List of packages upgraded last time `pkg upgrade` was executed

[Yasuhiro Kimura]

From: Michael Gmelin <freebsd at grem.de>
Subject: Re: List of packages upgraded last time `pkg upgrade` was executed
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2021 10:05:57 +0100

> This will give you a list of all packages that were updated/installed
> last:
> 
>   pkg query -e %t=$(pkg query %t | sort -n | tail -n1) %n-%v

I tried this but unfortunately it doesn't seem to work as is expected.

On the host I tried it, following packages are upgraded when I did
`pkg upgrade` last time.

p5-URI-5.06
p5-Module-CoreList-5.20210120
rubygem-bundler-2.2.7_1,1
sudo-1.9.5p2 1611721387

And I got following result.

yasu at eastasia[1213]% pkg query -e %t=$(pkg query %t | sort -n | tail -n1) %n-%v
p5-Module-CoreList-5.20210120
p5-URI-5.06
yasu at eastasia[1213]%

So I checked timestamp of install packages.

yasu at eastasia[1216]% pkg query -a '%n-%v %t'  | sort -k 2 -n -r | head -10                                           ~
p5-URI-5.06 1611721389
p5-Module-CoreList-5.20210120 1611721389
rubygem-bundler-2.2.7_1,1 1611721388
sudo-1.9.5p2 1611721387
p5-Config-General-2.63 1611685127
libunwind-20201110 1611685127
bind916-9.16.11 1611685127
zstd-1.4.8 1611685126
sqlite3-3.34.1,1 1611685126
bind-tools-9.16.11 1611685125
yasu at eastasia[1217]%

As you can see timestamps of rubygem-bundler-2.2.7_1,1 and sudo-1.9.5p2
are smaller than that of p5-URI-5.06 and p5-Module-CoreList-5.20210120.
So they aren't included in the list.

> As far as I can tell, packages installed by the same pkg invocation run
> share the same installation timestamp (I didn't check the pkg sources,
> but that's what appears to be the case),

According to the above result, it doesn't seem to be true. And I think
it's quite possible. When packages are upgraded they are upgraded not
in parallel but sequentially. So let me assume following situation.

* Pakcage A and B are to be upgraded.
* A is upgraded first and B is next.
* Both are quite large package.
* Host is low-spec.

In this case upgrade of each package may take a few minutes. And it
result in that there is difference of a few minites between the
timestamps of them after upgrade.

> If you use a script to do upgrades, you could store the timestamp as
> part of that and do something like this:
> 
>   touch /tmp/lastupgrade
>   pkg upgrade
>   # then, later:
>   pkg query -e "%t>=$(stat -f %m /tmp/lastupgrade)" %n-%v

This didn't hit upon me and I think it's really excellent way to use
file for timestamp. I'll use it in my shell script. Thank you for
letting me know.

---
Yasuhiro Kimura