[MacPorts] #15260: RFE: track which ports were installed explicitly

[MacPorts]

#15260: RFE: track which ports were installed explicitly
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 Reporter:  jmr@…             |       Owner:  macports-tickets@…                   
     Type:  enhancement       |      Status:  new                                  
 Priority:  Normal            |   Milestone:  MacPorts 1.8.0                       
Component:  base              |     Version:                                       
 Keywords:                    |        Port:                                       
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Comment(by ryandesign@…):

 It certainly won't be in 1.7.0 since that's practically ready to be
 released, and we already have a year's worth of mostly well-tested
 features and bugfixes in it already. For this new feature, OTOH, we
 haven't even fully explored how it would work from a user perspective,
 much less what would need to be changed in the code to make it so. And
 since it's a new feature, it should go into 1.8.0 at the earliest, and not
 into 1.7.x which would only be bugfixes for 1.7.0.

 I have a strong aversion to adding interactive features to MacPorts. Right
 now, if you type just "`port`", you get interactivity, and if you type
 "`port <something>`", you are guaranteed to not get interactivity. I like
 that guarantee a lot; it means I can control MacPorts from a script and be
 sure it won't hang while MacPorts is waiting for some input.

 Perhaps I should be controlling MacPorts via the framework/API instead of
 by calling the "`port`" command directly. But that's another aspect that
 must be considered when adding a new feature like this: not only how will
 it be made available in the "`port`" command (will it interactively ask
 you if you want to remove things? or will it just print a message telling
 you what might be removable? or will there just be a new command (perhaps
 "`port list unused`") showing you what you might uninstall?), but also how
 will it be made available in the API.

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Ticket URL: <http://trac.macports.org/ticket/15260#comment:10>
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