Re: Developing packges with alternates as dependencies?

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 03:12:28PM -0400, Gary Thorpe wrote:
> I am trying to import a software package into pkgsrc and I have a
> problem regarding 'alternate' dependencies: by this I mean the package
> requires either one OR another package to build but not both (and these
> two packages conflict). If either one is present, then the package I am
> working on can be built.

In short: DO NOT DO THIS. The only acceptable solution is an option,
otherwise the results are order dependent. That creates a lot of issues
with regard to repeatability of the build environment. There are a few
exceptions in the tree where two packages are supposed to provide the
same functionality (e.g. ghostscript), but those are extremely special
cases and I don't want to see any other case without a very compelling
reason.

Joerg