Deprecating port list

Rainer Müller raimue at macports.org
Thu Mar 12 07:05:33 PDT 2009


Hi,

The 'port list' command has led to much confusion in the past.

For most people it does not do what they expect, as it is listing the
latest version of available ports. For example, 'port list installed'
will not list the installed versions, but the versions available. It can
also happen that it lists the same port multiple times with the same
version information, confusing users even more.

My proposal is to remove 'port list' in favor of other commands which
are already in port. Users should use 'port search', 'port installed' or
'port echo' instead.

 * Deprecate 'port list' in 1.7.x by printing a warning message
 * Remove 'port list' in 1.8.0

It would be possible to rename it to 'port latest', but I am not sure if
this command would be useful.

Comments?

Rainer


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