Dependency or a port on private header files of Tcl

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Aug 12, 2011, at 08:45, Daniel J. Luke wrote:

> One option would be to create a tcl-privateheader port (or something like that) that would install the tcl private headers. If XOTcl just needs the headers to build, it would probably make sense to have it just download/extract its own copy of tcl and use the headers.

We have many other ports doing this: downloading and extracting their own copy of Tcl just to get at the private headers. It seems ludicrous. We never remember to update those ports when we update Tcl either, so every port downloads a different version of the Tcl distfile. That can't be good. Even if we remember to update the version, the distfile is downloaded multiple times (and mirrored multiple times), unless we remember to set the port to share tcl's dist_subdir.

If so much other software uses Tcl's private headers, they're not particularly private IMHO. I was going to suggest the Tcl port just always install the private headers. I like your idea for a tcl-privateheaders port though; that could be a good solution.