Should I expect a +quartz variant to propagate to dependencies, and overrule existing variants?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jun 1, 2022, at 17:31, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:

> Should I expect a +quartz variant to propagate to dependencies, and overrule existing variants?

Variants specified on the command line when installing a port propagate to any dependencies that have not yet been installed. They do not propagate to any dependencies that have already been installed.

You can add a variant to an already-installed port by using "sudo port upgrade --enforce-dependencies someport +somevariant".


> I just tried to `install gimp +quartz`. This failed several times, each time with errors about some recursive dependency of gimp requiring its own dependency to be installed with a +quartz variant, but the port was already installed without the +quartz variant` commands explicitly.
> 
> The specific ports in question are:
> 
> gimp +quartz, 
>   which depends on gimp-lqr-plugin,
>     which depends on gimp2 +quartz — but it was installed without that variant,
>       which depends on gtk-osx-application-gtk2,
>       and depends on gtk2 +quartz — but it was installed without that variant,
>       and depends on py27-pygtk +quartz — but it was installed without that variant,
>         which depends on libglade2,
>           which also depends on gtk2 +quartz
> 
> So concretely, install gimp +quartz failed because gimp2 was installed without +quartz. 
> A manual install gimp2 +quartz failed because gtk2 was installed without +quartz.
> A manual install gtk2 +quartz succeeded, but led to 5 broken ports. Rebuilding those broken ports failed at py27-pygtk because an in-progress build of gimp2 had conflicting variants "+python27" vs "+python27+quartz". 
> A clean of gimp2, followed by a second manual install gimp2 +quartz succeeded, but led to 4 broken ports. Rebuilding those broken ports failed at py27-pygtk because gtk2 was installed with +quartz (actually, without the conflicting variant +x11). 
> An uninstall py27-pygtk (despite gimp2 depending on it), followed by a clean py27-pygtk, succeeded.
> A manual install py27-pygtk +quartz succeeded, but led to 2 broken ports. Rebuilding those broken ports succeeded.
> 
> Thus I succeeded in fumbling my way through installing gimp +quartz despite dependencies already present with the wrong variants, but it was a bit messy and confusing. Should I expect MacPorts to do a better job with this situation?  If so, maybe I should file a ticket against some of these ports, to see if portfile changes would avoid the problems.

This undesirable experience is why we recommend users choose whether to use +x11 or +quartz before installing any ports, or uninstall all ports and reinstall them if changing one's mind after having installed ports.