Does MacPorts depend on Spotlight?

[Peter Hancock]

On 17/11/2021 15:46, Chris Jones wrote:
> 
> Some users might find it useful, and the exact volume to exclude
> depends on the details of the users installation, which would be
> difficult to automate. So I think its fine to just leave it to be
> done by hand by those that wish to.
> 
> On 17/11/2021 3:09 pm, André-John Mas wrote:
>> Just wondering whether it would make sense for MacPorts to auto
>> exclude that folder? Does spotlight even provide an API or command
>> that would allow MacPorts to do that?>>

André-John Mas mentions folders (directories?), while Chris Jones mentions volumes
(mounted filesystems?).

On Catalina, for me the command "sudo mdutil -i off /opt/local/var/macports "
evokes:
[
Password:
/System/Volumes/Data/opt/local/var/macports:
Error: invalid operation.
	Error: unknown indexing state.
]

Trying to drag that directory into the appropriate System Preferences "privacy" pane,
accomplishes nothing. It doesn't appear on the list.

My man page for mdutil seems to speak only about volumes. A bit of googling suggests
that though there *may* have been a time when you could exclude various directories
from spotlight indexing, by one trick or another, those days are gone.

Am I wrong?

I hope so. I'm getting pretty dyspeptic about how much of my computer seems to be
taken over by Spotlight and it's various underlings/minions.

(Eg, It/they seem(s) to spend a large chunk of resources on creating tens/hundreds of thousands
of empty directories deep under /private/var/folders, to no apparent purpose.)