/usr/local question

[Daniel J. Luke]

On Apr 5, 2012, at 11:44 AM, Jan Stary wrote:
> However, I believe that if a port chokes on picking up 
> some unintended dependency it found in /usr/local
> (or anywhere, for that matter), it is that port's
> problem: I don't think it's /usr/local's fault being
> there - I think it's the port's defect geting confused
> by that.

You are wrong.

We try to make things work (even if stuff is in /usr/local) but because cc/ld/cpp/dyld/etc. search /usr/local by default, it can cause problems.

You can look through the mailing list archives for examples.

> Hence in terms of the (limited) resources, I believe
> it's the port maintainer's job to rectify this by
> actually fixing that (broken) port so that it no
> longer gets confused.

we do when we can.

> I am willing to help this with ports that interest me.
> Is there a way in trac to specifically select the ports
> that have this problem?

not that I know of (since you don't know what is going to be in /usr/local on any machine)

the /real/ fix would be to either:

- change build behavior for cc/ld/cpp (which may be possible, but no one has tried to do it as far as I know) -nostdinc (or equivalent) plus adding back the appropriate search paths for every supported platform

- change build behavior for cc/ld/cpp by getting a macports version of the toolchain working (and patched to not pull in /usr/local by default)

- get trace mode working so that it can be used at all times (and can prevent things from being found in /usr/local) [this is probably the best solution]

--
Daniel J. Luke                                                                   
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