sudo port upgrade all

[Jeffrey Goldberg]

On Nov 28, 2008, at 1:37 PM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:

> I don't see any benefit in renaming "all" to "everything". In the  
> current case we have users who think "I want to upgrade all ports I  
> installed!" so they use "port upgrade all" and have a problem. If we  
> rename "all" to "everything", then we have users who think "I want  
> to upgrade everything I installed!" so they use "port upgrade  
> everything". Same problem.

One point to note is that the FreeBSD port system uses "all" ( -a ) to  
mean all installed ports.

So on my BSD systems, I often run

   sudo portupgrade -a

I too have typed

   sudo port upgrade all

on OS X for exactly the same reason that the original poster did.  I  
was more fortunate in that I didn't leave the system, so I quickly saw  
what was happening and interrupted the process.

I don't know how many Macport users are also FreeBSD users, but there  
is enough similarity between the port management systems that a  
difference in the meaning of "all" is bound to cause confusion.  Using  
a separate word, even if it is a synonym in ordinary language would  
help reduce that problem.  Whether that is sufficient reason to make  
the change is an open question.  But I find macports "all" misleading,  
and I would be surprised if the OP and I were the only two people to  
have been tripped up by it.

Cheers,

-j


-- 
Jeffrey Goldberg                        http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/