Updated LaTeXML portfile & tarball

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

Hello all;

A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away),

I released LaTeXML version 0.7.0. And someone by the handle of "adfernandes" created a MacPort port of it, but he(she) seems to have retired from maintenance.

In the meantime, development has continued (see ​http://dlmf.nist.gov/LaTeXML/) quite actively, but enamored with svn, and then git, I've neglected making "Official" releases. I'm setting about changing that, as LaTeXML 0.8.0 is now released, and is available on CPAN. (at ​http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/B/BR/BRMILLER/LaTeXML-0.8.0.tar.gz )

I've updated the Portfile (attached); it should be close to correct, but I'm not in a position to test it (no Mac!)

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

In the future, please fill in the Port field.

​Per the guidelines, please instead attach a unified diff of the Portfile so we can easily see what changes you are proposing.

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

Sorry; I overlooked the Port field.

I've attached the diff (and it helped me catch an unintentional change!).

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

Some comments:

• Please use ​modern checksums. md5 and sha1 are obsolete unless provided upstream.
• It is not correct to depend on the stub p5-* ports. Instead you must select a version. Macports is currently using perl 5.16 as the default perl, so use 5.16-foo.

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

OK, this one should be better. Anyone else see problems?

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Is it possible to depend on something more specific than p5.16-libwww-perl? See that port's notes:

$ port notes p5.16-libwww-perl
p5.16-libwww-perl has the following notes:
  As of version 6.00, libwww-perl has been broken up into multiple packages. If you
  were using p5.16-libwww-perl for just one or two of its modules before, you may be
  able to pare down your installation to just those modules now. Other important
  changes have been made that may affect your code; for details, please see:
  /opt/local/share/doc/p5.16-libwww-perl/Changes

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

Yeah, I saw that note, and indeed, I only need a few modules: LWP::UserAgent, LWP::Simple, HTTP::Request, HTTP::Response, but I've had a hard time figuring out what smaller packages I could use.

It appears that the two HTTP modules are available from HTTP::Message, but the other two only seem to be available within the full libwww-perl.

Is there a smaller package that provides LWP::UserAgent and LWP::Simple? I'd be happy to trim the dependencies.

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

Replying to mf2k@…:

• It is not correct to depend on the stub p5-* ports. Instead you must select a version. Macports is currently using perl 5.16 as the default perl, so use 5.16-foo.

While poking around to deal with other comments, I came across the following idiom in some of the portfiles.

if {${perl5.major} != ""} {
depends_lib-append  port:p${perl5.major}-encode-locale \
 ...
}

Would that be a preferred approach in my Portfile, as well? I'm curious though: What happens if ${perl5.major} is *not* defined? No dependencies? (or is that a "can't happen"?)

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

That is only for ports using the perl portgroup and it is referring to sub-ports. Basically it is for perl modules. So this is not how it would be coded in this port.

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

I have a question about having tex as a dependency. Some of my users prefer MacTeX and complained that the Portfile installed texlive even though they already had a full (large) tex system that they preferred. Is there a way to specify an "abstract" dependence on TeX so that texlive would only be installed if there were *no* TeX system already installed?

As it turns out, TeX is an optional dependency for LaTeXML: it runs without it, but it makes much more sense to use it *with* TeX installed. If there isn't an alternative way of depending on an abstract tex, do you think it would be better to leave out that dependence entirely and ask the user to pre-install texlive if they need it?

Thanks;

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

On reflection, I think it's probably best to leave off the dependence on TeX, and allow the user to install whatever TeX system they prefer. So I'm updating the Portfile without that dependence.

Thanks for the suggestions, so far. Are there any other issues?

Of course, there is a new tarball to go with the Portfile; it's available from CPAN, or should I upload it somewhere, or am I getting ahead of the game?

[neverpanic (Clemens Lang)]

Replying to bruce.miller@…:

On reflection, I think it's probably best to leave off the dependence on TeX, and allow the user to install whatever TeX system they prefer. So I'm updating the Portfile without that dependence.

That's a good way to do things. You might want to add a note for the user that your port works better with latex installed, though. You can use

notes "${name} works best with a copy of LaTeX installed. If you already have MacTeX, you're fine -- otherwise you can install latex blablabla foofoofoo etc.pp."

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

Yep, that's essentially what I'm putting onto the online installation guide. But you're saying that "notes" is a Portfile keyword, that I can add in? Sounds useful, but I couldn't find it mentioned in the MacPorts Guide.

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

Thanks for all the comments; How do I proceed from here?

I am listed as maintainer, but I'm not (as far as I know) a MacPorts committer. (Might or might not be appropriate to be one, since I rarely have access to a Mac). I certainly am maintaining "upstream", however.

What do you recommend? Thanks

[seanfarley (Sean Farley)]

Replying to bruce.miller@…:

Thanks for all the comments; How do I proceed from here?

I am listed as maintainer, but I'm not (as far as I know) a MacPorts committer. (Might or might not be appropriate to be one, since I rarely have access to a Mac). I certainly am maintaining "upstream", however.

What do you recommend? Thanks

I use LaTeXML in my workflow so I can take a look at this and commit it sometime this week.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Replying to bruce.miller@…:

But you're saying that "notes" is a Portfile keyword, that I can add in? Sounds useful, but I couldn't find it mentioned in the MacPorts Guide.

You're right, the notes keyword is not documented in the guide, but the line cal showed you above is all you need to know about how to use it.

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

proposed Portfile for LaTeXML 0.8.0

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

diff -u Portfile.old Portfile

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

@ryandesign, @cal: I've added the notes (I assume continuation lines with \ are OK?); that seems to be a good clarification to make.

@sean: Thanks! I hope LaTeXML is working well for you...

[seanfarley (Sean Farley)]

Replying to bruce.miller@…:

@sean: Thanks! I hope LaTeXML is working well for you...

I love it :-) I use it with Emacs hacks to give me an easy way to see the preview of what I'm writing. Thanks for the awesome package!

[seanfarley (Sean Farley)]

Committed in r120729. Thanks for the patch!

[brucemiller (bruce miller)]

Thanks so much; users will be happy!