Re: confusion regarding .include vs DEPENDS

[Alan Barrett <apb%cequrux.com@localhost>]

On Wed, 02 Apr 2008, Juan RP wrote:
> The buildlink3 file has some lines to specify API and ABI minimum
> versions, but if you want to specify another minimum version in a
> package, you can use something like:
> 
> BUILDLINK_API_DEPENDS.foo+= foo>=2.10

That works if you want to say "the version in the buildlink3.mk file
is too small; use this instead".  It doesn't work if you want to say
"the version in the buildlink3 file is unnecessarily large; use this
instead".

It's often the case that pkg X depends on pkg Y, and in reality X could
work with a very old version of Y, but the buildlink3.mk files say that
*anything* that depends on Y has to use a recent version of Y.

My understanding is that the versions in the buildlink3.mk files are
the way they are because of concerns about what happens to people who
install binary packages that they downloaded from somewhere.  However,
if you use pkgsrc the way I do:

        update pkgsrc;
        build and install some stuff;
        wait some days/weeks/months;
        update pkgsrc;
        build and install more stuff;

then you will often have to perform unnecessary updates.

--apb (Alan Barrett)