, you have to force both the "user" and "developer" ports
> to be installed because any dependents will necessarily be doing linking.

Yes, but is that really a problem? The overhead should be minimal since the -dev port only contains symlinks, and if there's a way to record the fact when a port has a -dev port a depends_build port:foo-dev  could be implied (added automatically) by a simple depends_lib port:foo statement.

Also: it may not be possible to make the post-destroot move of the linker libraries entirely automatic. But once those files are installed in a well thought-out way it should be possible to create an automatic way to make them available from where they should be. That could even be something done only for the duration of a build...

R.