Deprecating port list

[Andre Stechert]

In some other CLI's (e.g., mysql, IOS), the word "show" is used to
communicate what is being done here.

e.g.,

   port show outdated
   port show installed
   port show maintainer:nomaintainer

There also seems to be a case of noun vs. adjective vs. verb in the
syntax.  E.g., in the output of "port help" there are things called
"actions" and then later called "commands".  Actions strongly implies
they should be verbs, but in practice they are not always verbs.

Mostly like this:

   port build
   port configure
   port fetch
   ...

but some usage has adjectives:

   port outdated
   port installed
   (interestingly not for all pseudo-portnames, e.g., you can't "port
inactive" which would be a useful predecessor to "port uninstall
inactive".  Although I now know you can "port echo inactive"!)

and some nouns:

   port info
   port location
   port version

A more radical suggestion would be to require something like "echo" or
"show" in front of all non-verb targets.

Not particularly pushing for it, but thought it might be worth
throwing out there.

Andre

On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 2:46 PM, C. Florian Ebeling
<florian.ebeling at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 8:08 PM, Rainer Müller <raimue at macports.org> wrote:
>> Jeremy Lavergne wrote:
>>> I wouldn't expect any logic operations to actually take place in the
>>> examples above.  I'd expect it to do the command on each one
>>> independently.  When it comes across depends:expat (or something else
>>> that's a "reserved" name, I would expect it to function according to
>>> what the command is, and apply it to the following ports.
>>
>> No, you completely misunderstand pseudo-ports.
>>
>> This is not meant as a modifier for following ports (how would you unset
>> the modifier?), but as a selector. A pseudo-port like depends:expat is
>> replaced by a set of ports. In this case, all ports depending on expat
>> will be listed there.
>>
>> You combine sets of ports using logical operators "and", "or", "not",
>> "!", "(" and ")".
>>
>> If you are interested in all the python modules being unmaintained you
>> could do a query like:
>>  port echo maintainer:nomaintainer and \( py-* py25-* py26-* \)
>>
>> And it is even possible to find all python modules with either no
>> maintainer or having openmaintainer set:
>>  port echo \( maintainer:nomaintainer maintainer:openmaintainer \) \
>>  and \( py-* py25-* py26-* \)
>
> This is indeed quite powerful and sure one of the nice aspects
> of macports. It think the documentation does not give it
> the credit it deserves, but the query possibilities are really
> extensive here.
>
> With respect to the original question, I'd like to mildly oppose
> the idea to remove 'list' entirely. Rather making it behave like
> 'echo' is something I could imagine to work well.
>
> 'echo' as it is, it feels, is meant a bit like 'debug-query-statement'
> or something: just to see what a particular expression would yield.
> But in many instances, the output from echo is exactly what you
> want; think shell script 'for' loop. So 'list' could become an alias
> for 'echo'. For in-depth information, there is still 'info.' Or we
> could make the version information appear only on -v/verbose flag.
>
> Also, I find 'port installed' and 'port outdated' a bit odd, because
> they look very much like the pseudo-name selectors, but they
> aren't. And they really are the only commands the 'receipt database,'
> as opposed to the portindex/portfile database. (IIRC, that is.)
>
> So one solution to make the whole command line interface more
> consistent would be to introduce a 'receipt database' / installed
> software (top level) command, which in turn accepts subcommands --
> which might well be only 'installed' and 'outdated' in the beginning,
> still mimicking 'list' and its subcommands / query expression language.
> Later this command would become more parallel, or mirror, the 'list'
> query expression capabilities.
>
> I can't really come up with a name for this 'installed ports database'
> top-level command right now, unfortunately. 'host'? 'local'? 'present'?
> I don't know. Anyone else have an idea? :)
>
> So, in summary, I'd propose: keep 'list' and make it more clear (remove
> latest version, or put both) make the distinction between index and
> installed more visible by introducing more or less parallel top-level
> command for each.
>
> Florian
>
>
>>
>> You can't do such things with simple modifiers you proposed and they
>> work for any port command accepting a list of ports, that is such a port
>> expression.
>>
>> This is very powerful, but you don't have to use it. It is still easy
>> and intuitive to give a simple list of port names to a port command.
>>
>> Rainer
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Florian Ebeling
> Twitter: febeling
> florian.ebeling at gmail.com
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