PHP 5.4.0 : lang/php54

[endzed at gmail.com]

Le 12 mars 2012 à 09:45, Alex Dupre a écrit :

> Mr Dandy wrote:
>> May be more correctly set PHP 5.4 by default to lang/php5, and repocopy 
>> current lang/php5 into lang/php53? 
>> 
>> Probably current maintainer of php (@ale) has the plan ;)
> 
> I've already created patches to update the current php5 port to 5.4. I'm
> waiting for fixes to other main php-related ports and the end of ports
> freeze to make them public and then commit them.
> I'm tired to listen at every PHP release that we should not update
> because everything broke (and on the other side people asking me when
> the port will be update, because it has incredible new features).
> Updating php port is a big task and will be done with the correct
> timing. Functions removed in php5.4 have been deprecated 10 year ago, if
> you still rely on them after more than 2 years PHP 5.3.0 has been
> released, then probably you should stick to lang/php52 port, or find a
> maintainer and a committer willing to create and maintain lang/php53.


As a small ISP/hosting company I understand very well both sides, since we have boxes on which we will need to keep php52, and other boxes on which we want to use php54 as soon as it will be ready in ports.

But as others said, I think that the issue should be addressed the same way as for i.e. python or perl, I mean one port per version lang/php52 lang/php53 lang/php54 etc. and by consequence no lang/php port

Why ? because this would be safer for users (no accidental version upgrade), and easier to handle for admin. Imho I would even try to separate completely php version and allow install of several versions in parallel.
Maybe this is harder to "insert" in ports tree - you know certainly better that I - but some other ports could then set dependencies over specific PHP version. 

The point that you have no time to maintain more than one version at a time is not a real problem btw, we all know the enormous/great work you're doing on this since years, and I would not complain if from time to time you say "I'm moving to new php version". Older versions will then enter in "looking for new maintainer port" list and stay in port tree until someone can take care of it, or until some security/age stuffs push it in removed port list...

My 2 cts.

David, a happy user ;)