[jggimi]

daemonfowl, its appears to me that you have a block when it comes to technical information of any kind. As I see it, if the exact steps aren't laid out one-at-a-time in easy to swallow form so that you can copy/paste a solution, you never see an answer.

Let me lay out what you missed. I recommended you pay attention to the second paragraph, which I have highlighted.

   Manual installation
     pkg_add differentiates between packages specified on the command line,
     and packages installed automatically because of inter-dependencies: the
     first kind will be tagged as `installed manually'.  The -a option is used
     internally by the ports(7) infrastructure and dpb(1) to handle
     dependencies.

     It is also possible to tweak the `installed manually' status of a package
     after the fact.  Running pkg_add on an already installed package will tag
     it as `installed manually', even if it was already there as a dependency
     of something else, and doubling the -a option will remove the `installed
     manually' tag from installed packages.

     pkg_info(1) can be used to show only manually-installed packages, and
     pkg_delete(1) can be used to remove dependencies when they are no longer
     needed.

You missed these logical steps:

1. "Packages I install myself are marked as 'installed manually'. Dependencies that automatically install are not marked that way."
2. "I can change an installed package's marking just by using pkg_add with it."
3. "I can check which packages are marked as 'installed manually' with pkg_info. I can read its man page to find out how."
4. "If I mark my php package as 'installed manually' and check to make sure its set that way, it will not be deleted when I run pkg_delete -a. And, any dependencies php has will also not be deleted, since they are still needed by php."

As you know, I have been concerned about your inability to make these connections. Skills and knowledge do not come from copying and pasting.