scope of configure.optflags, configure.compiler etc. command line variables

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Sep 17, 2019, at 03:26, René J.V. Bertin wrote:

> On Monday September 16 2019 16:26:12 Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> 
>> There should be no need for you to specify anything ccache-related on the command line. You can enable ccache globally in macports.conf. Individual ports can disable it if they are not compatible with it.
> 
> Yes, I realised that after sending my message. And then I remembered why I don't use it: it doesn't make sense for ports that you only build once in a while without any significant chance that you'll be rebuilding it again soon. GIven that the ccache cache is limited in size, using it pointlessly for too many or too big builds means you're flushing useful data from the cache. You'd need to use a port-specific ccache directory to prevent this issue, probably under control of a variable like distdir, or simply a token to store that cache *in* the distdir, so that related (sub)ports can share a cache.

> I'm not even certain if I build more ports with ccache than without. What I do know is that I when I do build a bunch of ports in a single go those are usually related and so will be done either with or without using ccache.

You have a point that the cache probably gets blown away before it can get used again, if you build a lot of different ports and your cache size isn't large enough to hold them all. You could increase the size of your cache.

Storing a separate cache for each port would quickly eat up a lot of disk space.


> One could also think of some sort of a developer's option to the port driver which toggles certain options for port maintainer convenience and has a scope like -o or -k. Ideally that option would allow for profiles, but even I cannot really justify that added complexity ;)

The level of fiddling that you've mentioned doing with the command line flags exceeds what I've heard of any other developer doing. So I don't think that writing and debugging a lot of code to change how this works would end up benefiting very many people.