Emacs v XEmacs in ports

[Ryan Schmidt]

On May 1, 2007, at 03:49, Peter Gammie wrote:

>> You suggest to the port author to have emacs be the default and  
>> supply a
>> variant to override the default, say xemacs.  But if there is a  
>> common
>> library or file that indicates the presence of either, you could  
>> use the
>> "lib:" form of dependent specification that would accept either  
>> version of
>> emacs.  It doesn't check for a port but a library of file.  The ports
>> depending on X11 do this so you can either use Apple's X11 or the  
>> one from
>> MacPorts.  Like this:
>>
>> lib:libX11.6:XFree86
>
> Am I naive to propose that, in the case of something system- 
> supplied like Emacs, the dependency be omitted?
>
> For Mozart it turns out I can override the default (emacs) by  
> setting an environment variable (OZEMACS=xemacs). Everyone can do  
> this, so IMHO the dependency on MacPorts emacs should be dropped.

I don't know about the specific case of emacs, but in general,  
MacPorts prefers to use its own software in preference to system- 
supplied versions; see the FAQ:

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