variants question

[js]

> Unfortunately there's no simple, standard way to tell what variants
> one might want for any given port.  It would be nice if MacPorts
> showed more context on a variant, but as far as I can tell, it's up
> to the given port maintainer.  Sometimes when I'm faced with a
> similar question, I'll look at the actual port file to see if I can
> ascertain what a variant is doing:
>
>         cat `port file subversion`
>

"port cat subversion" might be easier.