Debian/Ubuntu-style -dev ports

[Clemens Lang]

Hi,

On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 12:45:48AM +0200, René J.V. Bertin wrote:
> 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.

This is really something that should either be done completely and
correctly, or not. In theory, it's actually not all that hard. You only
need the concept of one Portfile generating multiple different packages,
allow separate installation of those packages, and introduce a phase
that splits the files installed by a port into those packages (much of
which can be automated using a set of rules, as you mention).

Yes, it's something we could do for library symlinks, but then you'd
leave the pkg-config files around that reference libraries that don't
exist where build systems would expect them. Same for CMake modules,
header files and a bunch of other stuff.

tl;dr: It can be done, but it should be done right.

-- 
Clemens