The pkg-* files

FreeBSD Porter's Handbook
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Chapter 8 The `pkg-*` files

Table of Contents
8.1 pkg-message
8.2 pkg-install
8.3 pkg-deinstall
8.4 pkg-req
8.5 Changing the names of pkg-* files
8.6 Making use of SUB_FILES and SUB_LIST

There are some tricks we have not mentioned yet about the pkg-* files that come in handy sometimes.

8.1 `pkg-message`

If you need to display a message to the installer, you may place the message in pkg-message. This capability is often useful to display additional installation steps to be taken after a pkg_add(1) or to display licensing information.

When some lines about the build-time knobs or warnings have to be displayed, use ECHO_MSG. The pkg-message file is only for post-installation steps. Likewise, the distinction between ECHO_MSG and ECHO_CMD should be kept in mind. The former is for printing informational text to the screen, while the latter is for command pipelining.

A good example for both can be found in shells/bash2/Makefile:

update-etc-shells:
    @${ECHO_MSG} "updating /etc/shells"
    @${CP} /etc/shells /etc/shells.bak
    @( ${GREP} -v ${PREFIX}/bin/bash /etc/shells.bak; \
        ${ECHO_CMD} ${PREFIX}/bin/bash) >/etc/shells
    @${RM} /etc/shells.bak

Note: The pkg-message file does not need to be added to pkg-plist. Also, it will not get automatically printed if the user is using the port, not the package, so you should probably display it from the post-install target yourself.