Re: [PATCH] config.mak.uname: use iconv from Homebrew on macOS

From: Carlo Marcelo Arenas Belón <carenas@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 11, 2025, 11:17 UTC
Message-ID: <vxi7g67b322sre7ylkcfwujf3n34j3f5vtpl62zhrj4ds6f675@hyyh2rxhaib6>
In-Reply-To: <xmqq7buthgq4.fsf@gitster.g>

On Thu, Dec 11, 2025 at 11:53:07AM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> René Scharfe <l.s.r@web.de> writes:
> 
> >> Slightly off topic, but should another patch that adds a `NO_HOMEBREW`
> >> Makefile flag similar to `NO_FINK` or `NO_APPLE_PORTS` be added to help
> >> drive this?
> >
> > Sounds like a it could be useful to someone.
> 
> Hmph, how?  When you personally use fink or homebrew or whatever,
> but are building binaries for others?

correct; I think microsoft's git keeps a patch to do something like that for other dependencies already.

the OS (at least up to the point were they drop support for Intel) has EVERYTHING compiled as a fat binary.

% file /bin/ls /bin/ls: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures: [x86_64:Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64] [arm64e:Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64e] /bin/ls (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64 /bin/ls (for architecture arm64e): Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64e

it gets even more interesting when you look at the older releases that also include support for 32-bit Intel/ARM/PowerPC.

Show 26 quoted lines

> I am looking at relevant parts of Makefile
> 
> # Define NO_FINK if you are building on Darwin/Mac OS X, have Fink
> # installed in /sw, but don't want GIT to link against any libraries
> # installed there.  If defined you may specify your own (or Fink's)
> # include directories and library directories by defining CFLAGS
> # and LDFLAGS appropriately.
> #
> # Define NO_DARWIN_PORTS if you are building on Darwin/Mac OS X,
> # have DarwinPorts installed in /opt/local, but don't want GIT to
> # link against any libraries installed there.  If defined you may
> # specify your own (or DarwinPort's) include directories and
> # library directories by defining CFLAGS and LDFLAGS appropriately.
> 
> and notice that /opt/local/ is mentioned for DarwinPorts.  The patch
> that started this thread talks about defaulting ICONVDIR to that of
> Homebrew if available, but the new code checks /opt/homebrew and
> then /usr/local/ (and let it override it).  Should the log message
> be talking about DarwinPorts as well?
> 
> 
>     As a workaround, set the default libiconv location to
>     /opt/homebrew when the user has one from Homebrew, or
>     to /opt/local when the user has one from MacPorts.
> 
> or something along the line?

Since the original patch was only meant to help with Homebrew it might not be worth mentioning the OTHER package managers IMHO.

I am hoping also there might be someone else that might be using PKGSRC (usually in NetBSD) or even gentoo's portage for that.

But I agree with you that the way we assume Homebrew is THE user package manager that the OS uses might be problematic long term.

> By the way, for macOS newbies (like me), I wonder if a patch like
> the attached may help?

Did I read that correctly and you had found yourself forced into running macOS at least somewhere?

Show 28 quoted lines

> ----- >8 -----
> Subject: [PATCH] Makefile: help macOS novices by mentioning MacPorts
> 
> Since Aug 2006, the DarwinPorts project renamed themselves as
> MacPorts.  Those who are not intimately familiar with the Opensource
> ecosystem around macOS from olden days, the name DarwinPorts may not
> ring a bell, even when they are using MacPorts.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
> ---
>  Makefile | 3 ++-
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git c/Makefile w/Makefile
> index 7e0f77e298..be027218a5 100644
> --- c/Makefile
> +++ w/Makefile
> @@ -95,7 +95,8 @@ include shared.mak
>  # and LDFLAGS appropriately.
>  #
>  # Define NO_DARWIN_PORTS if you are building on Darwin/Mac OS X,
> -# have DarwinPorts installed in /opt/local, but don't want GIT to
> +# have DarwinPorts (which is an old name for MacPorts) installed
> +# in /opt/local, but don't want GIT to
>  # link against any libraries installed there.  If defined you may
>  # specify your own (or DarwinPort's) include directories and
>  # library directories by defining CFLAGS and LDFLAGS appropriately.
>

It took years, but I woukd be honoured to provide a:

Reviewed-by: Carlo Marcelo Arenas Belon <carenas@gmail.com>

Carlo

PS. Sorry about the mispelling of my own name, but had yet to figure out how to configure UTF-8 correctly in my latest setup.