platforms

[Mojca Miklavec]

On 24 March 2018 at 13:54, Jan Starý wrote:
> The 'platforms' field of a Portfile is currently
> both _required_ and _ignored_. By the Guide,
>
>         A list of the platforms on which the port has been tested.
>         Required, but not interpreted in any way by the software
>         at this time; it is purely informational for users.

I don't know anything about this, but it's possible that this could be
interpreted already, or maybe soon in the future.

> Also, it is allowed to say .e.g. "freebsd" but not e.g. "openbsd".

Personally I don't see any reason for not allowing "openbsd" (other
than the fact that only two ports will have that keyword, so it will
probably be useless at the end).

> I propose that the 'platforms' field be no longer required
> if it is ignored, and if it stays, let it be a free form text,
> as opposed to a predefined definitive list of all unixes.

We'll need it to specify which darwin versions are supported.

We currently have this ticket high on our priority list:
    https://trac.macports.org/ticket/15712

> Better yet, drop it altogether. The fact that I tested on Solaris
> or Debian means nothing regarding the MP port. I have also tested
> it on darwin of course, but that goes without saying.
>
> (What would be kinda useful is if it pointed to the actual _ports_
> on the other systems - often there are things we can learn, as they
> battle a lot of the same GNUisms etc. For example, the patch for opus
> https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/1217 is basically
> the OpenBSD patch for opus. So if opus 'platforms' pointed to
> http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/ports/audio/opus/
> it would be usefull. Unlike now.)

You could (should?) provide such pointers in comments.
I always include sources of patches (or links to upstream tickets) if
I get them elsewhere, either in Portfile or in the patch itself.

Mojca