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Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 11:09:58 +0200 (CEST)
From: Wojciech Puchar <wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl>
To: Dan Naumov <dan.naumov@gmail.com>
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Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: pkg_deinstall: "delete all packages installed, except for X, Y
 and Z"
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> Hello list.
>
> I am trying to clean up a system with a LOT of cruft. Is there some
> argument I could pass to pkg_deinstall that would result in "delete
> all packages installed, except for X, Y and Z" (and obviously their
> dependancies)?

just do

pkg_info |cut -f 1 -d " " >/tmp/pkglist
edit pkglist and delete lines X, Y and Z

do

pkg_delete `cat /tmp/pkglist`
rm /tmp/pkglist

ignore errors about package can't be deleted because X, Y or Z requires 
it. it's exactly what you want.