<sect1 id="dads-workarounds">

	<title>Necessary workarounds</title>

	<para>Sometimes it is necessary to work around bugs in

	  software included with older versions of FreeBSD.</para>

	<itemizedlist>

	  <listitem>

	    <para>Some versions of &man.make.1; were broken

	      on at least 4.8 and 5.0 with respect to handling

	      comparisons based on <makevar>OSVERSION</makevar>.

	      This would often lead to failures during

	      <command>make describe</command> (and thus, the overall

	      ports <command>make index</command>).  The workaround is

	      to enclose the conditional comparison in spaces, e.g.:

	      <programlisting>if ( OSVERSION > 500023 )</programlisting>

	      Be aware that test-installing a port on 4.9 or 5.2

	      will <emphasis>not</emphasis> detect this problem.</para>

	  </listitem>

	</itemizedlist>

      </sect1>