Determine dependencies of another port

[Joshua Root]

On 2021-7-15 20:26 , Haren Samarasinghe wrote:
> I'm trying to write an NPM portgroup, part of which involves setting the
> correct version of npm and the corresponding version of nodejs as a
> port's dependencies.
> 
>  From some port A, how would I find if port B has C as a dependency? As
> an example, how would I find out in the portgroup that npm4 goes with
> nodejs8?

There would be hacky ways of doing that, but why not just depend on npm4 
and let its dependencies be handled automatically?

> I thought about manually hardcoding it into the PG, but then this would
> have to be regularly updated and could lead to conflicts if not done
> properly. I also thought about setting npm/nodejs as path deps, but that
> doesn't work when the port requires a newer node version.

If there's a true need to have the information in both places, then the 
Don't Repeat Yourself principle is good, but I think the structure 
should be reversed. The npm* portfiles should get the information about 
which nodejs* to depend on from the same place as the new portgroup, 
possibly the portgroup itself, or a separate portgroup if it's too 
difficult to make including the npm portgroup work in the npm ports.

- Josh