From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jun 3 08:00:55 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3F4891065689 for ; Sun, 3 Jun 2012 08:00:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gobble.wa@gmail.com) Received: from mail-we0-f182.google.com (mail-we0-f182.google.com [74.125.82.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C81638FC1D for ; Sun, 3 Jun 2012 08:00:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: by werg1 with SMTP id g1so2813644wer.13 for ; Sun, 03 Jun 2012 01:00:53 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=lvpFHMGu2ZgX+llKO8OqRSxkAlWAUqZj2noQgc/4jpc=; b=AoSmYSDmNz/nlAEENeGWwdE1dn0lAZGWZ9DY9uO03lhT9J+HoHY+k9qvG5iTcP3f1S noo8LWhpMo04MskVwfdh9GKoKxPKX0Szc7jZyaSTcmVH3btxnbu/v8j/JNFl18GRl9ug McUG5rXfXhlpR50v7cfk6EkQwNYD7Aj8eRh6XrNa2I7ovINOMWtI3Ts7tOwW0T0ToRM1 F+7nCsM+e/8AzV4AOcm29EodduzBRmZ3MQ62D+xbM3OTpz4/jqcFHKIag7Ez6Pf5DcYF 71l4+ixCVLO0vNf6TeAwRuRR9wD8oEOO5zzsOpxhGEB3h7ROLRPWXMJ2YZDr3t+Am0c1 p6Bg== MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.216.215.7 with SMTP id d7mr7329035wep.80.1338710452397; Sun, 03 Jun 2012 01:00:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.216.184.73 with HTTP; Sun, 3 Jun 2012 01:00:52 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2012 01:00:52 -0700 Message-ID: From: Waitman Gobble To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: Updating packages X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2012 08:00:55 -0000 I have tried the available package update methods. It occurred to me to experiment with a different way. I am working on a package update script in Python as an alternate way to update installed packages with latest available on the FreeBSD web site. It parses the index page of the web site and compares the versions of installed packages. If their is a difference it downloads the package tbz file and performs an MD5 checksum, then writes the corresponding pkg_delete and pkg_add for the package into a file which can be edited and executed from the command line. It does not automatically update the packages, for example in some cases the script reports that an older version of Perl is a suitable replacement for the latest version. Also on my system there are like seventeen versions of doc_book package so it writes the pkg_delete for each installed version and pkg_add for the latest version. (in which case we would not really want to install it seventeen times). Does anyone have recollection of a negative experience using 'pkg_delete --force' to the old version and 'pkg_add' the replacement? Would you say it's generally a bad idea to first delete the package before adding the updated package, and instead recommend to install the updated package on top of the existing installation? My project is at the following URL: https://github.com/creamy/pkg_checkversion Thanks, Waitman Gobble San Jose California USA