Deprecating port list

[James Berry]

On Mar 12, 2009, at 11:28 PM, Andre Stechert wrote:

> The difference in the output between 'port installed' and 'port echo
> installed' seems
> to be about as minor as the difference between 'port echo installed'
> and 'port list installed':
>
> 'port installed' lines look like: a52dec @0.7.4_0 (active)
> 'port echo installed' lines look like:  
> a52dec                         @0.7.4_0
> 'port list installed' lines look like: a52dec
> @0.7.4          audio/a52dec
>
> Why not just make the output of "port echo installed" rich enough to
> handle whatever use cases

A good answer is that if you read the reply I just gave to Ryan,  
you'll see that port echo is extremely lightweight, and meant to be  
so. It just tells you what you told it. It really doesn't have the  
information that port list gets. And if we put it into the position of  
having to get that information, than it looses its value of just  
parroting what you've told it.

> port cat - well, i guess technically cat is technically a noun, but in
> this case, I think it's being used as a verb :-).
> port cd - you can do that only in interactive mode, right?

Strictly speaking, you can do port cd on the command line, but it  
doesn't generally have any effect. (port can change the current  
directory for the duration of its execution, but there's no way it can  
change the current directory for its parent process. It would be cool  
if it could, but I know no way to achieve that. Any ideas?

Even more strictly speaking, you can use the cd command on the command  
line. Try this, for instance:

	port cd apache \; file \; dir \; url

:)

Jaes