Dependency Problem of Upgrading Gnuplot: A Possible Bug

[Xin Liu]

Then what's the point of having the bin style dependencies? It's
intended to solve the external dependency problem, otherwise the
portfile author would use port style instead. With the current
implementation of the "upgrade" command, the bin style is basically
useless (because anyone who performs an upgrade will have the internal
dependencies installed anyway), and there is no solution to
accommodate external dependencies in a convenient way. "-n" is not an
option, because it also prevents other dependencies that lie within
macports from being upgraded.

On the other hand, if the code never upgrades bin style dependencies,
I cannot see any problem. I'd assume (almost, if not absolutely) every
portfile author only uses bin style and lib style to accommodate
external dependencies. If his/her package depends on other software
that needs to be upgraded by macports, he/she should use port style
instead.

Best
Regards,

Xin Liu

> bin style dependencies are discouraged because of problems like this.
>
> The upgrade code (unless you pass it -n, which is what you want to be
> doing to fix this particular issue for yourself) needs to upgrade
> library dependencies (for cases where the new version of the port
> needs the newer library) and can't just check bin/lib style
> dependencies in that case (as the port could be installed, but is an
> older version).
>
> --
> Daniel J. Luke