New portfile writer looking for help with ConvertAll

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jul 12, 2021, at 20:13, Kevin Horton wrote:

> I'm trying to create a port for ConvertAll - http://convertall.bellz.org.  I've been using MacPorts for several years, but have never created a portfile before.  I used Fink for many years before switching to MacPorts, and I was a maintainer for a handful of packages.  I'm an enthusiastic amateur, not a coder.
> 
> My attempts to get a ConvertAll portfile working are running into problems when MacPorts detects that the build process is trying to install files in /opt/local/share/convertall, and it fails with a permissions error.  I'm baffled as to what is going on here.
> 
> Current draft Portfile:
> # -*- coding: utf-8; mode: tcl; tab-width: 4; indent-tabs-mode: nil; c-basic-offset: 4 -*- vim:fenc=utf-8:ft=tcl:et:sw=4:ts=4:sts=4
> 
> PortSystem          1.0
> PortGroup           github 1.0
> PortGroup           python 1.0
> PortGroup           qt5 1.0
> 
> github.setup        doug-101 ConvertAll 0.8.0 v
> github.tarball_from releases
> 
> python.versions     34 35 36 37 38 39
> python.default_version     38
> 
> qt5.min_version     5.4
> 
> name                convertall
> version             0.8.0
> license             GPL-2+
> categories          math, science

Remove the comma here.

> platforms           darwin
> maintainers         {@khorton kilohotel.com:kevin01}
> description         Extremely flexible unit converter
> long_description    ConvertAll has a large database of units, and allows conversions \
>                    that use multiple units, e.g. convert from feet per decade to \
>                    nautical miles per fortnight. 
> homepage            http://convertall.bellz.org
> 
> checksums           rmd160  89fcc2aa9bad7ecc1de7bee4edea68fdff39706a \
>                    sha256  624c8a792b0bc7ff3776499c2c743b32273569efd0567615e570a7e739e8d521 \
>                    size    281055
> 
> depends_lib-append  port:py${python.version}-pyqt5
> 
> use_configure       no
> build.cmd           ${python.bin} install.py
> build.args          -p ${prefix} \
>                    -b ${destroot} 
> 
> post-patch {
>    reinplace "s|/usr/local|${prefix}|g" ${worksrcpath}/install.py
> }
> ====================================
> Extract of build log showing failure:

Looks like you just pasted the portfile again here. Can you show the failure log? I'm specifically interested in determining whether the failure is occurring in the build phase or in the destroot phase. If the latter, then it'll be because you only set build.cmd and build.args and didn't set destroot.cmd and destroot.args.

Looks like you've set build.cmd and build.args reasonably for this build system, but MacPorts usually builds in the build phase and stages into the destroot in the destroot phase. If there is a way to tell this build system to do that, do so. In that case, you would probably need to set destroot.cmd and destroot.args too. If it is quite difficult to tell the build system to do that, then it is acceptable for the build phase to install the files into the destroot already and to have the destroot phase do nothing. In that case, you could disable the destroot phase by writing "destroot {}". Some ports do it the other way around, where the build phase does nothing ("build {}") and the destroot phase does the building and the destrooting.