On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 10:33:17PM +0200, Kirill Ponomarew wrote: > On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 09:36:51AM -0700, David Southwell wrote: > > Hi > > > > Would it be possible , when a port has options, to ask porters if they > > would > > consider the merits/demerits of adding: > > > > 1. An ./options-descr file in the port directory that describes the > > options, > > their purpose and any notes about an option > > > > Reasons: > > This would be extremely useful for anyone not familiar with the port to > > help > > in the task of choosing which options to install. > > > > I realise that this would depend upon whether maintainers are willing to > > add > > an additional task to the already heavy burden they undertake. Maintainers > > who are willing to consider this idea but are reluctant to prepare the > > notes > > themselves but do not have the time or are for any reason reluctant to do > > so, > > could invite users to submit notes for incorporating in ./options-descr. > > > > By way of example I am just installing www/ruby-gem-rails and had no > > immediate > > idea whether or not to add fastcgi support without trying to find out > > whether > > it is or is not needed when one has mod_ruby installed and > > LoadModule ruby_module libexec/apache/mod_ruby.so > > in httpd.conf. A brief note in a ./options-descr could be very helpful, > > especially for some ports where the options are sometimes numerous and not > > always completely documented. > > > > A little bit of intial guidance about options would be most helpful to a > > system administrator who is not necessarily familiar with the a specific > > port. > > That's what ports/KNOBS supposed to be, see rev. 1.1 by ahze: > > Limitations to KNOBS: In the future we plan to add support for > OPTIONS to support the KNOBS file, and so dialog(1) will be able to > handle the size of each knob knob-name's are limited to 12 > characters and knob-descriptions are limited to 45 characters, not > including the white space between the knob-name and > knob-description. > > Though, I don't know when OPTIONS support to KNOBS will be added.
While I think KNOBS has merit, I don't think it addresses per-port issues such as documenting dependencies between various OPTIONS or documenting that a particular option has a large or small impact on dependencies. -- Brooks
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