Re: Preferences, how to specify

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

Pierre Dupond <76nemo76%gmx.ch@localhost> writes:

> Hi All,
>      At many place I see mentions of specifying preferences
> for some part of PKGSRC.

There are multiple kinds of settings.

> Unfortunately, even if I have looked at many places (Web, pkgsrc site, man page), I have
> not found documentation about the specifying of the preferences or examples of their usage.

That sounds like a fair complaint :-(

> If I pass the command "bootstrap --help" I get the following output
> and one can notice that it seems possible to specify preferences.
>
> Usage: ./bootstrap
>     [ --abi [32|64] ]
>     [ --binary-kit <tarball> ]
>     [ --binary-macpkg <pkg> ]
>     [ --compiler <compiler> ]
>     [ --cwrappers <auto|yes|no> ]
>     [ --full ]
>     [ --gzip-binary-kit <tarball> ]
>     [ --help ]
>     [ --make-jobs <num> ]
>     [ --mk-fragment <mk.conf> ]
>     [ --pkgdbdir <pkgdbdir> ]
>     [ --pkginfodir <pkginfodir> ]
>     [ --pkgmandir <pkgmandir> ]
>     [ --prefer-pkgsrc <list|yes|no> ]
>     [ --prefix <prefix> ]
>     [ --preserve-path ]
>     [ --quiet ]
>     [ --sysconfdir <sysconfdir> ]
>     [ --unprivileged | --ignore-user-check ]
>     [ --varbase <varbase> ]
>     [ --workdir <workdir> ]

Those are settings that can only be set at bootstrap, as changing them
causes trouble.  There are many more, which aren't set at bootstrap
time.

> I have not succeeded however to specify some preferences nor to list
> what preferences can be specified.

More or less, the list above is what bootstrap can specify, and if not
it seems like a bug in the help otuput.

> By the way, I have not found
> documentation about some of the parameters of the "bootstrap"
> command (for instance --cwrappers, --compiler <compiler>, --full).

Another fair complaint

> It will be probably useful to prefer some tools (like "libtools") of the underlying distribution
> since using (and doing the recompilation which is sometime quite complicated) the similar/same tools
> of PKGSRC is sometime very difficult and ever time consuming.

There are many things like PREFER, and vairables PKGSRC_* that can
change behaior.   There is no coherent global pkgsrc preferences system
(perhaps there should be).   In general the various .mk files in pkgsrc
define these with comments and there is 'make help' that can show them.

And, the pkgsrc guide aims to be comprehensive.  So if something exists
and isn't in the guide, that's a doc bug.

> I hope I have not missed some obvious documentation and I would appreciate if
> somebody could give me some pointers on how to use the preferences system.

Did you read the entire pkgsrc guide?