port usage

[Christian Voelker]

Hi,

Am 03.03.2007 um 18:10 schrieb Jaroslav Hron:

> Hi, as a mac and macports beginner I have a few questions.

Using it since two month but I think I can answer most of it.

> 1) if I do
> port upgrade outdated
> does it use the same variants options (like +x11)
> as was used for the older version of the package
> beeing upgraded?

Yes, and it should tell what it does as soon as you
issue the command. It should not hurt trying, at least
if you are running with archiving turned on. The first
thing it does is deactivating the currently installed
port (note: not uninstalling it) you can easily type
command-c and reactivate in case you are not happy
with what port tells what it is going to do.

> How can I find out that the file
> /opt/local/etc/ports/variants.conf
> is used - these should be globaly defined variants,
> but I can't see if its used or not....

This has to be activated in ports.conf first.

> 2) Is there a way/option to see what will
> port install something
> do, which dependencies will be included in the installation?

No, there was a recent discussion about the usefulness
of such a "pretend" or "dry run" feature. There were no
objections but no cheering crowds either. You could be
one more supporter of such a feature request. Best if
you were able to implement it, because I believe that
is why we dont have this feature yet - it takes a
skillful person to make it happen.

Bye, Christian