"make[1]: execvp: printf: Argument list too long"

[René J. V. Bertin]

This Portfile hack fixed the issue for me:

{{{
    package require md5
    set portbuildpath.old ${portbuildpath}
    set workdir [md5::md5 -hex ${portpath}]
    set portbuildpath [file join ${portdbpath} build ${workdir}]
    ui_debug "${portpath}->${workdir} portbuildpath=${portbuildpath}"
    pre-fetch {
        system "mkdir -p ${portbuildpath}"
    }
    if {[file exists ${portbuildpath}] && ![file exists ${portbuildpath.old}]} {
        ln -s ${portbuildpath} ${portbuildpath.old}
    }
}}}

Surprisingly even `port work` returns the actual work dir (i.e. not 
`${portbuildpath.old}`) ... but maybe that's I already normalise the return 
string in a local hack.

Had it not been enough I would have run crc::cksum from the crc32 package on the 
2 relevant components of `portpath` (the tree root dir and the category/portdir 
path), to get a shorter XXXX/YYYY instead of the single 
_path_to_portree_category_portdir contraption.

FWIW, I'd love to see the better organisation of the builddir this would give, 
instead of the single flat directory it is now.

R.