Is It Safe To Use reclaim?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On May 3, 2020, at 16:43, Michael Newman wrote:

> On May 3, 2020, at 21:28, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> 
>> Look at the output of "port installed unrequested". If you see any port in that list that you actually do want, indicate that by running "sudo port setrequested thePortName".
> 
> This is easier said than done.

I understand, and most users would not have a need to do this because MacPorts would record that a port is requested the moment the user explicitly installs it. But you are telling us that something is or was wrong with your registry's metadata such that ports you want are not actually recorded as such. So I'm telling you how you can prevent the problem you experienced before, where MacPorts reclaimed ports you didn't want it to reclaim, from happening again.


> The output of port installed unrequested has 461 items; most of which I don't recognize. Lynx is there and I know I want that.

Then you should mark lynx as requested.

> But the first port listed is a52dec. I don't know what that is, or what it does or whether or not I want it. I also see atk, automake, bison, harfbuzz, and many others which mean nothing to me.

Then you should not mark those as requested.

> Sure, I can do some research to figure out what each of these does, but then I will still have no idea whether or not I want them. Did I request some in the distant past? Am I still using them? No idea.
> 
> It seems to be a very daunting task. 

Only you can know whether you directly need a specific port. (And it's up to MacPorts to keep track of whether you indirectly need a port, so don't worry about that.)

If a port in the list is unfamiliar to you, let's assume you didn't request it and you aren't yourself directly using it. If MacPorts reclaims it and it later transpires that you do need it, you can always reinstall it.