port diagnose and xcode

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Mar 11, 2022, at 02:02, Michele Venturi wrote:

> What is wrong is that a simple package manager
> requires an entire multigigabyte professional IDE;
> I have even taken the time to talk to them about it
> and file a bug about it,but they clearly don't care...
> It's surely not a new issue,it's like that by design...

MacPorts does not require Xcode.

Compiling ports requires a compiler and associated files. In most cases the Xcode command line tools are sufficient. A small number of ports cannot build with the CLT and require the full Xcode install. If you try to compile one of these ports and you do not have Xcode installed, you should see a message telling you to install Xcode.

In many cases, we have already built binaries of ports that MacPorts on your computer will automatically use. In those cases, you do not need a compiler -- you do not need Xcode nor do you need the Xcode command line tools.

It was recently suggested that our documentation is not clear enough on these points and I believe someone was going to make improvements.