(re)viewing messages/notes from installation

[Mark Perkins]

On 2012/05/07 15:09, Rainer Müller wrote:
> On 2012-05-07 21:07 , Mark Perkins wrote:
>> So now my question is "why"?   Even though my tree is newer than what is
>> installed, shouldn't I be able to see things relevant to my installation?

One small clarification.  Everything about dbus appears to be working fine
for me.  I wanted to check the notes for what they said about launchctl
commands to ensure that what I was seeing via 'launchctl list' was the full
story (it is).  When 'port notes dbus' showed 'no notes', I found the answer
by sleuthing.

> The 'port notes' command is always evaluating the current Portfile in
> the ports tree. There is no way to get the notes of the installed port
> version explicitly.

I can see (more or less) that that is what it is doing.  It's unfortunate
that I can't see the notes for the installed version, since that is what I
want to know about.  In the dbus case, if it showed me the notes for what's
in-tree now, it would be the same.

> In this specific case, could it be that in one of the cases you are
> using a separate port installation without startupitems?

No... at least I don't think so.  dbus was installed (on both systems) as a
dependency of something else and AFAICT has default variants.  And the
startup items *are* installed and properly loaded.

> The notes are
> only added if the variant +startupitem is selected.

As I understand the current state of the dbus port, that's true for
v1.4.20, but was not the case for 1.4.18 (what I have installed).  With
1.4.18, the variant controlling startupitem was opposite sense.

> Some more details for the curious and developers: the implementation of
> notes predates registry2.0, with which we started to store the Portfile
> in the registry. It would now be possible to show the notes for the
> active version. However, such a change would have more implications for
> the interface. For example, a command such as 'port info' can be useful
> for both the current version in the tree, or the version currently
> installed/active. Also it's unclear what 'ports notes' should show if
> the port is not installed.

I confess that I find it annoying that 'port info' doesn't tell me the
story for my installed version.  My last foray into tcl programming was in
the previous century, else I might be inclined to dig into this.

> Rainer
> 
> PS: To keep things sorted, please take this topic to macports-dev
> follow-ups about possible implementations.

Thanks for the explanations.  Education trumps ego.  ;-)

Mark