Subject: Extreme lethargy when dependencies are missing
To: None <tech-pkg@netbsd.org>
From: Charles M. Hannum <abuse@spamalicious.com>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 10/07/2001 19:45:52
It's been the case for some time that, e.g., doing a `make' in
x11/gnome on a fresh system seems to spin for a great deal of time
before it starts actually building dependencies. I decided I was
tired of this problem and took a look at it.
The issue is that it recursively runs check-depends for all
uninstalled packages. Unfortunately, it recurses into some rather
large subtrees (e.g. under gnome-libs) many times. This can get very
expensive.
But the interesting thing is that this recursive process DOES NOTHING.
It doesn't output anything (c.f. ECHO_MSG=${TRUE:Q}); it doesn't build
or install anything (c.f. DEPENDS_TARGET=check-depends); it literally
accomplishes nothing at all -- save, perhaps, verifying that some
Makefiles exist.
And this lossage is activated by a harmless looking dependency:
real-fetch: check-depends
Commenting out this line makes the problem go away. It still builds
and installs dependencies just like I'd expect; it just avoids the
useless and very slow tree walk.
Could someone please explain what `check-depends' is for?