Reclaim removes hidden dependencies

[haberg-1 (Hans Åberg)]

Using 'port reclaim' produces the list below; when answering Yes, thus uninstalling them, and then running 'port upgrade outdated', they get reinstalled again. So somehow, there are some hidden dependencies that 'port reclaim' does not see. Possibly they are related to the port lilypond-devel.

port reclaim
--->  Checking for unnecessary unrequested ports
Unrequested ports without requested dependents found:
 perl5.30  @5.30.3_0
 cmake  @3.17.3_0
 mesa  @17.1.6_2+osmesa+python27
 xorg-libXtst  @1.2.3_1
 xorg-libXi  @1.7.10_0
 xorg-libXxf86vm  @1.1.4_1
 xorg-libXrandr  @1.5.2_0
 xorg-libXinerama  @1.1.4_1
 xorg-libXcomposite  @0.4.5_0
 xorg-libXp  @1.0.3_2
 xorg-libXcursor  @1.2.0_0
 xorg-libXdamage  @1.1.5_0
 xorg-libXfixes  @5.0.3_1
 libarchive  @3.4.3_0
 flex  @2.6.4_0
 gmake  @4.3_0
 pkgconfig  @0.29.2_0
 potrace  @1.16_0
 libzzip  @0.13.69_0
 dbus  @1.12.16_0
 woff2  @1.0.2_0
 libspiro  @20190731_0
 libuninameslist  @20180701_0
 lzo2  @2.10_0
 libuv  @1.38.0_0
 libepoxy  @1.5.4_1+python38
 hicolor-icon-theme  @0.17_0
 t1utils  @1.41_0
 texlive-common  @2019_0
Would you like to uninstall them? [Y/n]:

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Presumably reclaim is designed to remove build dependencies since they are not needed after the port has been built. From the list you showed, cmake, flex, gmake, and pkgconfig definitely fall into that category. But if you then upgrade ports and need to build them from source, build dependencies will again be needed and will be reinstalled. This is as designed, though evidently not as you expected. It might be nice if MacPorts offered the option to keep build dependencies. And that option should probably be on by default if MacPorts is configured to buildfromsource always.