dependency bug prevents port upgrade

[vinc17@…]

When I try to upgrade p5-xml-libxml to 1.63:

prunille:~> sudo port -v upgrade p5-xml-libxml
Error: No port p5-xml-namesupport found.

though it doesn't depend on such a port!!!

[kballard (Lily Ballard)]

Yes it does. p5-xml-libxml depends on p5-xml-sax depends on p5-xml-namesupport.

[vinc17@…]

That can't be the problem: the latest version of p5-xml-sax is already installed and active:

prunille:~> port installed p5-xml-sax
The following ports are currently installed:
  p5-xml-sax @0.13_0
  p5-xml-sax @0.15_0 (active)

I don't know why it could be installed, though.

Anyway, if a failure occurs because of another port, the error message shouldn't contain the necessary information (in particular when using -v).

[kballard (Lily Ballard)]

Perhaps port used to ignore nonexistent dependencies, but now it errors (as is proper)?

[vinc17@…]

This is a bad idea, as new errors may come from buggy Portfile update (you have here an example).

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

The specific problem with p5-xml-sax was corrected in #11977.

I don't know why MacPorts suddenly started throwing errors about nonexistent dependencies if it didn't before. However, the current behavior is more desirable. If a portfile specifies a dependency on a port that doesn't exist, then it is better to learn about that and fix the buggy portfile than ignore it. Therefore, there's nothing else we need to do in this bug. Closing.