8.6 Making use of SUB_FILES and SUB_LIST

The SUB_FILES and SUB_LIST variables are useful for dynamic values in port files, such as the installation PREFIX in pkg-message.

The SUB_FILES variable specifies a list of files to be automatically modified. Each file in the SUB_FILES list must have a corresponding file.in present in FILESDIR. A modified version will be created in WRKDIR. Files defined as a value of USE_RC_SUBR (or the deprecated USE_RCORDER) are automatically added to the SUB_FILES. For the files pkg-message, pkg-install, pkg-deinstall and pkg-req, the corresponding Makefile variable is automatically set to point to the processed version.

The SUB_LIST variable is a list of VAR=VALUE pairs. For each pair %%VAR%% will get replaced with VALUE in each file listed in SUB_FILES. Several common pairs are automatically defined: PREFIX, LOCALBASE, DATADIR, DOCSDIR, EXAMPLESDIR. Any line beginning with @comment will be deleted from resulting files after a variable substitution.

The following example will replace %%ARCH%% with the system architecture in a pkg-message:

SUB_FILES=     pkg-message
SUB_LIST=      ARCH=${ARCH}

Note that for this example, the pkg-message.in file must exist in FILESDIR.

Example of a good pkg-message.in:

Now it is time to configure this package.
Copy %%PREFIX%%/share/examples/putsy/%%ARCH%%.conf into your home directory
as .putsy.conf and edit it.
For questions about the FreeBSD ports system, e-mail <[email protected]>.
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