Several of the FreeBSD port maintenance tools, such as
portupgrade(1), rely on a database called
/usr/ports/INDEX which keeps track of such
items as port dependencies. INDEX is created
by the top-level ports/Makefile via
make index, which descends into each
port subdirectory and executes make describe
there. Thus, if make describe fails in any
port, no one can generate INDEX, and many
people will quickly become unhappy.
It is important to be able to generate this file no
matter what options are present in make.conf,
so please avoid doing things such as using .error
statements when (for instance) a dependency is not satisfied.
(See 節 12.17, “Avoid use of the .error construct”.)
If make describe produces a string
rather than an error message, you are probably safe. See
bsd.port.mk for the meaning of the
string produced.
Also note that running a recent version of
portlint (as specified in the next section)
will cause make describe to be run
automatically.
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