is there a way to use MacPorts to use a local source folder as source for builds?

[Ken Cunningham]

I would like to use MacPorts to work on several large projects hosted on github, that I clone locally and add incremental patches to. Think LLVM, qt4, qt5, etc, etc.

During the MacPorts build, I would like MacPorts to use my local cloned folder of source as the source code for the build. For incremental patches, which I seem to do a lot of, this would be a real timesaver.

I have not (yet) come across this MacPorts feature, if it exists.

I am thinking perhaps that the “fetch” phase of the portfile could be overridden with something that makes a symlink from the source folder into the appropriate place in the work folder?

Like maybe something like this?

fetch {
    system “ln -s /path/to/my/source/folder ${worksrcpath}
}

If not, what “ln -s” line would be the safest, so as to not somehow trash my source folder?

Or some parameter that points to the source that might be modified to do that?

set ${worksrcpath} /path/to/my/sourcecode

It comes to mind that I can’t possibly be the first person who ever asked for this — is this an existing feature of MacPorts I haven’t used?


Best,

Ken