reasons for `port provides` not working?

[René J.V. Bertin]

On Monday October 10 2016 17:29:18 Clemens Lang wrote:

> > In fact, in absence of proof that my use of a symlinked $prefix explains
> > everything I won't assume that that is the culprit.
> 
> Well, let me lawyer you with your own mail from 2014 then:
>   https://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macports-users/2014-July/035965.html
> Your attitude of "unless you can proof it's me, it's you" isn't helpful. I've
> had enough of it.

Pardon, exactly where do I say that "it's you" (except maybe between the lines in that old exchange)?

And you think that telling me that it's the fact I'm doing something that's not supported is helpful or maybe even educational? I'm not unwilling to accept that my working hypothesis is wrong, but for that I'll need to know why the lookup fails in one condition but not in another.

In fact, I just discovered the reason. It is indeed related to my using a symlinked prefix. See? I wasn't right, but also not entirely wrong because I got the feature to work without reinstalling. I'll even admit to having been extremely shortsighted not registering the "offending" operation immediately.

Is there a good reason why action_provides (in port) does a `file normalize`? Wouldn't it be just as OK if the actual registry lookup (after doing all checks) used the original $filename?

R