Help: making Macports Python installation work with an older version of Tcl

Frank Schima macsforever2000 at macports.org
Fri Jul 10 07:47:26 PDT 2009


Hi Tom,


On Jul 9, 2009, at 7:37 PM, Tom Baldwin wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I am seeking some help with a problem I am having running macports.
>
> When Macports installs Python, it updates Tcl and Tk to the latest  
> version (8.5) as a dependency. For compatibility reasons, I want  
> this Python installation to work with Tcl/Tk version 8.4 instead. By  
> commanding "port deactivate Tcl" and "port deactivate Tk" I can  
> restore these to what I had before: commanding "tclsh" and then  
> entering "info patchlevel" at the prompt confirms that the version  
> is now back to 8.4. I assume this is the version which comes  
> preinstalled on the mac.
>
> However, when I go back to my python installation and "import  
> Tkinter", it fails. How can I get my macports-installed Python  
> version to work with Tcl and Tk which were not installed by macports?
>
> Thank you for your help.
>
> TkB

MacPorts is not designed to work with built-in Mac OS X libraries [1].  
However, I have the same requirement because I use the blt port. What  
I do is replace my local tcl and tk portfiles with the latest 8.4.x  
versions. See ticket #14488 [2] where I have attached those versions  
of the portfiles. Note that if you are not running from svn, you might  
want to turn off the write flag on the portfiles so they don't get  
updated when you run selfupdate.


[1] <http://trac.macports.org/wiki/ 
FAQ#WhyisMacPortsusingitsownlibraries>
[2] <http://trac.macports.org/ticket/14488>


Cheers!
Frank



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