Re: Needing the version string of a dependancy

[Paul Ripke <stix%stix.id.au@localhost>]

On Tue, Nov 15, 2022 at 07:47:32PM -0500, Greg Troxel wrote:
> 
> Paul Ripke <stix%stix.id.au@localhost> writes:
> 
> > I've been fixing up wip/nlopt. math/octave is an optional dependency,
> > and if selected, PLIST needs the octave version string. How is this
> > normally done? Hunting around, it seems the way this is normally done
> > is to reference an exported var, exported from buildlink3.mk, eg.
> > SCIVERSION from math/scilab.
> >
> > Is this the recommendation? Should something like this export be done
> > by default?
> 
> A contrarian view is that the other way is to patch out needing the
> string in the nlopt sources, unless that would be broken in some
> significant way.   It strikes me as perhaps a bug that it is needed in
> the first place.

I see this usage as somewhat akin to PYSITELIB, which seems acceptable.

> Otherwise, you are probably on the right track, but I see this as a
> niche thing and mildly lean against making things more complicated by
> default.

Agreed; I'm all for simplicity. And this looks like the simplist option.

-- 
Paul Ripke
"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds
 discuss people."
-- Disputed: Often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt. 1948.