MacPorts    S e l e c t o r s

1. Introduction

   Like MacPorts pseudo-names selectors enable the user to link the port action to a set of ports. One selector is associated with a characteristic in the port data base, which can take one or several values. Like the SELECT command of in data base engine, the user defines a set of ports according to syntax key_name:key_value where
   • key_name is a valid (selector) name - see tables below.
   • key_value must be a valid Unix glob pattern.

2. Port keys

   Key name	Use case
   category
   categories
   description
   epoch
   homepage
   long_description
   license?
   maintainer
   maintainers
   name
   platform
   platforms
   portdir
   revision
   variant
   variants
   version

   Tab. Available port keys in MacPorts ports (alphabetical order).

3. Port Dependencies

   Key name	Use case
   dependentof
   depends
   depends_build
   depends_extract
   depends_fetch
   depends_lib
   depends_run
   depof
   rdependentof
   rdepof

   Tab. Selectors for analysis of port dependencies (alphabetical order).
   Remark: Selectors above are mentioned in the manpage and printed by port help, but are apparently not mentioned in the internet guide. Also no explanation about those features is available (except for trial-and-error).

4. Pattern matching

   As already mentioned in introduction, key_value in key_name:key_value may be formulated as a glob pattern (not a full-fledge pattern matching as available in for example Perl). port help and also the manpage mention that Logical operators "and", "or", "not", "!", "(" and ")" may be used to combine individual portnames, port glob patterns and/or pseudo-portnames to construct complex port expressions.