port list confusion

[Rainer Müller]

On 2013-06-20 01:31, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> The `port list` command is confusing to many users:
> https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ#portlist
> 
> I don't think I've ever used it myself to actually find out anything.
> If I'm searching for a port, I use `port search`. And if I already
> know what port I want, then I'm either trying to get information
> about it (`port info` or `port deps` or `port variants`) or see if
> and how it's installed (`port installed`) or if it's outdated (`port
> outdated`). If I just want to see what ports match an expression, I
> usually use `port echo` since `port list` is slow:
> https://trac.macports.org/ticket/34561
> 
> Users who use `port list` are probably coming to MacPorts from
> another platform where `list` is the correct subcommand. Taking just
> one example, `npm list` is the correct way to see what npm packages
> are installed.

I agree that 'port list' is confusing. I think we discussed it several
times in the past but never reached a conclusion. One of the options was
also to get rid of this command altogether.

> I'd love to combine all the "list view" commands MacPorts offers into
> a single new `port list` command that shows all the information one
> would want. Then `port outdated` would become an alias for `port list
> outdated` and `port installed` would become an alias for `port list
> installed`. I think this would reduce confusion.

At the moment, the output format of 'port outdated' is entirely
different from 'port installed'. Assuming we want to keep the different
output formats, it would not make sense for me to have that under the
same 'port list' command. I expect consistent output for any list of
ports I specify. Remember that 'outdated' and 'installed' are
pseudo-ports and merely expand to a set of ports. Wether I pass a
pseudo-port or just some port names should not influence the output.

What we could do would be to have options to select these output formats.

port list --outdated
port list --installed

Then this command would operate on a sensible default set of ports based
on the option and could also take other port expressions.

Rainer