[MacPorts] #17473: RFE: allow Portfile to upgrade dependents

[MacPorts]

#17473: RFE: allow Portfile to upgrade dependents
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 Reporter:  mcalhoun@…             |       Owner:  macports-tickets@…                   
     Type:  enhancement            |      Status:  new                                  
 Priority:  Normal                 |   Milestone:  MacPorts Future                      
Component:  base                   |     Version:                                       
 Keywords:                         |        Port:                                       
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Comment(by febeling@…):

 Any package manager that relies on the download-and-build pattern has the
 problem that it can't really tell if they break dynamically linked
 binaries/libs when they upgrade libraries (because of new path or new lib
 name). Unless they rebuild all dependents every time, which is way too
 expensive, that is. Gentoo is one example of an OS with this style of
 packages. This is how they solve the problem:

 http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoolkit.xml#doc_chap4

 Basically, there is a tool (revdep-rebuild) which scans through binaries
 and checks if dynamic linking still works everywhere. If not, you can
 rebuild only those packages which are marked, so that they link against
 existing libraries again.

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Ticket URL: <http://trac.macports.org/ticket/17473#comment:11>
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