Buiid/install stages documentation?

[Joshua Root]

On 2018-4-19 01:09 , Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 16:14:58 +0200 Rainer Müller
> <raimue at macports.org> wrote:
>>> Maybe I should ask this a bit differently. Are there other
>>> precedents for using a "foreign" packaging or build system and
>>> tricking it into building stuff for macports that I could study
>>> and possibly steal pieces of?  
>>
>> Not that I am aware of. Most package managers would also install
>> all the dependencies, something we do not want in a port.
>>
>> The usual approach is to generate a Portfile from the definition of
>> the "foreign" package manager and also create ports for all
>> dependencies.
>>
>> For example, cpan2port or pypi2port in macports-contrib [1,2] do
>> that for Perl or Python, respectively. They are far from perfect,
>> but are a great help to get an initial Portfile.
> 
> Maybe this is the right approach. Is this generally how ruby, python,
> and perl ports handle this?

We don't use pip or cpan for installation, certainly. Python and perl
have a build system that is used by but distinct from the package
manager. Not having this separation, or at least a way to turn off the
package manager parts of the tool, makes life hard for packagers in general.

- Josh