# Reading /usr/ports/UPDATING



## AngusBuchanan (Jan 20, 2011)

Are there any tools available that parse /usr/ports/UPDATING and provide a concise report?

I'm thinking:

1) I'm not interested in dates before the date I first installed ports... is that information available? Could/should it be?
2) I'm not interested in anything that I haven't installed

A report which told me on the basis of this logic that I am safe, or that I need to read UPDATING in more detail would be handy.

Does it exist?  If not, do you think such a tool would it be possible and/or valuable?


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## nakal (Jan 20, 2011)

I don't know if /usr/ports/UPDATING is being generated from some XML file. Probably not, because if it would, the FreeBSD project would offer it. It would be a nice feature to have it in a more neutral and formal way.

All I have now, is ports-mgmt/portaudit. It gives me a nice summary of security problems with ports according to the constraints you want to have satisfied. Because it shows only the problems which are interesting for me.


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## DutchDaemon (Jan 20, 2011)

pkg_updating(1) reads /usr/ports/UPDATING. It's not 100% accurate on every single port, but close.

I use this to get the relevant entries of the last week:


```
/usr/sbin/pkg_updating -d `/bin/date -v-1w +%Y%m%d`
```

Use *-v-1d* for one day, *-v-1m* for one month, *-v-1y* for one year, etc.


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## DutchDaemon (Jan 21, 2011)

P.S.: to answer OP: yes, this only applies to entries in /usr/ports/UPDATING that match actually installed ports.


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