IntroductionMacPorts is an easy to use system for compiling, installing, and managing open source software. MacPorts may
be conceptually divided into two main parts: the infrastructure, known as MacPorts base, and the set of
available ports. A MacPorts port is a set of specifications contained in a Portfile that defines an application, its characteristics, and any
files or special instructions required to install it. This allows you to use a single command to tell MacPorts
to automatically download, compile, and install applications and libraries. But using MacPorts to manage your
open source software provides several other significant advantages. For example, MacPorts:Installs automatically any required support software, known as dependencies, for a given port.Provides for uninstalls and upgrades for installed ports.Confines ported software to a private sandbox that keeps it from intermingling with
your operating system and its vendor-supplied software to prevent them from becoming corrupted.Allows you to create pre-compiled binary installers of ported applications to quickly install software
on remote computers without compiling from source code.MacPorts is developed on OS X, though it is designed to be portable so it can work on other Unix-like systems,
especially those descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). In practice, installing ports only
works on OS X. MacPorts base can be compiled on Linux (and possibly other POSIX-compatible systems) where it is
mainly used to set up mirrors and generate support files for installations on OS X.The following notational conventions are used in the MacPorts Guide to distinguish between terminal
input/output, file text, and other special text types.Terminal I/O and file text.$ Commands to be typed into a terminal window.Command output to a terminal window.File text.Other special text types.A hyperlink: spontaneous
combustion.A file: /var/log/system.log.A command: ifconfig.An option: port