Re: Circular dependency errors

[Paul Ackersviller <pda%sdf.org@localhost>]

On Wed, Aug 07, 2013 at 09:30:49AM +0100, Jonathan Perkin wrote:
> * On 2013-08-07 at 03:25 BST, Paul Ackersviller wrote:
> 
> > I've been making pieces of pkgsrc, now and then, on hp-ux over the
> > past few years and invariably run across the circular dependency
> > situation early on.  I've reported these a couple of times but have
> > gotten so used to it happening that I usually just work around it
> > and move on.
> > 
> > Granted, that's not the ideal way to handle things, but this is
> > frequent enough that I wonder whether the manual might do with some
> > mention of how best to handle things.  What do people think?
> 
> The most common cause is when you don't use an external compiler, and
> of course you can't build lang/gcc* without first building its
> dependencies, which need a compiler...

Not the problem here, as I've never even been able to build gcc from pkgsrc.

> This is pretty well documented in all of the bootstrap READMEs, so I'm
> not sure how beneficial it would be to document it yet again, though
> we need to perhaps be clearer in this situation.

Boostrapping isn't the problem either, just the steps to follow.

> Otherwise, circular dependencies can be caused by any number of
> changes to mk.conf.  Out of the box pkgsrc should not have any, other
> than the compiler one mentioned above, so if you run into any with a
> default mk.conf then please report them as bugs.

Thanks for this pointer, I am adding just a tweak or two, so I'd better
double-check their effect.

> As for circular dependencies caused by a misconfigured mk.conf, I'm
> not sure we can possibly cover all eventualities here, other than a
> simple recommendation to go back to a clean pkgsrc and mk.conf to
> confirm.