when can i safely force a macports build when a dependency is indepently installed

[Bryan Blackburn]

On Thu, Jul 02, 2009 at 12:06:21PM -0400, Carter Schonwald said:
> hello all,
> 
> I occasionally encounter errors of the following sort:
> 
> sudo port install erlang
> --->  Activating fontconfig @2.6.0_2+macosx
> Error: Target org.macports.activate returned: Image error:
> /opt/local/etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-autohint.conf already exists and does not
> belong to a registered port.  Unable to activate port fontconfig.
> Error: The following dependencies failed to build: tk Xft2 fontconfig
> xorg-libXScrnSaver xorg-scrnsaverproto
> Error: Status 1 encountered during processing.

Encountering a "already exists and does not belong to a registered port"
should happen only extremely rarely, so if you are seeing it frequently you
need to track down what else may be depositing files into /opt/local that
isn't MacPorts.

> 
> 
> when / how can I safely force macports to install over the dependency or how
> can i determine if its safe to do so?

You can force it with -f, read up at:

<http://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ#whentoforce>

Bryan


> thanks!
> -Carter