In MacPorts, the term "Universal" usually means a compiled program or library which contains object code in multiple instruction sets, so that it can run on a variety of CPUs. 

In the history of macOS and MacPorts, three important kinds of "universal" binaries have been:

1. x86_64 and arm64 (for macOS 11 and later)
2. i386 and x86_64 (for MacOS X Tiger 10.4 through macOS 10.14 Mojave)
3. ppc and i386 (for MacOS X Cheetah 10.0 through Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8)

MacPorts offers compilation to universal binaries as a default preference and in response to a `+universal` variant.  

= Overview of ports with +universal variants (2007) =

This is an overview list of ports with universal variants. Each entry is a link to a separate page which describes the port's behaviour when compiled with `+universal`. The list and the referenced pages date from 2007, and mention only ppc and i386 architectures. As of 2021, the information is out of date.

[wiki:UniversalAm-utils am-utils][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalBison bison][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalBool bool][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalCksfv cksfv][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalCoreutils coreutils][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalCpio cpio][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalCurl curl][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalDcfldd dcfldd][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalDiffutils diffutils][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalExpat expat][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalFindutils findutils][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalGawk gawk][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalGettext gettext][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalGmake gmake][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalGnutar gnutar][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalGrep grep][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalGroff groff][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalGsed gsed][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalGwhich gwhich][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalGzip gzip][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalIndent indent][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalLha lha][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalLibgpg-error libgpg-error][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalLibiconv libiconv][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalLibpng libpng][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalLibspiff libspiff][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalLibtool libtool][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalLibxml2 libxml2][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalLibxslt libxslt][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalM4 m4][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalMhash mhash][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalNeon neon][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalOpenssl openssl][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalPcre pcre][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalRaptor raptor][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalRasqal rasqal][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalScheme48 scheme48][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalSgrep2 sgrep2][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalSlang slang][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalSlrn slrn][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalSrm srm][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalTre tre][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalTreecc treecc][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalUriparser uriparser][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalYafic yafic][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalWput wput][[BR]]
[wiki:UniversalZlib zlib]

== legend ==

The pages linked to above use the following codes:

 * b=broken
 * s=stable (completes the testsuite without errors)
 * t=testing (no testsuite available)
 * u=undecided (the testsuite fails or doesn't compile, the program seems to work as expected, though)

= See also =

* UniversalDevelopment