portindex -p with just a platform name doesn't override variables correctly

[F30 (Felix Dreissig)]

port outdated currently lists podman as an outdated port on my system and wants to downgrade it because of an allegedly updated epoch:

The following installed ports are outdated:
podman                         5.5.2_0 < 4.9.4_0  (epoch 0 < 1)

The current Portfile on GitHub looks innocent enough and specifically does not set the epoch to 1: ​https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/blob/7eea181b0dfb09cb2595de506ce3a0ef1046a8b0/sysutils/podman/Portfile Its SHA256 hash is: 8c65c7c0fd7171a856f81bc934e56482a0b79116b9cf3a1b836087fbf918bb50

My ports.tar.gz file is identical to the one I currently receive from rsync.macports.org, SHA256 hash: 4c46a478715e6072fd142f26bcfe065b3f3ef111ff6a8fad8b72d39d0a448098

If I extract the podman Portfile from that tarball, it is identical to the one from GitHub (see above).

​https://ftp.fau.de/macports/release/ports/sysutils/podman/Portfile also delivers that same Portfile.

To me, it looks like either something very weird is going on, or this is a bug in macports-base.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

The current Portfile does set epoch 1 but only sometimes. What OS version are you using?

[F30 (Felix Dreissig)]

Replying to jmroot:

The current Portfile does set epoch 1 but only sometimes. What OS version are you using?

True. I missed that, sorry. It also explains the selection of version 4.9.4.

However, I'm running this on Sequoia 15.6, so ${os.major} <= 21 shouldn't match.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

Things to check:

port dir podman

port info --epoch podman

port info --epoch --index podman

[F30 (Felix Dreissig)]

Replying to jmroot:

> port dir podman
/opt/local/var/macports/sources/nue.de.rsync.macports.org/macports/release/tarballs/ports/sysutils/podman

> shasum -a 256 /opt/local/var/macports/sources/nue.de.rsync.macports.org/macports/release/tarballs/ports/sysutils/podman/Portfile
8c65c7c0fd7171a856f81bc934e56482a0b79116b9cf3a1b836087fbf918bb50  /opt/local/var/macports/sources/nue.de.rsync.macports.org/macports/release/tarballs/ports/sysutils/podman/Portfile

> port info --epoch podman
epoch: 0

> port info --epoch --index podman
epoch: 1

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

Interesting, so your PortIndex was apparently generated with a different os.major. Not sure how that would have happened.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Nothing should have changed on the server that runs mprsyncup except that MacPorts auto-updated from 2.10.7 to 2.11.4 (#72733). I'll check the log later.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

All 24 server-side PortIndex files list podman with epoch 1 and version 4.9.4, so the OS version overriding doesn't seem to be working anymore in MacPorts 2.11.x.

The mprsyncup log says, e.g.:

2025-08-02T17:14:56+0000 Warning: Not overriding macports::os_subplatform because it does not exist in the macports namespace
2025-08-02T17:14:56+0000 Warning: Not overriding macports::cxx_stdlib because it does not exist in the macports namespace
2025-08-02T17:14:56+0000 Warning: Not overriding macports::os_platform because it does not exist in the macports namespace
2025-08-02T17:14:56+0000 Warning: Not overriding macports::os_major because it does not exist in the macports namespace
2025-08-02T17:14:56+0000 Warning: Not overriding macports::os_version because it does not exist in the macports namespace
2025-08-02T17:14:56+0000 Warning: Not overriding macports::os_arch because it does not exist in the macports namespace
2025-08-02T17:15:09+0000 Updating PortIndex_darwin_9_i386:       Creating port index in /Volumes/RAID/private/var/tmp/mprsyncup/release/ports/PortIndex_darwin_9_i386
2025-08-02T17:15:09+0000 Updating PortIndex_darwin_9_i386:       Adding port sysutils/podman
2025-08-02T17:15:09+0000 Updating PortIndex_darwin_9_i386:       
2025-08-02T17:15:09+0000 Updating PortIndex_darwin_9_i386:       Total number of ports parsed:   1 
2025-08-02T17:15:09+0000 Updating PortIndex_darwin_9_i386:       Ports successfully parsed:      1 
2025-08-02T17:15:09+0000 Updating PortIndex_darwin_9_i386:       Ports failed:                   0 
2025-08-02T17:15:09+0000 Updating PortIndex_darwin_9_i386:       Up-to-date ports skipped:       40111

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

I think when portindex.tcl​ calls lappend var_overrides the values it appends should not be prefixed with macports:: because macports::override_vars in macports.tcl​ prepends ::macports:: to each variable name.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

In 1b58a9d62fc53b7d77a581ac4f27f4c0664e67b3/macports-base (master):

portindex: fix classic -p usage

Closes: #72785

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

Replying to ryandesign:

I think when portindex.tcl​ calls lappend var_overrides the values it appends should not be prefixed with macports:: because macports::override_vars in macports.tcl​ prepends ::macports:: to each variable name.

Indeed. For a short-term fix (unless you want to switch over to carola) I guess you can either patch the portindex script on the server, or update mprsyncup to use override files (like [bb56463645ccadbb89bca8de01dd44de86379a33/macports-ports]).

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Thanks, I'll just apply the patch for now, and I should probably nuke all the portindexes to regenerate them.