sudo port upgrade all

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Nov 29, 2008, at 18:51, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote:

> 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.

Hmm.

Well, MacPorts is not FreeBSD. :) Certainly we should make it harder  
for people to run commands they don't mean to run in the first place.  
So instead of changing the meaning of "all", which most MacPorts  
users should already be familiar with, I would rather make it so that  
"port upgrade" exits with an error message if a port is not  
installed, rather than installing the port as it currently does.  
However I would still welcome feedback from anyone who knows why  
MacPorts currently does it the way it does it.