On May 7, 2007, at 7:23 PM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:

Such a format does exist: It's called a .pkg file and you interact with them every time you install an Apple software update. However, I don't think there's any functionality in MacPorts to create or use package files.

Oh really?

root@sam-> port pkg zsh-devel
--->  Fetching zsh-devel
--->  Verifying checksum(s) for zsh-devel
--->  Extracting zsh-devel
--->  Configuring zsh-devel
--->  Building zsh-devel with target all
--->  Staging zsh-devel into destroot
--->  Creating pkg for zsh-devel-4.3.4
root@sam-> ls -l ~/Src/macports/dports/shells/zsh-devel/work/
total 4
-rw-r--r--    1 root  admin   222 May  8 00:37 .darwinports.zsh-devel.state
drwxrwxr-x    3 root  wheel   102 May  8 00:36 destroot
drwxr-xr-x   42 root  admin  1428 May  8 00:35 zsh-4.3.4
drwxr-xr-x    3 root  admin   102 May  8 00:36 zsh-devel-4.3.4.pkg
                                                                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You can also do use the "mpkg" target for ports with dependencies; this will cause a metapackage to be built which contains all the deps, making the package stand-alone.

This functionality has been in macports for a long time. :)

- Jordan