graphviz-cairo and perl5.8

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Nov 14, 2006, at 21:29, Curt Siffert wrote:

> graphviz-cairo requires graphviz, cairo, and p5-xml-parser .  I  
> have the graphviz and the cairo ports installed.

Ah, you know, I never realized there was a separate graphviz-cairo  
port. I always figured there would have been a +cairo variant for the  
graphviz port, and since there wasn't one, I assumed the MacPorts  
version just didn't support cairo. Shows what I know.


> p5-xml-parser requires perl5.8 .  I can't bring myself to install  
> the perl5.8 port.  :)
>
> Because, I'm on Tiger, and I already have perl5.8 .  Do I really  
> need an entire separate installation of perl5.8 (5.8.8 instead of  
> 5.8.6) to install graphviz-cairo?  How can I get around this?  Is  
> this a bug with the port?

MacPorts is designed to be self-sufficient, so yes, it installs its  
own Perl, and no, there's not supposed to be a way to get around it,  
nor is it to be considered a bug; it's a feature. This is in the FAQ:

http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/macports/wiki/ 
FAQ#WhyisMacPortsusingitsownlibraries


Note that cairo support is integrated into the base code in the  
graphviz 2.9 development line, which will become the stable graphviz  
2.10 release eventually. So building graphviz 2.10 with cairo will be  
very different (hopefully easier) than building graphviz 2.8 with  
cairo. I don't know if it still requires perl.

In fact I don't know why the current graphviz-cairo port requires  
perl. Perhaps the port author could comment.


FYI, I maintain standalone binary builds of graphviz 2.9 with cairo  
for Mac OS X, if you don't mind that it's not a part of your MacPorts  
system. You can get it here:

http://www.ryandesign.com/graphviz/