Bug 57665 – Feature Request: emerge package should check for update first

• Product: Portage Development
• Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

[Description Robert 2004-07-19 17:34:33 UTC]

It would be great if, before emerging a package, portage would check if an update to that package is available, and maybe automatically download it.

So if I do something like
emerge package --check-for-update

instead of installing the version from my local tree right away, portage would first check for an update of the package at a portage mirror. This would leave me the option to update my portage tree accordingly before emerging.

Right now the way I do this is that before emerging a large package, I either do an emerge sync, or I check http://packages.gentoo.org/ if an update is available. Rather cumbersome, if you ask me.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:

[Comment 1 Nicholas Jones (RETIRED) 2004-07-23 11:28:37 UTC]

Atomicity of changes is by far more important than the user benefits here.

If someone posts a patch for a checking tool, preferably using the
'sync refactoring' that genone has done, it will be considered.

[Comment 2 Brian Harring (RETIRED) 2005-02-28 00:46:11 UTC]

No... see bug 44526 for the gory reasons, suffice it to say this is kind of a bad idea to do it individually.

[Comment 3 Robert 2005-02-28 08:41:16 UTC]

I'm sorry, I think I didn't make myself totally clear.

What I was suggesting is that portage should not actually *update* individual packages in the tree, but only *check* if there is an update available.
If there is, it should offer me to stop the emerge process and "emerge sync" (manually maybe).

See, right now, if I want to emerge only a single package (or just a handful), what I do is the following: Go to packages.gentoo.org and check if major updates for these packages are available, then I either sync or simply emerge.
I don't sync so often because it takes quite a while, and many of the changes in the portage tree are irrelevant for me.

Does it make sense to reopen this feature request in the light of these clarifications?

[Comment 4 Robert 2005-03-22 14:58:34 UTC]

I'm reopening this feature request now because I think both commenters didn't understand what I was suggesting. I still think this would be a good feature and it can't break anything (I DON'T WANT TO SYNC SINGLE EBUILDS) - please read my comment above this one for a better explanation of what I was suggesting.

[Comment 5 Brian Harring (RETIRED) 2005-03-23 00:54:55 UTC]

CAPS MAKE KITTENS CRY!

both commentators are portage devs :)

Here's why this is kind of a bad idea.  you run emerge -Du .
you have 300 pkgs installed.  This winds up being 300 seperate, yet serial, checks against a website.  This is exceeding slow, added, it's more features duct taped into emerge (which is about to explode as is).  A check is required, because every 'node' is considered possible for an upgrade.

Basically what it comes down to is that there are much larger things to correct in portage, and the gain from this is minimal.

If you're dead set on it, a patch against cvs head is a start.