Problems using macports

[Chris Pickel]

[Resending to post to list; sorry to muffetta for the extra copy]

On 07 Jan, 2008, at 7:48, muffetta66 wrote:
> ibook-g4-di-*************-********:~ *************$ sudo port  
> install mc
> Password:
> --->  Extracting libiconv
> Error: Target org.macports.extract returned: shell command " cd "/ 
> opt/local/var/macports/build/ 
> _opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync 
> .macports.org_release_ports_textproc_libiconv/work" && gzip -dc /opt/ 
> local/var/macports/distfiles/libiconv/libiconv-1.12.tar.gz | -xf - "  
> returned error 127
> Command output: sh: line 1: -xf: command not found

Looks like you have `tar` missing. What's the value of tar_command on  
your system? You can get it as follows:

% cat /opt/local/share/macports/Tcl/port1.0/port_autoconf.tcl | grep tar
	variable tar_command "/usr/bin/gnutar --no-same-owner"

I'm assuming that the value will be missing on your system. As you can  
see, on my system it refers to /usr/bin/gnutar:

% /usr/bin/gnutar --version
tar (GNU tar) 1.15.1

It's possible that you could fix your problem simply by editing  
port_autoconf.tcl, but that would break upon selfupdating, and it  
would be better to know why it didn't originally find the tar command.


Chris