port activate error: can't read "revision": no such variable

[James Berry]

On May 10, 2007, at 2:36 AM, Paulo Moura wrote:

>> I'm in favor of getting the + out of your version number.
>
> The "3.0.1+" version number is not something I control as is used  
> by the third-party software. This software install on a directory  
> named after this version number. Using a different version number  
> in the portfile results in a broken installation. Moreover, what is  
> important here is to fix the MacPorts parsing bug uncovered by my  
> portfile, not finding a workaround for some specific portfile that  
> only a few people care about.

Hi Paulo,

When I rewrote major parts of the port(1) command driver a couple of  
years ago, I did put in accommodation for + in the version (the hack  
to terminate version with a /). Part of the problem is that the  
syntax has always allowed run together strings of version+-variants.  
I believe the problem in this case, however, is not in the port(1)  
command handler (as it can be forced to distinguish this case as I  
just said, but in other internal parts of macports that rely on using  
a combined version+variants string, and which don't automatically use  
the slash as I just described. As I recall these strings may even get  
used to build filenames.

So yes, I believe that you _will_ run into problems with + in version  
numbers. I can't tell you exactly where/how/when, but it is a problem/ 
issue/restriction in the code. If somebody wants to work through this  
issue and patch the code, they are more than welcome to. Short of  
that, somebody should come up with a workaround for this particular  
port so that we can avoid the + in the version number: either by  
yelling at the port issuer, falling back to a version without the +,  
or (within macports) using a different version number (perhaps with  
an additional .1 component on the end instead of the +) to describe  
this version. The distfile key can then be used to explicitly name  
the file. Not idea, but I think it can be done.

James