libiconv problems after urxvt upgrade

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Mar 13, 2008, at 06:11, Joerg van den Hoff wrote:

> during upgrade from urxvt8.7 to the current version I got the error  
> message
>
> ===================================CUT================================ 
> ========
> Portfile changed since last build; discarding previous state.
> --->  Fetching libiconv
> --->  Verifying checksum(s) for libiconv
> --->  Extracting libiconv
> --->  Applying patches to libiconv
> --->  Configuring libiconv
> --->  Building libiconv with target all
> --->  Staging libiconv into destroot
> --->  Packaging tgz archive for libiconv 1.12_0+darwin_8
> --->  Deactivating libiconv 1.11_0
> Error: Deactivating libiconv 1.11_0 failed: Active version of  
> libiconv is not 1.11_0 but 1.11_0+darwin_8.
> ===================================CUT================================ 
> ========

Peculiar...

> after which install proceded (apparently successful).

I don't know why MacPorts proceeds when it encounters an error  
activating a port. This only leads to further errors down the road,  
as you've seen:

> trying to start `urxvt' now throws the error:
> ===================================CUT================================ 
> ========
> dyld: Library not loaded: /opt/local/lib/libiconv.2.dylib
> Referenced from: /opt/local/lib/libXft.2.dylib
> Reason: Incompatible library version: libXft.2.dylib requires  
> version 7.0.0
> or later, but libiconv.2.dylib provides version 5.0.0 Trace/BPT trap
> ===================================CUT================================ 
> ========

No libiconv is active, because of the earlier error, so ports that  
require libiconv now explode.

> trying a
>
> `sudo port deactivate libiconv at 1.11_0+darwin_8'
>
> yielded
> ===================================CUT================================ 
> ========
> Error: port deactivate failed: Registry error: libiconv not  
> registered as
> installed & active.
> ===================================CUT================================ 
> ========
> which seems inconsistent with the error message during urxvt install.

Agreed. That seems inconsistent. Not sure how you got into this state.

> after a `sudo port activate libiconv at 1.12' now everything seems to  
> work,

Great!

> but
> the above messages seems to hint at some grade of corruption of the  
> internal state of
> port. is this the case? can I sanitize/check it somehow without  
> purging
> everything?

What does "port installed libiconv" show now?

> I also notice that many packages appear both with
> `port list active' _and_ `port list inactive'. how can this be?

"port list" does not do what you think it does. "port list" does the  
following: for each port, display the current version (not the  
installed version).

You probably would rather use "port installed active" and "port  
installed inactive".

> and a last question: the "active" ports are the only one in use

Yes.

> or are "inactive" ones (especially libs) secretly used by other ports?

No, inactive ports are not used at all.

> I noted that a tentative
>
>  `sudo port uninstall libiconv at 1.11_0+darwin_8'
>
> showed me lots of ports depending on it which would need prior  
> uninstall.

The message shown by MacPorts is misleading. The message says "Unable  
to uninstall libiconv 1.11_0+darwin_8, the following ports depend on  
it" but what the message should say is "Unable to uninstall libiconv,  
the following ports depend on it" (in other words it should not list  
the version or variants). Since you already have a newer version of  
libiconv installed, it's perfectly fine to remove the older version.  
MacPorts just doesn't know any better. Educate it by using "-f" when  
uninstalling ports in such situations:

sudo port -f uninstall libiconv at 1.11_0+darwin_8

> I understand that different versions of libs are needed at the same  
> time

That's not how MacPorts works. Only one version of a library can be  
used at a time. If multiple versions of a library are needed at the  
same time, multiple separate ports must be created. See for example  
apr and apr0, db41 thru db46, and many other examples.

> but why, then, is one declared "active" the others "inactive"?

When you "sudo port upgrade foo", the old version is deactivated and  
the new version is activated. If you don't want the old version  
anymore, you can then uninstall the old version:

sudo port uninstall foo @1.2.3

If you want MacPorts to automatically uninstall the old version  
during the upgrade, use the "-u" flag:

sudo port -u upgrade foo

This will fail if any port depends on foo. In that case you must also  
force it. But the force flag also causes MacPorts to rebuild all  
dependencies, possibly multiple times, which you don't want. So if  
you want to force an upgrade, you should also always use the  
nonrecursive flag:

sudo port -nfu upgrade foo

> so in short what's the difference between "active" and "inactive",  
> especially
> for libs?

Inactive ports are not used. They're just there so that you can  
activate them again, should you choose to do so (after deactivating  
the version that you currently have active.) If you don't want to  
reactivate old versions, you can uninstall them to reclaim the disk  
space.