Subject: "make fetch" platform testing
To: None <tech-pkg@netbsd.org>
From: Steven J. Dovich <dovich@lethe.tiac.net>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 10/29/1999 11:32:43
I just got this result which seems a little counter-intuitive:

	$ cd pkgsrc/lang/japhar
	$ make fetch
	===>  japhar-0.08 does not work on NetBSD-1.4L-i386.
	$

While the diagnostic may in fact be quite accurate, I was surprised
that retrieving distfiles was platform dependent. If it isn't too
much trouble, perhaps we could remove the test from the fetch
target, or at least continue after the diagnostic.  I should note
that "make fetch-list | sh" is a work-around, though not likely to
occur to a significant portion of the pkgsrc target audience.

I would not have even noticed this as a problem had I simply issued
a "make" command, and relied on the dependencies to fetch the
distfiles. Since I was only interested in retrieving the distfile
(at that moment), and building at a later time, the situation seemed
a bit bizarre.

/sjd