[MacPorts] #51664: Please add pseudo-portnames for some common programs

[Rainer Müller]

On 2016-07-02 08:51, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> 
> On Jul 1, 2016, at 8:17 AM, Rainer Müller wrote:
> 
>> Anyway, in order to let 'port install' suggest candidates or 
>> alternatives based on binary names, we first need a database of
>> port contents.
>> 
>> This use case would be an example what such an index could be used
>> for. I would also say that makes it a good case for including such
>> a database in the ports tree (PackageIndex similar to PortIndex?).
> 
> Having that database locally on everyone's system would probably be
> huge and constantly out of date. I would favor making it a an API on
> the new web site.

It should be easily compressable. Even if it is not part of the ports
tree, I would prefer to download the database over querying an API for
every request.

I agree we have to begin somewhere, just a web interface to query this
would be a good start. But let's not plan too much here, such an API
does not depend on a potential new website in any way.

Rainer