Install software using a downloaded port file

Question

I want to install some software in Mac using 'port install software-name' but some software come with very big package and I don't have a stable connection. I want to download the port file using a download manager and then have port install the software using the downloaded file. Is it possible? How?

Answer 1

For test purposes, I'll use the octave port. List the distfiles required for the port by running port distfiles octave. You'll get the following output:

--->  Distfiles for octave
[octave-3.2.4.tar.gz] /opt/local/var/macports/distfiles/octave/octave-3.2.4.tar.gz
 md5: 90c39fa9e241ad2e978bcee4682a2ba9
 sha1: 93b81fc300bc5e27e88b6668ef0622f29898dfd2
 rmd160: 13b2198db1b8684229d2ba787ebbedd8e50a518c
  http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/pub/mirrors/gnu/ftp/gnu/octave/octave-3.2.4.tar.gz
  http://mirrors.kernel.org/gnu/octave/octave-3.2.4.tar.gz
  http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/octave-3.2.4.tar.gz
  …
  http://lil.fr.distfiles.macports.org/octave/octave-3.2.4.tar.gz
  http://sea.us.distfiles.macports.org/macports/mpdistfiles/octave/octave-3.2.4.tar.gz
  http://svn.macports.org/repository/macports/distfiles/octave/octave-3.2.4.tar.gz

Inside the square brackets is the name of the file to download, followed by the path that MacPorts will search for the file. The links below that are a number of mirrors you could download from using your download manager. Go to /opt/local/var/macports/distfiles and create a directory called octave if it doesn't exist. Put the downloaded source package in that folder. Proceed to install using sudo port install octave.

Make sure that you have all the distfiles belonging to a given port as many ports have more than one.