JDK

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Mar 31, 2016, at 10:54 AM, Chris Jones wrote:
> On 31/03/16 16:50, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>> On Mar 31, 2016, at 10:47 AM, Abdulrahman Alshammari wrote:
>>> On Mar 31, 2016, at 11:26 AM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>>>> On Mar 31, 2016, at 10:00 AM, Abdulrahman Alshammari wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Someone told me that I can download JDk from macports. However, I could not find the any port belong to this. What I need is to update my JDK version without going to Oracle website.
>>>> 
>>>> I'm not aware of a port that provides the JDK. Why don't you want to download it from Oracle?
>>> 
>>> Because I want to make it as a dependency for other software. Is there any way. I remember your suggestion about jdk checker, but it will be better if I can download it.
>> 
>> Hmm. We have a port for oracle-instantclient, but we are not able to download its distfiles automatically due to restrictions imposed by the Oracle web site; they require agreeing to a license agreement first. So installing that port is somewhat inconvenient for users. I don't know if the JDK has similar restrictions. In any case, the JDK probably needs to install into system locations, so it would not be suitable for installing via a port. I think we just expect the user to install the JDK manually. The JDK used to be part of OS X, so it was a non-issue, and we haven't really developed a better strategy now that JDK is separate.
>> 
> 
> I think given the nature of the JDK is really is not something we want macports installing automatically for a user. I for one would want to be made very aware when its required. So I think really the right thing to do here is to just check if it is available, and if not issue a message to the user telling them what to do to install it themselves (at which point they can decide if they really want the port that requires it...).

Since there's likely more than one port needing this kind of check, it would make sense to abstract it out into a portgroup. We already have a java portgroup. I'm not entirely clear on how it's used, but maybe it makes sense to add this check to that portgroup.