new ports tcl84 @8.4.19_0, tk84 @8.4.19_0, fix for blt

[gustafn]

As discussed on MacPorts User and Developer mailing list, here are two new ports for tcl84 and tk84 for ports requiring the old tcl version. One such port is blt, another one would be tclx. There are more currently broken ports out there (eg. otcl, tclcl) depending on tcl84; not sure, how important it is to fix these now; providing a tcl84 port is a first step helping for those as well.

Without the patch, blt can be compiled with the patch provided in #34345, but then, it does not work (e.g. none of demos work). This is because blt was never ported properly to tcl8.5. With the patch from this ticket, blt is compiled against tcl84 and tk84, the demos work nicely. For the time being, basing blt on tck84 seems better than the approach sketched out in ticket #32599, where a version of blt from a different project was tried (​http://pdqi.com/w/pw/pdqi/Wize/Blt).

Tclx as it is in the current ports releases does not compile correctly. One correction would be to compile it against tcl84 (as indicated by my mail) but the better solution is to remove the dependency on tcl8.4 and compile it properly against tcl8.5 (the port named "tcl"). This could be done, when the ticket #33203 is committed.

Attached is (a) a tar file containing all parts and (b) unified diff to make it easier to spot the changes. I have not changed the maintainers.

All three ports are configured with threads-enabled (as discussed in macports, i have compiled tcl on my systems with threads enabled - as it is the case in all current unix-based tcl distributions) and all ports are running nicely. i have further (not yet submitted) ports requiring a threads-enabled tcl. As this is a "new port", it can't break previously running scripts.

[cooljeanius (Eric Gallager)]

Cc Me!

[cooljeanius (Eric Gallager)]

Now that the MacPorts Tcl port is up to 8.6, which is causing #37376, I'd like to see tcl85 and tk85 ports as well as the ones in this ticket, as well as a tcl_select port. That way multiple versions could be installed alongside one another for old ports that still depend on old versions of Tcl.

Edit: installing the private headers would also be useful: #39431 double edit: actually make that #17189

[gustafn]

Updated version of fix, had to add include path for configure to avoid conflict with newer installed version of Tcl

[cooljeanius (Eric Gallager)]

OK, I tested neumann's new Portfile, and it installs successfully. My fork of the portfile is at ​https://github.com/cooljeanius/LocalPorts/blob/master/lang/tcl84/Portfile

[chrstphrchvz (Christopher Chavez)]

I do not think ports should now be added for Tcl/Tk 8.4. The developers of Tcl/Tk say 8.4 is long unsupported and want anyone still using it to upgrade. The same probably goes for Tcl/Tk 8.5 which is now end-of-life.

As suggested in #15095, BLT should be either obsoleted, updated to a 8.6-compatible version (available but not officially released), or replaced with a BLT alternative compatible with 8.6.

Should the current maintainer of tcl/tk ports be notified of this ticket, and should this ticket be closed?

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

Cc'ing Marcus for possible comment.

[MarcusCalhoun-Lopez (Marcus Calhoun-Lopez)]

Replying to chrstphrchvz:

I do not think ports should now be added for Tcl/Tk 8.4. The developers of Tcl/Tk say 8.4 is long unsupported and want anyone still using it to upgrade. The same probably goes for Tcl/Tk 8.5 which is now end-of-life.

As suggested in #15095, BLT should be either obsoleted, updated to a 8.6-compatible version (available but not officially released), or replaced with a BLT alternative compatible with 8.6.

Should the current maintainer of tcl/tk ports be notified of this ticket, and should this ticket be closed?

I agree with this.
I have made a little bit of progress getting blt to work with Tcl 8.6, but that is a discussion for ticket #15095.