Understanding the depends syntax

[Boey Maun Suang]

Hi Adam,

> I'm trying to install the gnuplot port and am running into an issue
> relating to TeX. The gnuplot port depends on "bin:tex:teTeX" which, if
> I understand this correctly, checks for a binary "tex" in the $PATH
> and if it can't find it installs the teTeX port.
>
> I have TeX installed with MacTeX 2007:
>
> $ which tex
> /usr/texbin/tex
> $
>
> yet when I try to install gnuplot, it starts installing the teTeX port
> - I don't want to have two different TeX implementations.  Is this the
> expected behaviour? And is there a way round this?

This is the expected behaviour, as the path variable that is checked  
for depends_bin is not the one set by the shell or in ~/.MacOSX/ 
environment.plist, but the one set by "binpath" in macports.conf  
(either system-wide or user-specific), or a hard-coded default in the  
Tcl code (which, unsurprisingly, doesn't include /usr/texbin).

To fix this, set binpath in your macports.conf to include /usr/ 
texbin, e.g.:

binpath		/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/ 
sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/texbin

I don't recall whether using ${prefix} in place of /opt/local works  
here, but it does need to be a full path environment like this.

Just for the record, I'm looking at how we might replace the MacPorts  
teTeX port with something based on TeXLive (as MacTeX is), since  
teTeX is no longer being developed.  I have no idea, however, how  
feasible this is.

Kind regards,


Maun Suang

-- 
Boey Maun Suang (Boey is my surname)
Email: boeyms at macports dot org