Trouble getting Portfiles and updating my system after "successful installation"

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Oct 17, 2017, at 09:09, Patrick Hinkle wrote:

> I installed MacPorts successfully and got the following Terminal statement:
> Congratulations, you have successfully installed the MacPorts system. To get the Portfiles and update the system, add /opt/local/bin to your PATH and run:
> 
> sudo port -v selfupdate
> 
> I have tried many Terminal commands using the PATH environment variable like:
> PATH=$PATH:~/opt/local/bin
> which gives me the following error:
> Bad : modifier in $ (~).
> and many other similar forms of error.
> It is only the first step mentioned above that I can't quite figure out - to get the Portfiles.
> I should also mention that I have downloaded MacPorts before a few years ago. If this is what's causing me to not get these Portfiles I would appreciate any information on how to deal with this problem.

What makes you think /opt/local/bin isn't in your PATH already? The installer would set that up for you. If running something like "port version" works, then this step is already done.