Dependencies/Dependents

[Richard L. Hamilton]

> On Sep 9, 2024, at 14:39, Bernard via macports-users <macports-users at lists.macports.org> wrote:
> 
> About dependents/dependencies:
> 
> What is the meaning of ‘rdepends’? (The manual page on port(1) is a little difficult to understand): I understand ‘r’ is the prefix for recursive.
> What is the difference between ‘rdepends’ and ‘rdependentof’?
> 

depends is what needs the specified port to build or run.

I'm not getting anything back for dependentof. But depof (or rdepof) is what the specified port needs to build or run.

examples:

port echo depends:vim
neovim-qt                       
p5-text-vimcolor                
py-neovim                       
rails.vim                       
libvmaf                         
gutils-suite-core               
mpvim                           
neovim-remote                   
nvimpager                       
vim2html                        
vimpager                        
dosfstools

(what directly depends on vim to build or run)

port echo depof:vim
gettext                         
libiconv                        
ncurses

(what vim needs to build or run)