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port-dependents(1)
==================

NAME
----
port-dependents, port-rdependents - List ports that depend on a given
(installed) port

SYNOPSIS
--------
[cmdsynopsis]
*port* [*-D* 'portdir'] *dependents*
     [['portname' | 'pseudo-portname' | 'port-expressions' | 'port-url']]

[cmdsynopsis]
*port* [*-D* 'portdir'] *rdependents*
     [['portname' | 'pseudo-portname' | 'port-expressions' | 'port-url']]

DESCRIPTION
-----------
*port dependents* reports which ports depend upon a given (installed) port, if
any. Note that *dependents* does not work for ports that are not installed on
your system. It uses the database of installed ports that MacPorts keeps
internally, which records the dependency relations at installation time. *port
dependents* prints this information.

For this reason, *port dependents* does not work for ports that are not
installed on your system. If you want to find out which ports depend on a port
you haven't installed, you can use the *depends:* pseudo-portname selector:

----
port echo depends:<portname>
----

This command will, however, not cover dependencies that are only present in
non-default variants. For more information about pseudo-portname selectors, see
man:port[1].

*port rdependents* will print a tree of installed ports that depend on the given
port.

The dependency relations printed by *port dependents* and *port rdependents* are
the same that are used to determine if a port can be safely uninstalled. Ports
that still have dependents installed cannot be safely uninstalled without
possibly breaking their dependents. All dependents can be removed at the same
time using the *--follow-dependents* flag. The check can be ignored using the
*-f* flag. See man:port-uninstall[1] for more details.

include::dependents-vs-dependencies.txt[]

SEE ALSO
--------
man:port[1], man:port-echo[1], man:port-deps[1], man:port-uninstall[1]

AUTHORS
-------
 (C) 2014 The MacPorts Project
 Clemens Lang <cal@macports.org>
