ICU 65 fails to build on 10.6

[rmottola (Riccardo)]

The error happes right during the configure run:

config.status: creating samples/date/Makefile
config.status: creating samples/cal/Makefile
config.status: creating samples/layout/Makefile
Spawning Python to generate data/rules.mk...
/usr/bin/python: icutools.databuilder is a package and cannot be directly executed
configure: error: Python failed to run; see above error.
./runConfigureICU: ./configure failed
Command failed:  cd "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_macports_release_tarballs_ports_devel_icu/icu/work/icu-release-65-1/icu4c/source-x86_64" && ./runConfigureICU MacOSX --prefix=/opt/local --disable-layoutex --disable-samples --enable-static 
Exit code: 1

[kencu (Ken)]

do you have any python versions installed? If not, try installing one and building again.

If that works, we'll specify a newer python in the portfile.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

Watch out for circular deps if you do that.

[kencu (Ken)]

in the Portfile, you will find this line:

configure.python /usr/bin/python

I changed that to

configure.python ${prefix}/bin/python2.7

and that seems to work. Edit: well, to be clear, I have python27 installed.

I don't know yet about how that might impact bootstrapping, but icu is building happily away on Tiger PPC.

I can see a time where we will have no choice but to provide some pre-built packages to bootstrap these older systems, if that is acceptable to the admins...

[rmottola (Riccardo)]

I have python27 installed, however, during the upgrade python27, python36, python37 all would trigger an ICU upgrade. I will try the trick, but I fear that this could cause a cyclical dependency.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

In 59e4f0a3aafc5aacf9755dd9088b4bb5521a8086/macports-ports (master):

icu: add python27 dep on older OS versions

Fixes: #59398

[rmottola (Riccardo)]

I confirm that the fix proposed by kencu worked - I upgraded ICU. About circular dependencies I don't know.

Attention that ICU upgrade calls alot of fallout: it breaks libxml2 and with that it breaks all clang versions after 5.0 and many more packages, causing a big issue, since even rev-dep detects only some and would always use latest (broken) clang versions to rebuild, since revdep does not accept/respect configure.compiler.

I uninstalled (deactivating is also enough.. but thought about it only at the second step) gradually clang 9, clang 8.... until clang 6. With clang 5 revdep was able to rebuild all dependencies, then i activated/installed newer clang versions again.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

This ticket is closed. If there are other issues (you mentioned a libxml2 issue that I'm not aware of), please open new tickets.