What is a 'turd_octave'? this occurred during the most recent update to the octave package

Ryan Carsten Schmidt ryandesign at macports.org
Sun Mar 30 15:42:47 UTC 2025


On Mar 29, 2025, at 21:03, Kenneth Wolcott wrote:
> 
> What is a 'turd_octave'? this occurred during the most recent update to the octave package...
> 
> recreating package description from .turd_octave
> warning: directory .turd_octave is not a valid package
> warning: called from
>     rebuild at line 71 column 7
>     pkg at line 707 column 9

When a Portfile uses the directive destroot.keepdirs to tell MacPorts to keep a directory as part of the port's contents even though it is empty, this is accomplished by MacPorts creating an invisible "turd" file in the directory so that it is not empty. The octave Portfile does this here:

https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/blob/595780010dd23eef0efe9602355c0de096008425/math/octave/Portfile#L728

In your warning message it is being referred to as a directory rather than a file. I assume that is simply a mistake in the warning message.

Something about octave is unexpectedly trying to process the turd file as if it were an octave package. Since it isn't one it complains. 

You could file a bug report. Be sure to mention what commands you ran that resulted in these messages. 
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