Freshports should suggest alternatives when accessing nonexistant port

[clausecker]

When I go to a port by typing https://freshports.org/$category/$port into the address bar and there is no such port, I get a pretty useless 404 page. It would be great if that page could suggest other categories in which the port is found.

The context is that I often look up a port by typing in the URL directly, but may get the primary category wrong. If the 404 page would show other categories that have the port, it would be easy to recover from typing the wrong category. Status code should still be 404 though.

[dlangille]

What came to mind reading this: the existing feature wherein /package=anvil in the URL takes you to that package.

The same code used for that could be used for this.

[grahamperrin]

Thanks! Neat.

Without wishing to complicate this issue: some kind of fuzzy matching will be ideal.

For example:

• possible matches for fusefs-squashfuse (previously in sysutils) should include filesystems/squashfuse

– that is, squashfuse without the fusefs- name prefix.

https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-ports/blob/41dd30fd10f763ebc2e9d69326f6a8e58984c079/MOVED#L3678

---

Noted: https://news.freshports.org/category/categories/

Side note for @dlangille, if you haven't already seen it, I pinged you at https://discord.com/channels/727023752348434432/757543661058654269/1325715356966322196 with an offer of a PR for a #moves anchor, and:

Should I add an issue to review positioning of the Port Moves table?

[dlangille]

For sounds like, the search page already uses levenshtein:

https://github.com/FreshPorts/freshports/blob/main/www/search.php#L486

The functions are in the database and are supplied by databases/postgresql16-contrib:

[14:15 pg03 dvl ~] % psql freshports.dvl
psql (16.5)
Type "help" for help.

freshports.dvl=# \df *lev*
                                             List of functions
 Schema |          Name          | Result data type |              Argument data types               | Type 
--------+------------------------+------------------+------------------------------------------------+------
 public | levenshtein            | integer          | text, text                                     | func
 public | levenshtein            | integer          | text, text, integer, integer, integer          | func
 public | levenshtein_less_equal | integer          | text, text, integer                            | func
 public | levenshtein_less_equal | integer          | text, text, integer, integer, integer, integer | func
(4 rows)

freshports.dvl=# 

[dlangille]

Noted: https://news.freshports.org/category/categories/

What about that^ ?

Side note for @dlangille, if you haven't already seen it, I pinged you at https://discord.com/channels/727023752348434432/757543661058654269/1325715356966322196 with an offer of a PR for a #moves anchor, and:

Should I add an issue to review positioning of the Port Moves table?

"Never ask to ask" - just create the thing. :)