Andre Stechert wrote: > In some other CLI's (e.g., mysql, IOS), the word "show" is used to > communicate what is being done here. > > e.g., > > port show outdated > port show installed > port show maintainer:nomaintainer
As I said before, if we are going to use a single command, I would expect consistent output. But for installed I would like to see the version which is installed, for outdated I would like to see the new and old version. 'port outdated' and 'port installed' have a different output format. For this functionality it is not enough to expand the pseudo-port only. How would you combine that into a single 'show' command? > There also seems to be a case of noun vs. adjective vs. verb in the > syntax. E.g., in the output of "port help" there are things called > "actions" and then later called "commands". Actions strongly implies > they should be verbs, but in practice they are not always verbs. Internally they are called "actions", but I think documentation and users began to use the term "commands". > Mostly like this: > > port build > port configure > port fetch > ... > > but some usage has adjectives: > > port outdated > port installed > (interestingly not for all pseudo-portnames, e.g., you can't "port > inactive" which would be a useful predecessor to "port uninstall > inactive". Although I now know you can "port echo inactive"!) As explained above, there is a special output format for outdated and installed which is not necessary for any other set of ports. > and some nouns: > > port info > port location > port version > > A more radical suggestion would be to require something like "echo" or > "show" in front of all non-verb targets. And you forgot: cat, cd, contents, dependents, deps, dir, distfiles, file, notes (on trunk), platform, url, usage, variants, work There are lots of actions/commands which are not a verb. It would not make sense to require a verb before them. What should it be? 'port do'? Rainer _______________________________________________ macports-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macports-dev
