Cleaning up stale dependencies

Harald Hanche-Olsen hanche at math.ntnu.no
Sun Feb 26 08:51:32 PST 2012


[Joshua Root <jmr at macports.org> (2012-02-26 14:48:38 UTC)]

> Harald Hanche-Olsen hanche at math.ntnu.no wrote:
> > [Ryan Schmidt <ryandesign at macports.org> (2012-02-25 20:05:51 UTC)]
> > 
> >> deps and dependencies are conceptual inverses of one another.
> >> However the information is recorded in the registry at install
> >> time. At the time you installed py26-lxml, it was needed for
> >> inkscape.
> > 
> > Right; this much makes sense. But when inkscape is upgraded, why not remove the dependency information for the old version from the registry?
> 
> This is exactly what happens, not when inkscape is upgraded necessarily,
> but when the old version is uninstalled.
> 
> Possibilities: inkscape hasn't been updated since you were migrated from
> the flat registry (in which case the extra dep will go away in the next
> version or if you reinstall), or you still have the old version
> installed but inactive.

Hmm. I notice that I've used the sqlite registry as far back as my
time machine backup goes (2010-12-19), and inkscape was last upgraded
almost a year later.

But - wait a moment:

; port echo inkscape and installed
inkscape                       @0.48.2_2+python26

Well, wow. That explains a lot. I guess I'll reinstall with +python27,
and this particular problem will go away. Splendid.

I guess the source of my confusion is the output of this:

; port deps inkscape
Full Name: inkscape @0.48.2_2+python27
Build Dependencies:   pkgconfig, intltool, perl5
Library Dependencies: boehmgc, gsl, gtkmm, gnome-vfs, lcms, poppler, boost,
                      ImageMagick, libwpg, gtkspell2, py27-lxml, py27-numpy,
                      py27-xml

I hadn't even looked at the first output line, giving the full name,
which of course doesn't match what is installed. I was not aware of
this discrepancy. So I take it that the output of “port deps” has
little relationship to the actual installed ports, but merely shows
information from the portfile?

- Harald


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