On Jan 30, 2020, at 18:32, Ken Cunningham wrote:
> In the portfile, it has
>
> depends_run bin:perl:perl5 port:llvm_select
>
> This means (to me) look for a binary named perl somewhere in the path, and
> install perl5 if there isn’t one.
>
> Of course, there always is a binary named “perl” in the path, so the depends
> itself is a bit redundant, but at any rate, with all ports uninstalled, the
> system perl is active:
It's not redundant. It communicates to MacPorts and to anyone reading the
Portfile that the port uses the perl binary. Trace mode might otherwise issue a
warning about that. It also hypothetically allows the port to be used on an
operating system that does not provide perl. This might not be so hypothetical
in the future: Apple has already announced that a future version of macOS will
no longer be shipped with scripting languages:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos_release_notes/macos_catalina_10_15_release_notes?language=objc#3318257
So, as always, our guidance is to declare your ports' dependencies properly and
fully.
