Follow a port of a specific major verion

[Mikael Bak]

Hi Lowell,

Lowell Gilbert wrote:
> Mikael Bak <mbak at inbox.lv> writes:
> 
>> Hi list,
>>
>> I searched for this in the handbook, but without any hits. Google gave
>> me nada too.
>>
>> I have a machine running FreeBSD 7.3 and Postfix 2.7.2 installed from
>> ports. Unfortunately when I installed Postfix I did this:
>>
>> cd /usr/ports/mail/postfix
>> make install clean
>>
>> Now when Postfix 2.8.0 is released the above path in the ports tree
>> points to a Postfix version I do not yet want to install. I would like
>> to follow Postfix 2.7.x for a while.
>>
>> So my question is: How can I make the ports system act as if I had
>> installed Postfix like this?:
>>
>> cd /usr/ports/mail/postfix27
>> make install clean
>>
>> Is there a way to tell the ports database to "follow" and older version
>> of Postfix without rebuild the entire port again?
> 
> You can edit the package database by hand, but it will probably take a
> lot less of your time to build the whole port again.  [More of the
> computer's time, but that's generally a much cheaper resource.]
> 

Thanks for the info.
I was not aware I could just install the same software over the other
without first removing it. Shouldn't I do that? I would not want to end
up with a broken software or a broken ports database.

If I would set my mind on editing the ports database by hand, where
should I look for it?

TIA,
Mikael