VTK port naming conventions

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Apr 14, 2009, at 19:02, Darren Weber wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 2:52 PM, Chris Scharver wrote:
>
>> On Monday, April 13, 2009, at 04:49PM, Darren Weber wrote:
>>
>> >This is a thread to discuss naming conventions for VTK in macports.
>> >
>> >Macports has the following VTK ports (as of 04/13/2009):
>> >
>> >VTK @4.4.2 (graphics)
>> >    3D visualization toolkit
>> >
>> >vtk5 @5.2.1 (graphics, devel)
>> >    3D visualization toolkit
>>
>> It might be more clear to rename along the lines of:
>>
>> vtk @5.2.1
>> vtk-devel @5.4
>> vtk4 @4.4.2
>
>
> The -devel suffix (or just -dev) is often used with a debug release,

In MacPorts, the -devel suffix means it is a development version, as  
opposed to a stable version. Here is the request to document this  
fact in the Guide:

http://trac.macports.org/ticket/14540

The suffix -dev should never be used in MacPorts port names. There  
are two ports currently using it and I have filed tickets to have  
these changed to -devel.

http://trac.macports.org/ticket/19326

http://trac.macports.org/ticket/19327

> and (or) it specifies that all the include headers are installed,  
> not just the binaries. As VTK is a library (not an application, per  
> se), the -dev suffix is sort-of "implied" (virtually mandatory).

It does mean this in some other package managers, but that's never  
what it means in MacPorts. In MacPorts, all ports that have headers  
always install them.

> Note that Debian use the names "libvtk-*" to be explicit that VTK  
> is a library, but this is not the case in FreeBSD.

We don't seem to have a standard for prefixing library port names  
with "lib" or not in MacPorts. Some do (libpng, libsdl), some don't  
(tiff, jpeg).

> Perhaps there could be a "dev" or "testing" variant of vtk for the  
> current CVS checkout?

No, a variant should never change the version of software that is  
installed.

Also, no port should install an unspecified version of software, so  
"current CVS checkout" is out. You could, however, have a port that  
installs, say, the version that was in CVS on 2009-04-14, and then  
update the port later if you need it to install a later version.  
There are a number of existing ports that install dated snapshots,  
such as gcc44, gcc45, graphviz-devel and isabelle-devel.

> Given that 5.4.0 is the latest "stable" release, it should not get  
> a -dev suffix.

Earlier in the thread it was stated that 5.4 is less stable / more  
buggy than 5.2.1, therefore it meets the criteria for being a -devel  
port, until it stabilizes a bit.

> I'm clueless about the @ syntax for version specificity; maybe that  
> will work.


I don't think Chris was suggesting a syntax so much as indicating  
what version of software would be provided by each listed port.