port "activate instead"

[René J.V. Bertin]

On Monday May 25 2015 18:30:48 Mihai Moldovan wrote:

> %> sudo port deactivate -f libVLC-devel
> %> sudo port activate libVLC at 2.2.1_0+dbus+qtkit+quartz+x11
> 
> and is not that bad anymore.

Not that bad indeed, but still a lot of extra typing that could be rolled into a single command IMHO

> 
> 
> Semantically, your "instead_of" proposal isn't great due to the fact that
> multiple ports can conflict, with count > 2. Also, the conflicts can be based
> upon orthogonal reasons and you wouldn't necessarily know.

So, GIGO ...
If someone wants to deactivate gcc and activate clang should it be impossible to do that in a single command because it so happens that they can be active at the same time?
Are you really implying that a convenience feature shouldn't be implemented because some people might do stupid things with it that they can already do with a bit more work? Would it not actually help prevent issues? With 2 separate commands it's hard to compare the list of deactivated files and the list of activated files and see if the latter satisfies the dependency relations of the former. With a single command it should be possible I think (port install and/or port upgrade do a similar check that doesn't do an exhaustive scan of the whole registry, no?).

R.