bash and bashdb ports

[Ryan Schmidt]

On May 23, 2021, at 12:22, Giuseppe 'ferdy' Miceli wrote:
> 
> On 21 May 2021, at 21:05, Rainer Müller wrote:
>> On 21/05/2021 14.48, Giuseppe 'ferdy' Miceli wrote:
>>> could someone be so kind to enlighten me about the bash port?
>>> 
>>> if i am not mistaken the bash50 sub-port is obsolete and could be removed.
>>> 
>>> i stumbled on it while installing bashdb which depends on bash50 which conflicts with bash.
>>> 
>>> i worked around changing in my local repository the dependency from bash50 to bash and was about to PR the modified bash and bashdb ports, but frankly speaking i do not know if that would be the right think to do.
>>> 
>>> thank you very much in advance,
>> 
>> bashdb is not compatible with bash >= 5.0 and fails to build. This is
>> the only reason the bash50 subport still exists.
> 
> thank you very much for the explanation rainer! 
> 
> what i failed to understand is that macports now ship bash 5.1.8 which is obviously >= 5.0.

I think Rainer meant bashdb is not compatible with bash > 5.0.x.

bash 5.1.8 was available so the bash port was updated to that version. That version of bash is not compatible with the latest version of the bashdb port so we also offer a bash50 port offering bash 5.0.18 for those users who wish to use bashdb.


> i googled for any more information about this incompatibility without success.

You would have to ask the developers of bashdb why they are not compatible with bash > 5.0.x.


> moreover, i found out the bashdb fails to build at config level because of a case statement.
> then i locally patched Portfile and created a patch for configure file (attached) and everything worked.
> 
> yet i admit i often use bashdb to debug simply shell-scripts and have no idea if this incompatibility lays on more complex scripts.

All you've changed in your patch is the configure script prohibition of later bash versions than 5.0.x. I don't know this software so I cannot confirm whether that's the only change that's needed. I recommend asking the developers of bashdb and getting confirmation from them before we make any such change in MacPorts. If they confirm that change is appropriate, add a URL at which we can verify their confirmation (a bug report URL or a commit URL) to the patch.

Increasing the revision to a large YYYYMMDD value as you've done is not customary. Whenever a revision should be increased, increase it by one.