request for port create command, to build a portfile from a URL

[Michael Dickens]

Hi Ken - I think that's a great idea. In "GNU Radio" land, we have such a tool for creating out-of-tree GR modules, called "gr_modtool"; it's great for setting up the skeleton for such OOT GR scripts. The end-user still has to fill in many "blanks", but this tool provides the starting point. I could see something similar for MacPorts, much as you describe. Maybe this could be added to the GSoC wiki page? It shouldn't be too difficult to implement something like what you propose, whether directly in 'port' or as a tool separate from 'port'. Cheers! - MLD

On Tue, Mar 6, 2018, at 9:58 AM, Ken Cunningham wrote:
> It would be nice to have a command like
> 
> port create URL
> 
> that would download the URL, calc the checksums for it, and build a 
> basic Portfile for it.
> 
> It could ask for a category to use for the Port.
> 
> In a more advance version, it could extract the URL and do some quick 
> analysis on it.
> 
> if there's a CMakeLists.txt file in the root, do the right things to 
> make it a cmake based port.
> 
> If there's a configure file in the root, do the right things for that.
> 
> Might make things faster and easier for people to get started and up and 
> running.
> 
> Certainly would make it easier for people who want to use MacPorts 
> infrastructure to build their own files, as many don't know how to 
> properly set up the include and lib directories, etc.